DWWTWT?: December 29-31
In the second of my annual indulgences, I’m “treating” you to a summary of my commuting life this year.
A note to the uninitiated: there has been a hidden feed on this blog since I started my position in the SQL CoE in June of 2006. My office was a mile and a half from my home at the time, so I thought it might be interesting to catalog my commuting habits given the myriad options available to me. Possessing the ability to walk to work isn't the same thing as actually walking to work, and I wanted to be open and accountable (as we like to say at Microsoft) and see how much I was able to exploit this particular perquisite of my position. The DWWTWT? feed (Did Ward Walk to Work Today?) fulfills this function; I've elected to hide it so as not to dilute the precious few technical posts on the blog with an ongoing personal commentary.
This experiment entered a new phase with my relocation to central Florida in August of 2008. The posts are generally made weekly now, as the telecommuting lifestyle might tend to lend a certain monotony to daily posts (what’s that you say? the weekly posts reflect a certain monotony as well? picky, picky..).
At any rate, with this past Monday’s temporary interruption of my ongoing holiday inactivity taken into account, here are my up-to-date totals:
|
Commuting Options Selected since 12 June 2006 | |
|---|---|
| Mode of Transport | Number of Invocations |
|
Telecommuted |
110 |
|
Walked |
218 |
|
Walked to the Bus |
17 |
|
Drove |
191 |
|
None (did not compete) |
134 |
|
Other Transportation Employed | |
|---|---|
|
Airline Segments Flown |
11 |
Since June 12, 2006, I’ve had 670 opportunities to go to work. When you discount 134 days that I didn’t go to work for one reason or another, there are 536 work days remaining. Of those, I’ve employed “green” means (telecommuting, walking, or mass transit) 345 (64.4%) of the time. The remaining 35.6% involved use of an automobile.
Here are your bonus charts: December (a 100% green month!), Q4 (98.2% green!), and calendar year 2008:
|
Commuting Options Selected December, 2008 | |
|---|---|
| Mode of Transport | Number of Invocations |
|
Telecommuted |
17 |
|
None (did not compete) |
6 |
|
Commuting Options Selected Fourth Quarter, 2008 | |
|---|---|
| Mode of Transport | Number of Invocations |
|
Telecommuted |
47 |
|
Walked |
9 |
|
Drove |
1 |
|
None (did not compete) |
9 |
|
Other Transportation Employed | |
|---|---|
|
Airline Segments Flown |
7 |
|
Commuting Options Selected Calendar Year 2008 | |
|---|---|
| Mode of Transport | Number of Invocations |
|
Telecommuted |
78 |
|
Walked |
72 |
|
Drove |
67 |
|
None (did not compete) |
49 |
|
Other Transportation Employed | |
|---|---|
|
Airline Segments Flown |
7 |
Now for the breakdowns..
In calendar year 2008, I had 266 opportunities to go to work. Of those, I was away from work for 49 (holidays, vacation days, snowstorms, hurricanes, illnesses, cross-country moves, etc.), leaving 217 “work days.” 150 of them (69.1%) were “green” commutes (walks or telecommutes), while 30.9% were drives.
This year’s total’s are better than last year’s (51% green) but not as good as the 79.5% green percentage I had during the last six months of 2006.
This year’s statistics, of course, were greatly abetted by my conversion to the telecommuting lifestyle. Here are the numbers since we arrived in the woods:
|
Commuting Options Selected since 18 August 2008 | |
|---|---|
| Mode of Transport | Number of Invocations |
|
Telecommuted |
65 |
|
Walked |
14 |
|
Drove |
4 |
|
None (did not compete) |
10 |
|
Other Transportation Employed | |
|---|---|
|
Airline Segments Flown |
7 |
Since we got to Florida, there have been 93 work opportunities. When 10 non-competitive days are removed from consideration, 83 “work days” remain. Of these, 79 (95.2%) were “green” commutes, while 4.8% were drives (three to Tampa to deal with computer issues, and one in Redmond for a set of morning errands) . A three-room commute, or a three-block commute (as has been the case on my visits to Redmond), is a green commute..
If you’ve made it this far, please accept my appreciation for your indulgence of my commuting fascination. Have a safe and happy celebration tonight! Goodbye 2008!
For the next year, at least, we now return you to your regularly scheduled blog..
-wp