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Archive of entries posted on 13th July 2004

Metracide

Posted by  on 13 July 2004, 1:45 pm

I’ve been too busy for the past week to post this blurb, but I didn’t want to let it slip away. I saw the article When Death Rides The Rails on the cover of the Sunday Magazine section of the Chicago Tribute and thought I should read it. However, I didn’t get to any of that Sunday’s paper. Jon Roma reminded me of it last Monday and said I should read it.

The article was about people being killed by trains, and specifically suicides. It also went into a lot of detail about how it impacts the conductors and engineers who have to deal with these tragedies.

I read it online (via my hiptop) on the train. After reading the article, I think anyone who commutes via train should read it. What really brought it home for me, is that many of the conductors that they interviewed were from the Milwaukee District West Line, which is the train I take to get downtown to work.

A couple of things I found interesting from the article:

  • A train hits someone every two hours in the U.S.
  • 16 people have died on metra lines so far this year, 9 were suicides or “suspicious”
  • In 2003, 507 people nationwide were killed by trains. They don’t record self-inflicted death in this tally, so how many are suicides are unknown
  • 14 people have committed suicide by jumping in front of CTA trains or being electrocuted by the third rail since 2000

But those are just the numbers. As I said above, the agony that the people who work on the train go through in one of these events is scary and something that I’ve never though of before. Not only do the conductors have to put up with all the commuters being jerks when being delayed, but then they have to deal with the mental aftermath of seeing a mutilated body. Also, I can’t even imagine how the engineers get over the suiciders looking them in the eyes. Scary stuff.

In any case, I’m a laid back guy, but I still get upset when the train is delayed, especially on the way home. I don’t ever complain, because what are you going to do? However, I will certainly be more understanding in the future.

[Update 8/19/2010: Looks like the Tribune moved the article.]

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My father-in-law is amazing

Posted by  on 13 July 2004, 11:58 am

I have to say that my father-in-law is an amazing guy, for a number of reasons. The most important being he helped produce my wife, but there are other reasons why he demonstrated last week.

My in-laws were up here for a week and a half to watch Dinah during the time between Sarah returning to work and day care starting. Most of the baby watching was done by my mother-in-law, but my father-in-law certainly enjoyed spending time with his granddaughter as well.

However, to keep himself busy, my father-in-law did a lot of work around the house. In the time that he was here he 1) Put down a floor in our attic. A *nice* floor made of planking, 2) fixed the mounting of our bikes in the garage that was falling off the cieling, (looks like I missed the studs or something,) 3) Kept an on eye on the guys replacing our furnace and air conditioner, and finally (the reason for this post) fixed our dryer that stopped working. He really only knew the basics of dryers, but he took it apart, tested a few parts, and found that the thermostat was totally covered in lint. Cleaned out all the lint, put it back together, and boom, we had the heat.

<Time has passed since I wrote the above.>

While my in-laws were up for Dinah’s baptism, my father-in-law mowed our lawn and put in a electrical outlet. He was only here for two days!

In any case, I admire that he’ll just set to these tasks and get them done. I’m way too distracted on tasks unless its something I’m really interested in. I need more focus like that.

In any case, I’m enjoying this “fathers doing stuff for us” thing while I can. It’ll be my turn in 20-some years. Hopefully I’ll do half as well as my father-in-law and my father have done for us.

Filed under Fatherhood, General.
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