Today in self promotion, we’re happy to report that the May issue of esteemed monthly glossfest Westchester Magazine cited our lil ol’ blog in a sidebar within a feature called “56 Things Every Westchesterite Must Do (At Least) Once.” Sadly, “Read Trainjotting…And Click on Those Annoying Google Ads” was not in the list of 56, but #51, dedicated to Stealing the Spotlight at the Next Cocktail Party, touts the merits of using Metro-North to get to and from work every day.

Writes W. Dyer Halpern:

The subject: Transportation

The crowd: 30-somethings

The scenario: Brad, the boss’s son (who just became the boss), recently moved to Westchester and is dying to know how do people ever get into Manhattan from here. He wants to know your transportation of pleasure.

Your choices:

(A)  Helicopter

(B)  Car

(C)  Train

(D)  Who needs Manhattan? I telecommute!

The answer: If you picked A, you’ve got “poser” written all over you. Only Donald Trump can get away with taking a chopper to the City, and you don’t have the hair.  Cars are so pre-Inconvenient Truth.
And, as for telecommuting, it reeks of hermit status. The answer is (C)  train. We’ve got the most on-time transportation system in the country. And just ask Joe Simonetti, who bikes to Manhattan twice a week (and was the subject of our “Pound Ridge Peddler” story in the February issue, westchestermagazine.com), what happens if you make fun of the strap-hangers on Metro-North. He ended up as a target of trainjotting.com and has to ride the 8 am to Grand Central hidden in the bathroom car.

Right on!

The new issue of Larchmont Ladies Who Lunch…I mean Westchester Magazine… has a feature on a psychotherapist who embarks on a 45-mile commute from northern Westchester to the Upper West Side–a 3 1/2-hour jaunt one way.

“I want to shoot myself when I’m on the train,” explains Pound Ridge resident Joe Simonetti. “I feel like a piece of cattle.” (Uh, which “piece of cattle”, Joe, the right flank? The left-rear hock?)

I don’t think I like this guy. He rides a 27-speed LeMond Buenos Aires bike, which sounds really expensive. He fuels up on “egg whites on a pumpernickel bagel with a little Swiss cheese” while he’s riding. He’s wearing bike shorts and bike shoes in the photo; he looks like the kind of a guy who owns two Priuses and chastises his grandson for playing with a toy Hummer.

Simonetti says he does this crazy commute twice a week, six months out of the year (he stops when it gets a little chilly in November), but doesn’t reveal how he gets to work the rest of the time.

Would that be the god-forsaken train, Dr. Simonetti, with the rest of us piece of cattle?