A 2:15 Alarm, 2 Trains and a Bus Get Her To Work by 7 AM (nytimes.com)

From a report on The New York Times: Sheila James starts her Monday, and the workweek, at 2:15 a.m. This might be normal for a baker or a morning radio host, but Ms. James is a standard American office worker. She is 62 and makes $81,000 a year as a public health adviser for the United States Department of Health and Human Services in San Francisco. Her early start comes because San Francisco is one of the country's most expensive metropolitan areas. Ms. James lives about 80 miles away in Stockton, which has cheaper homes but requires her to commute on two trains and a bus, leaving at 4 a.m. Plenty of office workers get up at 5 a.m. or a bit before, but 2:15 is highly unusual. "Two-fifteen is early enough that some people are still having their evening," she said on a (very) early morning. But she likes to take her time and have coffee. She keeps the lights low and the house quiet and Zen-like. "I just can't rush like that," she said. When the second alarm goes off at 3:45 -- a reminder to leave for the train in 15 minutes -- her morning shifts from leisure to precision. It is a seven-minute drive to the station, where she catches the Altamont Corridor Express train.

Comments

Re: Build more housing

[Anonymous Coward]

The solution is Neo-Nazis. Everyone in San Francisco will leave, and then the Nazis can be killed, and we'll have a clean slate to work with.

Even screaming children?

[pr0t0]

You know, having children does benefit the childless as well.

I'll do my best to remember that when in a restaurant, movie theater, or airplane and a child is screaming bloody murder about something. I'll just silently chant it over and over in my head. "This will benefit me in the long run. This will benefit me in the long run."

Just kidding. Children are pretty great. Annoying to be sure, and a little smelly and messy, but generally ok.

It's the parents I tend to dislike.

Re:Immigration

[jedidiah]

The US has plenty of immigration. Our current problem with "illegals" is all about the demand to immigrate into the US. It's not just limited to Mexicans either. There are other countries that have backlogs due to our current policies.

Also, those policies are driven by what you might call socialist ideals that ignore supply and demand.

We have to be "fair and equal". That means that Mexicans get the short end of the stick. More of them want to get in but the "fair and equal" quotas can't be violated.

Your commie propaganda about drugs ignores the problem of economic incentives. Before you take someone to give it to someone else it has to be built first.

My life was saved by an orphan drug do-gooders like you would sabotaged.

The US has plenty of immigration. We don't need to have it be completely unregulated.

We don't need to go out of our way to bring people here on a temporary basis only to be illegals afterwards. Going out of our way to import fundies also seems a bit deranged.