Mike the Environmentalist!

This week, I've been trying something new. Novel. Dangerous even. A new paradigm in the history of mankind.

I took the bus to work.

"What's this madness?" you say? "Don't you have a sexy coupe that you got specifically so that you'd never have to rely on a bus again?"

Well yeah. But I thought I'd try it anyways. Consider

• Incremental cost to drive to work: $1.60 in gas. While others (namely my family) would assert, "OH plus insurance, maintenance, etc. etc.", lets face it, I need a car anyways, so the ADDITIONAL cost to work is mostly in gas.
• Incremental cost to take the bus: $0.00. Microsoft provides every one of it's full-time employees a free transit pass, good for a year.
• Time lost on bus: from -5 to +15 minutes over driving each way. Worst case: $20 worth of time a day (far less if there's even a hint of traffic). But on the other hand, that is time that can be used reading tech magazines and other productive pasttimes, as opposed to driving where the vast majority of time is committed to the driving act itself.
• The bus departs from my doorstep, and drops me off mere moments from work, taking a more or less direct route between the two. The bus runs every half-hour.
• No worries about driving on the rather common days where some group or another is providing free beer.

So yeah. I'm going to take the bus more often. At least a couple of times a week. I'll still have plenty of opportunity to burn fossil fuels like a good American, don't you worry.