Rough Start

So the train was supposed to leave at 8:21 on Friday night and arrive in NY at 2:30 on Saturday afternoon. Unfortunately, there was a derailment in New Orleans by a freight train, and that screwed the whole schedule up. We ended up leaving at 11:30 on Friday night, and arrived at 4:45 on Saturday. That is somewhat unfortunate, and everyone seems to be using that as a reason to ask my why I didn't fly instead. That will be the topic of another blog on another day, so if you can hold your tongue, I promise I will get there. In the meantime, I spent a great deal of time just observing what was going on at the train station, and here is what I came up with:

First of all, the TV was on Fox, and we were watching that incredible Rob Schneider vehicle The Animal (co-starring Colleen from the first season of Survivor, and Dr. Cox from Scrubs). That movie is the cinematic equivalent of someone taking a crap on a piece of paper and telling everyone that it is Shakespeare. What was surprising was the fact that Edgar from 24 (god rest his soul) makes an appearance. So TV wasn't an option.

I had gone to the book store with my parents before ending up at the train station, and I picked up my first Oprah Book Club book. I selected I Know This Much is True by Wally Lamb. I am about 35 pages into it, and it seems fantastic. I will let you know more about that as I get more into it.

I didn't really want to get all of my crap out of my duffel bag, so I ended up just kind of watching what was going down with the people. Sitting directly across from me was a 40 year old man and his 9 year old son (ages are approximated). They are watching a movie on their Apple lap top, and the little boy keeps laughing and talking about what is happening. The best part about that is that he is wearing ear phones and ends up talking loud enough for everyone in the train depot hear him. He (the 9 year old) is wearing about 15 different Live Strong bracelets on his left arm, and you can't see the skin from his wrist to his elbow. He is also eating a bag of Skittles from the vending machine, and I realize that I still eat Skittles like a little kid (one flavor at a time). At around 9:30, who I assume is the mom calls. You can tell from the dad's side of the conversation that she is somewhat nervous about the train not being there yet. As the night continues, we will end up becoming friends of convenience because he is nervous about the cultural breakdown in the depot, and as another white guy, I seem appealing to him. It turns out that they are from Jersey and are down on cosmetic reasons (dad's friend is a cosmetic dentist and fixed his front teeth issue for free). He brought his son as a sort of last hurrah before school starts after Labor Day. They end up going to the Georgia Aquarium and the new World of Coke (of which his uncle was one of the architects). We say goodbye as we board the train, but we see each other again at breakfast...and breakfast is a whole other blog unto itself, so we will come back to that.

To their right, there is an older woman who is reading A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon. She has a fantastic fishing cap on, and she seems to be nervous in her surroundings and is holding the book up quite high so as not to be distracted and not be noticed.

I have to use the potty, so I get up and ask Jersey Dad to watch my bag. Once in there, I come across a Vietnam Vet with a slight handicap. I can tell he is a Vietnam Vet because he is wearing a trucker cap that says so with several medals on it. He walks with an obvious limp and a cane, but seems nice enough (this is someone my father spoke with while I was getting my ticket printed).

The next guy I saw makes me question how grown up people really are. This guy had a killer expensive phone, blue tooth head set, nice clothes on, and a freaking skateboard on his bag. I have no idea why, but apparently skateboarding is back, and now it is aiming at older men.

Final observation (not really a statement about this, just an observation). There were about 200+ people waiting for the train in Atlanta; of those 200 people, only 10% of them were white. There were 2 people of Hispanic decent (they actually went all the way to NY). The rest of them were black. Like I said, not a statement, just an observation. That is all for now. Breakfast will be coming up later in the day.