I had the express pleasure of being seated next to an actual CEO on the 8:16 this morning. He boarded in White Plains and took the window seat next to my aisle seat. In true CEO fashion, he booted up a laptop and tweaked a spread sheet showing half-year results, elbowing me in the ribs every time he typed an A, S, D, F, E or C. (I saw that snappy CEO title as he fired off a few emails.)

Also in true CEO fashion, this would-be master of the universe talked business–quite loudly, in fact–into his cell from Tuckahoe to the Grand Central tunnel.

The gentleman’s firm, which I won’t name out of decency and fear of litigation, is a management consulting firm that, according to its Website, helps global corporations with “decision making.” (Turkey or roast beef for lunch? Roast beef! Sprite or Sunkist? Er, let’s do a focus group.)

A few chief executive nuggets that the rest of the car were treated to this morning:

The Full-Time Advisory Consultant

“It’s one of those things we alluded to…we do not have a 100% full time advisory consultant sales guy…there’s no doubt that that’s a glaring weakness…Clearly I’m not able…I can’t be everywhere.”

The Rainmaker

“Getting a rainmaker in the advisory services business is the hardest thing to get. The opportunity to get business over the transom is there, but you never know.

“Jeff”

“Jeff is actually pretty innovative, and at times even effective. But his strength is selling solutions out.”

A man boards the 8:28 at White Plains. He’s tall and heavy-set, and looks like he played high school football 40 years before. He’s got white hair, glasses, a large suitcase, light blue jeans that look scarily close to Toughskins that his wife bought for him at Caldor. (Two Toughskins mentions on Trainjotting in the past few days. You’d think they were advertising here or something.)

He’s quiet for the first 10 minutes, though I feel him looking around, searching for an opportunity to make his presence felt.

As we near Bronkers, he can’t contain himself any longer. He makes eye contact with a guy a few rows up and across the aisle who’s facing him.

“Duz thee-is trayyn go ex-pray-is to Grand Central?”

“Yup,” comes the response. “125th then Grand Central.”

“Wow,” the guy responds. (I’m going to stop writing in phonetics cuz it’s hard to do.) “That’s a lot of ground to cover.”

The guy up and over nods, smiles and goes back to his book.

But the big fella continues.

“My first time on the Metro-North,” he says. “I’m just a country boy.”

The up and over guy nods, this time without the smile.

“Sure covers a lot of ground,” he continues. “Expensive too. I was in L.A. recently, paid $1.50 to ride 50 miles.”

“Bet you were still in L.A. when you got off,” comes a response from another guy across the aisle.

Then it’s quiet for a few minutes, but the big fella isn’t content reading his Google Maps printout.

“You sure are reading that book fast,” he says to the second guy he’d spoken to. “Are you really comprehending it all?”

“Probably not,” the guy says with a laugh. “But if I’m not comprehending it, I’ll probably never know.” It was some sort of joke, the best you’ll do on a Monday morning train.

The Metro-North virgin is smashing every commuter rule he can: Talking to strangers, especially those not right next to him. Talking to a guy who has to turn around to respond. Talking to a guy who’s clearly immersed in his reading. The only way it would be more of a transgression would be if the big hayseed was chatting up a guy in headphones.

The man then starts asking about getting a bus to LaGuardia, and the first man he spoke to tells him there’s a bus at 125th [Editor’s Note: Freudian Slip of the day–I typed “buzz” instead of “bus.”]. They dissect the finer points of bus transportation, LaGuardia and 125th until we arrive in Harlem. The first guy was getting off, and said he’d show the big hayseed where to go.

As they exited the train, Big Country continued to pepper the poor commuter with inane questions.  

We happened upon the grand opening bash for the Ritz-Carlton in White Plains last night, which brought out an odd mix of Bedford blueblood broads in iron-gray hair and builder-types in ill-fitting suits, white socks, and giant phones strapped to their belts.

Seating was hard to come by. The Missus and I spied a small table occupied by a couple and their toddler daughter, a winsome whelp who singlehandedly brought the average age of the party down below 75. We did the requisite ‘mind if we crash?’ pleasantries and took a seat at their table.

