Yep, that's me. Or at least, it could become me if I don't hold onto sanity.
I've caught myself carefully planning a journey again, which is normal enough, if it wasn't for the fact how I'm mulling over several different routes to shave a few minutes and a few stops of the journey.
I need to get to Stratford-on-Avon and as I have a 6 zone Oyster card, I can get a discount on Chiltern Railway Co. from Marlybone. That's not the part that needs to be planned.
From Wimbledon, on the district line, I can catch a tube to Edgware road and walk to Marylebone, or catch the Bakerloo line one stop. It's a no brainer and is the route that TLF (http://journeyplanner.tfl.gov.uk) recommends.
However, the journey on the District Line to Edgware can be 35 minutes and a stop-start pain in the neck and ass.
I can hop on National Rail (overland) to Waterloo, which takes 20 minutes and get on the Jubilee line to Baker Street and onto the Bakerloo line to Marylebone.
Lets work it out, the first option is 14 stations in total and around 45 minutes,
The second option is 10 stations in total and about the same time - 45 minutes.
I think the clincher here is obviously the fact that 10 stations is better than 14.
See what I mean ? - I'm a hopeless case, a complete anorak !
The worst thing is, I'm starting to get a tube maps view of London which is dangerous, as the map is largely irrelevant to the actual routes. If there's tube closures or delays on the tube, I'm in a right pickle.
4th November 2005
Other stuff
Got a total of 3 good job leads today, 2 of which are incredibly promising.
I also spent 2 hours doing laundry, 3 hours on trains and 2 hours at Heathrow - don't know why, but I'm pretty knackered.
I was going to go to a bonfire thingy near Wimbledon Park station and was pacing outside Sainsburys near the Wimbledon station deciding whether to get back to the B&B and up to The Swan to do business (emailing/job followups/journey planning) or to go to the bonfire night.
Duty called. I had to get the emails from the job leads I got and follow up on them. Just getting from Wimbledon to the B&B to fetch the laptop and go up to the pub took 40 minutes.
Yep, it's where time goes in London, as I found out in a previous Blog - you can spend a huge portion of each day travelling. Easily 4 hours.
I had passed by Wimbledon Park stop earlier, the station just before Wimbledon. I could see the bonfire and fireworks going off as well as a bunch of typical small scale carnival type rides and phoned to see if the people I had planned to meet were there yet. If they had been, I certainly would've hopped of the train, but most the people weren't even back from work at that time (around 7.10pm) and were planning to go about 8.30pm.
Too tired, early start tommorrow, responsibility calls.
Lucky I did decide to go to the pub instead, as the email I was hoping for, confirming a strong possiblity of a job in Surrey, was in my inbox. I fired off a reply indicating I'm very keen. Another job confirmation was also waiting, not requiring a reply, but confirming my CV was with the client. That one requires relocating to West Sussex.
We'll see what transpires, for now, I'm relaxing for the weekend and going to see Mom.
As for the email newsletter for an SA client I was supposed to do - oops - will have to try and get it done Monday !
I do the same and it worries me ,,,,,,
Often when I have to travel somewhere I agonize over the different options, and I often wonder why. I can't justify it in any way. I'm not generally bothered about cost, and not usually in a hurry, but I always seem to want to find the most effective route. I guess a pyschologist would make something of this. (Scary?)
I often do the same when I have to go on a long car trip, working out the timings and getting very pissed off if I can't stick to my calculated average speed. I don't even have a fancy car with on board computers and so on, in fact I'm a total technophobe.
Apart from the fact that this probably means I'm an anally retentive twat ... any other ideas!