This blog post originally appeared on beefthief.blogspot.com and has been copied here for posterity and to remind myself of what I was like in 2008.

Commuting an hour to work every day has its upsides and downsides. I have plenty of time in the morning to let my brain get warmed up for the day, especially after finishing off a travel mug of tea during the trip. I have the luxury of knowing exactly when I'll need gas, so I can plan to stop at the cheapest gas station on the entire trip (there is currently a 25¢ difference from the best to the worst).

Now, the downsides are pretty obvious. I spend as much as $100 a week in gas, I lose two hours of leisure (or sleep...) time, and my air conditioning is broken, so I arrive home looking like I was running for an hour rather than driving.

All of that aside, there is one aspect to the trip that easily makes it worthwhile: The scenery. Yes, I know I've lived in New Hampshire for my entire life (sans-college), but there are some things you appreciate more when you have two hours a day to look at them. The above Flickr set (click the picture!) consists of just the few sights I managed to capture that did justice to the real thing. Hopefully I'll be able to slowly add to that, but these are a nice start.