The couple moved to the Ritz earlier this month after a decade in Manhattan. The guy worked in finance, and said his commute now was pretty much what it had been when he was cabbing it from way lower Manhattan up to midtown.

For commuters, the walk from the Ritz-Carlton to the White Plains train is a breeze: I half-walked/half-jogged in last night’s drizzle and did it in five minutes. But the guy mentioned how he hopped a shuttle to the White Plains train each morning.

I asked if he had an easy time of it once he got to Manhattan. He did, in fact, with his office on 49th and Madison.

“My exposure to the outside is pretty limited,” he said with a smile.

The man then revealed that he, in fact, hailed a cab each day to take him from Grand Central to 49th and Mad!

OK, that back entrance/exit in Grand Central takes you out to 47th and Mad, if I remember correctly. So the guy was cabbing it from 47th and Mad to 49th and Mad! How did he not have enough self respect to at least lie to me about this?

The Missus and I politely excused ourselves and said we were going to mingle. As I got to my feet, I kept picturing the man laboring through the bike/train/foot triathlon I do each morning.

The Ritz-Carlton was pretty cool. With that 32-odd minute train ride from White Plains, a resident could be at their office within an hour, door to door. Security was extremely tight, the guys with the fusilli behind the ear even following me into the can at one point. Which made it kind of strange when I somehow ended up not on the guest list, but was let in anyway.

Other notes: the view from the 42nd floor is great, even on a cloudy night — Wal-Mart never looked so good. The buffet line at BLT Steak was too long to wait on, so we didn’t in fact get to try BLT Steak while attending an event that was explained to us as “a grand opening for BLT Steak.” Kind of disappointing. And at one point I saw megabuilder Louis Capelli imploring a scribe from Villagers Vote Down Tax Proposal …I mean, the Journal News… to “write something nice about me.”

A couple got on board the 8:28 at White Plains. They were in their 30s, black, normally dressed, pretty average looking, if not the commuter prototypes. The train was fairly full, and they milled around a bit, trying to figure out seating.

I sat on the aisle, as I always do. The man took the window seat next to me. His gal pal took the window seat across the aisle from us, so they were in the same row –only with two strangers and an aisle between them.

Despite the distance, their conversation continued. He leaned forward and asked her if her cellphone had power. I pulled back my Times so I wasn’t blocking their convo. She leaned forward and said she had a few bars. He said she was lucky.

The conversation went on for a few minutes, the words passing right through me and the other guy across the aisle.

They eventually grew quiet. I went on reading the paper. The conductor came around and took tickets. The guy had a single-tripper, the sign of a neophyte rider.

A few minutes later, it started up again, again about the cellphones.

I spoke up.

“Do you want me to switch so you guys can sit together?” I asked.

“Sure!” said the guy with a wide smile. “Thanks!”

As I got my things together, he asked me how my monthly ticket works; I sensed he’d been eyeing it when I took it out for the conductor. Personally, I feel the monthly pass is pretty self-explanatory, but indulged him nonetheless — told him I saved a few bucks by buying it online, but had to remember to get it each month before the current month ended. He seemed genuinely interested.

I moved, his gal pal took my seat, and the two of them went on talking about cellphones.

The 8:22 to Mt. Kisco. It’s been a long day, feeling even longer after the flood debacle the previous day. People are tired.

Not so tired is a nattering six-pack of 14-year-old girls returning home after a day in the city, chatting about music, mom’s Larchmont train pass, and boys–particularly one young male who’d recently confessed his desire to “get with” one of the girls on board.

The train ambles out of Grand Central and pulls into 125th ten minutes later. One of the teens leaps to her feet.

“It’s White Plains!!!” she howls.

Yes, the ten-minute express, Grand Central to White Plains. I’ve had dreams about that.

The girls bolt from the train, asking anyone within shouting distance if they are, indeed, in White Plains. Assured by all that they’re in fact in Harlem, they retreat to their prior seats.

