Entries Tagged 'Personal Stories' ↓

Read an interesting story over at behindheadfones.  An intriguing story, for sure.  I enjoyed it.

Not to go off on my little tangent, but writing short stories is a lot of fun.  Reading this one centered around the MAX & TriMet made me think about a short story I wrote while in college about a “professional rock collector.”   And I’m not really big into geology or anything…

Thanks for sharing your story…

Hey, you didn’t know?  MAX operators need to go to the bathroom too!  But when they’re transporting us from Gresham to Beaverton or Beaverton to Gresham (or anywhere in between), when are they able to go to the bathroom?

Well, a TriMet light rail operator has an interesting story about her most recent journey of having to hold it in.  And I gotta say, it’s a pretty funny story.  And honestly, not something I really thought of before… at work, I have the luxury to go ‘relieve’ when I feel the need to.  When you’re commandeering a light rail train… that’s a different story.

Anyway, too funny and definitely a blog I’ll be keeping an eye out on.  She has a nice writing narrative and, judging by how much I enjoyed a story about her putting her bladder “to the ultimate test”, I’ll probably enjoy more of her stories.

Had to share this crazy (unlucky!) story about John & his friends taking the MAX (or at least trying to) down to a Portland Trailblazers game. A couple of highlights from his unfortunate night:

• Plugged “$15″ into the ticket machine at the Gateway transit center only to discovery that the MAX was dead and that they would have to take a bus to get to the Rose Garden
• Took 40 minutes for them to get to 7th and Halladay from Gateway on a bus that was apparently manned by a driver who “was not familiar with this part of Portland, much less navigating narrow streets to transport a sardine stuffed bus from one MAX station to the next.”
• Then on the way home: “There was a brief moment when the entire bus gasped as the metal scraped across the concrete and made a ssssssssssccccccccccccrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeecccccccccccccccchhhhhhh! and the bus tipped violently to the left then right as the tires went over the islands.”

Wow! Out of control! The one takeaway I have from that whole post is:

“But, I want to put the blame for the adventure we were about to begin on the helpful and courteous TriMet employees who were wandering around the Gateway station. They could have interrupted us when we were plugging $15 into the ticket machine to tell us that MAX was dead and that we and several hundred of our fellow passengers would soon be jammed into a bus and sent bumping around narrow surface streets between MAX Stations.”

That sucks!  Well, better luck next time…

Vivian over at MamaNeedJava shared a pretty embarrassing story that happened to her on the MAX.  Gotta say, that’s pretty dang embarrassing!

I seem to encounter the ‘chattering crazy person’ on just about every MAX & bus ride I take.  Sometimes it’s fun to run along with it and chat it up… but most of the time it’s just better to ignore.

Well now, I think Vivian’s decision to share her story didn’t factor in other places covering it 

Joey Yax (of http://www.joeyyax.com) used the “Care to Share” contact form to send me his thoughts about what he dislikes when riding the MAX. From Joey:

- people that sit on the stairs or floor

- people that stand in front of the doors on a crowded max and refuse to move out of the way when someone needs to get off

- people that play their music so loud I can hear it over my headphones

- hate it when people invade your personal space. For example holding onto a pole to keep balanced and someone leans their back against your hand…

- bags. Have no problem with people bringing a bag along… Its the people that dont seem to remember that they have this big fat bag on their shoulder or back and proceed to knock everyone around them around with every move they make.

Gotta say, Joey brings up a lot of potential TriMetiquette post material. Love the music one - I understand if I can hear your music a little, but when I hear it like I had your earplugs on, that’s a problem.

Remember - anyone can click on that “Care to Share” link up above and leave your thoughts about TriMet riding etiquette or even things that bug you when riding the MAX, bus or streetcar… would love to hear them!

Stacy over at Hello… This is Me recently wrote a post with six mentions of the word “MAX.” With six mentions, the post has to be good… right? Well, turns out that is indeed a positive post about using the MAX to get around that beautiful Saturday we had last weekend.

The post goes over some nice destinations individuals can use the MAX for. Stacy and a friend happened to use the MAX to hop on over to the Saturday Market as well as hit the Lloyd Center up for some shopping. Then they hit that little MAX disturbance over the weekend when they were planning on going to the local IKEA near the Portland International Airport. Three worthwhile destinations that MAX can take you - the Saturday Market, Lloyd Center & IKEA.

That’s a full day’s worth of shopping right there!

Stumbled across this really nice blog post about a vacation Patrick and his fiance took to Portland.  I was going to just say the nice word they said about using TriMet (specifically the MAX) but the whole post is a really nice write-up of Portland and things to do if taking a vacation in PDX.

But since this is TriMetiquette, I suppose I should quote what they said about their TriMet experience:

“The TriMet is Portland’s light-rail system, and was clean, reliable transportation from the airport to downtown, and around the region. It is a fantastic asset to the city who seems to pride itself on making alternatives to car-based transportation an affordable commodity.”

Definitely recommend a read for this really well-written blog post!

Read a really fascinating blog post over at “In the Making” today. The story goes like this - the blog author is leaving Portland to go back to Saudi Arabia and she’s just learning how to drive. Why is just learning? Well, she explains why she hasn’t had the need to learn how drive:

“Other reasons (for postponing learning how to drive) are sharing the same car with hubby, driving almost everywhere together, and TriMet being amazingly convenient and accessible almost anywhere I need to go.”

Score one for TriMet! Way to go, fellas. And I’ll agree with you there - most of the time TriMet is indeed “amazing convenient.”

Have a safe trip, Aysha! Be well.

Was alerted to this discussion by TriMetiquette reader Bjorn Warloe (used the handy-dandy contact form) -

“hey, so it isn’t my story, but some guy is whining over on indymedia about getting tossed off a bus for telling someone to shut the f*** up. I say hurrah for a bus driver willing to tell someone to get off the bus for trying to pick a fight with another rider even if he was a skinhead.”

The discussion about this is going on over at Indymedia. My thoughts about this story is this: the bus driver just needed to deescalate the situation. Unfortunately, as the story puts it, the wrong person was asked to get off the bus. But someone did need to leave the bus to stop anything from happening.

Elizabeth over at Elizabeth Now . . . and Then had her own “private TriMet” ride on Sunday.  How cool!  That sort of situation has never happened to me… though, late weeknights on the 15 line usually amounts to a handful of people.

Anyone else experience an empty TriMet bus (or - gasp - an empty MAX train)?  Was it just plain weird?