I moved back to MD

Good news?  I finally moved back to Maryland.  The bad news?  I still work in VA.

I hate NoVA - drive to work

Today, I get up @ 0450 to get showered, dressed and walk out the door. I'm on the road by 0530 and I get onto I95N by 0538. I'm presented with an incredibly dangerous situation: people from Northern Virginia, in cars, on the highway.

I immediately switch from a tired, overworked, under payed, sleep deprived father of two and husband of almost eight years into the eagle-eyed highway predator. I spot irregularities of traffic flow like an Osprey can pick out a rabbit or fish.

I move out of the way of a person eating... well, I'm not entirely sure to be honest - what do you eat with chopsticks and a red plastic cup? His blue Tahoe drifts a bit into the lane to his left and I watch with anticipation of the ripple that this will cause. Immediately, the left lane comes to a near stop, and three cars back the lights of a Mercedes dip so far down from hard braking that they damned near disappear. I casually take my vehicle into the void created by this madness and scoot by the moron with the food.

I still have a couple miles to go before I make my way onto the next idiotic part of this place: The HOV. I try my best to stick to the left lane and do the speed limit, but something is keeping me from this goal: people. 55MPH doesn't mean what it does in Maryland, Pennsylvania, or even RoVA (Rest of Virginia). No, 55MPH means 30MPH here. If you're lucky.

So, the left exit for the HOV finally comes up and I get ready to slip into the madness here. See, the problem with the left entrance HOV exit is that you're getting into the right lane of the HOV only a couple miles South of the I95 right lane EXIT. And apparently, everyone that takes that exit EVERYDAY forgets that its coming up on the right EVERYDAY. The left lane slams on their brakes trying to fight their way into the right lane to exit, the HOV grinds to a near-halt for 2 miles... meanwhile, the traffic on I95 has picked up again and they're actually SPEEDING @ 60-65MPH in a 55... tsk tsk.

Every idiot in NoVA that takes the Right side HOV to I95 exit has finally made their way to the right lane and slowed it down from the 65MPH speed limit to about 2. Yes, two miles per hour. Luckily, that leaves the left lane open for some 'catch up speeding'. My exit is only a mile or two after the I95 exit so I get in the right lane and open up to about 70 or 75. Sure, I'll admit it: I was speeding this morning. Sue me.

I get off onto 7900/Manchester BLVD and make my way towards Kingstowne. And what's this? People who can drive? Wait... I was still in NoVA though! How can this be true? I'm only 9 miles from home and I found a spot in NoVA where people understand how to brake and accelerate like they should!

Shit. Spoke too soon. The 104 year-old man in the Cadillac ZipCode sedan brakes for a gnat crossing the road and I nearly rear-end him. This causes a yo-yo effect (yes, a yo-yo... the cars behind me also slam on their brakes, but then accelerate back to about 35MPH almost immediately. This causes the cars behind them to do the same. And so on, and so on, and so on. Yo-Yo.) and this behavior continues for about 2 more miles!

I finally park at work around 0555 and RUN to the door. I have headphones in my pocket and I'm at work about 2-3 hours before most people will be.. I'm looking forward to being back at home already, it's the getting there that might kill me.