The nattering continues for the next 22 minutes, until the train eases into White Plains. The girls prepare to disembark. Then confusion ensues. As they step off the train, two black males get on.

“We’re in Harlem!” one yells, and they all scramble back onto the train.

Repeatedly assured they’re not, in fact, in Harlem, the girls exit the train again, to the profound relief of everyone left on the 8:22.  

Major action on the 8:43 today. We were docked in White Plains when a commotion suddenly broke out–metal clanging, someone yelling, several riders shrieking and jumping to their feet.

An elderly fellow had fallen at the edge of the platform.

By the time I got there, a crowd had surrounded the guy. Orders were barked as an Alpha Male took charge, and within about 30 seconds, they had the old gent on his feet.

He was portly and white-haired, resembling a handsome Larry “Bud” Melman. He wore glasses, a neat blue suit (alas, now a bit wrinkled), and a blue V-neck sweater, despite a forecast of 90-plus degrees on the day. He found a seat, the rubbernecking subsided, and the train ambled on to Gotham.

Five minutes later, the tweedy old fellow tiptoed into our car. He approached the Alpha Male who’d helped him, a 40-something in a blue suit, red tie and wing tips.

“Are you the guy who helped me?” the old fellow said.

Alpha Male removed his ear phones.

“Yes.”

“I just wanted to thank you,” he said as the Alpha Male beamed.

The two conversed as to exactly what happened–the old gent said the doors closed on him as he stepped onto the train, pushing him into the gap. Another rider argued for the merits of a motion sensor, and all agreed.

“Anyway,” the old fellow concluded, “I just wanted to thank you.”

Yes, I recorded my worst-ever ride on Metro-North yesterday in eight months of commuting. Worse than anything encountered during Slippery Rail Season, worse than during those Noreasters, even worse than when Joey From 5A and I hobbled through Hartsdale during last month’s near tornado.

Yesterday’s 6:10 started like any other ride, until we got over the bridge and into the Bronx. We sat facing a makeshift garbage dump for several minutes; adding insult to injury, several trains mockingly screamed by.

We ambled along, slower than usual, then hit another dead stop somewhere in Mount Vernon. Like the subway circa 1992, a man got on the loudspeaker and garbled something unintelligible.

We then crawled from Mount Vernon into White Plains, admiring all those things along the tracks you don’t normally get to see at cruising speed, such as that tiny steel bridge in Scarsdale.

Riders, to their credit, didn’t really grumble. They took advantage of the extra time to read, sleep and for the most part not talk on their phones.  (It seems as though some veteran commuters actually prefer delays because it means less time with family. I sincerely hope this never happens to me.)

As we got to White Plains–nearly an hour after leaving GCT–the loudspeaker came on. “Ladies and gentlemen, White Plains will be our next stop,” the man said. “Please remember to take all personal belongings.”

Uh, what about the half-hour delay? 

“Once again,” he continued, “there’s been a lot of congestion due to…”

Again, the loudspeaker went garbled, but it sounded something like a tree down on the tracks.  

When we finally pulled into Hawthorne at 7:18–fully 26 minutes late–the Missus was there to give my weary ass a ride. The side window had fallen out of the minivan earlier, and Little G refused to be dressed. So my first glimpse at the family was my toddler wearing only a diaper, through the empty window frame in the van.

When did I get so white trash?

Today, I became the Man I mocked for so many years in Manhattan. You know that Man — bitter soul cursing the extreme weather as he chips the ice off his windshield and prepares for his perilous commute, as his Manhattan brethren gambol about on snowshoes.

Yes, compounding the excitement of my first commute in extreme weather, I had a rental car to return (Car in shop after the Missus hit a deer. Long story.) I turned on News 12, which had its every reporter freezing alongside some Westchester highway, dodging skidding cars. “Stay home,” they said in unison. “Drink hot chocolate. Watch DVDs.”

But when Enterprise turned down our request for a foul-weather grace period, I chipped off the ice, put the Taurus in low gear, and hit the road around 8, wending through the byways north of Westchester. We’d opted for no insurance (though I later found out the Missus called Enterprise after I’d left and tried to buy insurance on the fly), so I took it extra slow.

