Want to know the saddest thing?

I get a thrill everytime I arrive at BART just as my train is arriving. It's awesome. There is nothing like realizing that you have arrived at the perfect time and that there will be no delay in your trip home.

Alternately it is just as frustrating to realize you have just missed your train and now have to wait 12 minutes for the next one. I usually curse the slow person in front of me who would not move more quickly down the stairs.

Oh the joys of commuting on BART.

When I first started at my current job this past January all I heard about was how it's easy to get yourself locked and lost in the stairwells of the building.

"Not me", I thought "I am forewarned and prepared." And I was. I was very careful whenever using the stairs making sure that the latch could be turned from both the inside and outside of the door.

So much for my being careful. A week or two ago on a Friday it had been a busy day. There were only two of us in the reservations office and so I had come in at 8:00am and by 7:30pm I was still trying to get out the door. I finally was able to and walked towards the elevators tired and drained but happy to be making my way to BART finally.

I pressed the button to call the elevator to go down. My mind drifted thinking of things I would need to do when I got home and over the weekend. All of a sudden I realized that a few minutes had gone by and normally it takes less than a minute for the elevator to come. I looked at the call button and it was unlit....but no elevator had arrived. I pressed it again and saw that it would not stay lit. I tried to call the elevator to go up, same problem.

So at this point, I'm tired and starting to get cranky as I just want to head home. I could go to the hotel elevators and get down that way but as a good trained employee I hate doing that as it disrupts the guest service. So I think, I'm only 4 flights up, I'll take the stairs.....oh foolish foolish Nuala. Had you not heard the horror stories.

I even made sure that when the door closed behind me that I would still be able to open the latch well even with that careful though once the door to the stairwell closed I was stuck. I immediately tried to open it and was denied. With a heavy sigh I decided to head down the stairs and find a way out. When I got to the bottom all of the outer doors were locked and the only doors that probably were open would sound the alarm upon opening.

I walked back up a couple of flights to check the rest of the doors and then scrambled for my phone. If I had not had any reception I would have said screw this and I would have opened the door and sounded the alarm. No way was a I staying in the innards of the building over night let alone the weekend.

So I calmly called security and let them know what happened. I could pretty much hear them laughing at me. 15 minutes later someone finally showed up to let me out and took me down so I could thankfully get out of the building a mere 45 minutes after I actually finished work.

When asked why I took the stairs I explained that the call button had not been working and how I thought I was doing something easy by taking the stairs. Apparently stairs are only for emergencies in this day and age.

So lesson learned be lazy and wait for the elevator to start working next time something like this happens. Do not attempt to get yourself out of the building under your own power the gods of the building do not want you in the stairwells.

So I've been meaning to blog since I moved back to the Bay Area but I've had a teeny tiny problem getting in the way. No internet. Since Garren and I moved from Santa Barbara we have had no internet at home.

It's been freeing and limiting all at the same time. To not feel like a slave to the computer and really be away from one when not at work has been great, but not having the convenience to look up a fact, a movie time, a recipe or to settle a dispute between myself and Garren has been frustrating to say the least.

I just found out that AT&T has basic internet service (the slowest kind apparently, but a step up from dial up) for $19.95 per month. This is way more feasible than the $40 Comcast charges so I have slowly been mentioning it to Garren casually so that eventually the idea does not sound so new and expensive but regular and reasonable. So far it has not worked and I continue to make my sporatic weekend visits to the coffee shops on College Ave to do any misc internet errands. This is not as convenient as sitting in front of the TV in my pjs but it works for now. Maybe I need to show how much we are spending on coffee to get internet to make getting internet at home sound fiscally responsibleâ.Anyone buying that?

Until I prevail and have internet at home, I am going to try to and work posting into my weekend coffee shop trips as I have many saved blogs to type. My sister with her insane amounts of interesting French life blogs has inspired me. Mine will not be as exciting but will make me feel betterâ.maybe. Iâm still not in France damnit, but at least I can pretend my life is interesting. Or maybe I should just celebrate the fact that it is boringâ.

More to come soonâ.as long as I can pull my butt out of the apartment on the weekends.