The ride was blissfully uneventful, and the staff at Enterprise — they’re all ridiculously nice — said they’d provide a ride to the train. I must admit to a little excitement; different train station, different train. Fresh material for Trainjotting, dear reader!

A staffer drove me to the White Plains station. He grew up in White Plains and said it’s grown too much, there’s too much traffic, parking is too expensive. He would through the maze that surrounds the station and dropped me off. 

I headed up the stairs, just as the conductor barked out, “8:29 Express.”

I hustled along the platform, careful not to become that other Man — the Man who slips on the platform while running in extreme weather (close cousin to the Man who curses extreme weather while scraping off his windshield). As I boarded, I did the math. 8:29 from White Plains. That’s 12 minutes after the 8:17 from Hawthorne. I looked around the train. Familiar faces. My same damn train.

She got in just before 9:07, two minutes past the scheduled time. Well done, Metro North.

I’d never seen this before. The 7:22’s about to leave. A guy—Lennon specs, preppy, clean cut–asks another guy—rumpled beige suit, loosened tie, tired, resembling Robin Williams when he has a beard–to let him in for the window seat. Robin Williams obliges.  

The train takes off. Clean Cut makes a joke. Robin Williams, munching a bag of nuts and quaffing a Sam Adams, offers a perfunctory laugh.  

A conversation ensues. Clean Cut, drinking a plastic cup of cola that is or is not augmented with alcohol, is clearly the aggressor; when he speaks, he turns towards Robin Williams. Williams, meanwhile, is playing defense; short retorts to Clean Cut’s questions, looking straight ahead.  

Mind you, they’ve already broken the most hallowed of commuter rules, the same golden rule you learned when you were six and your friends were turning up on milk cartons: don’t talk to strangers. Blame the drinks. The one convo I’ve had in my four months on the train, my seat-mate wished me a happy holiday, and I responded “You as well.” He then asked me what I did for work, intrigued because I’d said “You as well” and not “You too.” Honest. That’s what he told me.  

By Harlem, the two are well-engaged, yet still holding fast to their roles: Clean Cut pushing the convo, Robin Williams half-heartedly playing along.  

But by the Westchester border, Williams warms. Instead of answering to the seat-back in front of him, he turns about 45 degrees to Clean Cut to answer. They’re smiling. They’re laughing.  

What are they talking about? 

At White Plains, the usual gaggle gets off. I inch closer. Clean Cut says the Democrats have become smarter, are much more in touch with their people.  

Moments later, Clean Cut asks what the name of the parish is. Robin Williams struggles to find the answer. 

“Sacred Heart,” eventually comes the reply.  

As we approach Hawthorne, Clean Cut has bad news: it’s his stop. Will they shake hands, promise to do lunch, barbecue in summer, introduce their wives, hug? Not so. Smiles and nods, and Clean Cut is on his way.  

Friday after work, and I’m enjoying a little life, liberty and pursuit of happiness on the 6:33. Guy next to me is young (28?) and nondescript. The second the train exits the tunnel, the guy whips out his cell phone.  

He dials.  

“What’s going on…” 

“I’m on the train. I’m bored…” 

“Forgot my book…” [Editor’s note: Yeah, right.] 

“KFC? Cool.” 

I tried to tune him out.   

“It barely snowed here. Remember when we were kids, wasn’t there like mountains of snow? Remember when we’d play King of the Hill and it was, like, 10 feet high?” 

The train progresses through the Bronx. I squeeze my Sam Adams a little harder.

“Did you download Lost yet?” 

“I haven’t seen any movies…” 

I turned the iPod up a little louder.

“I have Babel. It’s like Crash, seven storylines going at once…” 

I switched the iPod from Violent Femmes to System of a Down, acoustic punk for angry Armenian metal. No luck.

“I hate it when they try to push their political agenda…” 

“Yeah. Cool. Cool. Cool.”

And on. And on. And on.  

At least he was kind enough to get off inWhite Plains.