Boston to New York, 2011.

Last night my wife and I attempted to make it back to New York from Boston using the Northeast's prevailing 150 year-old transportation infrastructure.

We got on a train in Boston's 47-degree-fahrenheit South Station. The train was delayed because they were "checking the brakes." Finally the filthy behemoth shoved off in the cold rain about 20 minutes late. We rode south through a winter storm in October. Perfect evidence of what three-time Pulitzer-winner Thomas Friedman calls "global weirding." After about an hour a so an annoyed voice came on the too-loud speaker. "This train is stopping in New Haven and going back to Boston. Amtrak is making no provisions to get you to New York."

Trapped in the snow in New Haven. All hotels booked and cabs few and far between.

After some time, we wrestled a cab to the ground. (A third New York bound passenger had joined us by then.) We implored the driver to take us the 80 or so miles to Manhattan and we climbed into his Ford Crown Victoria. About two hours and $170 later, we were safe and warm inside our apartment--we got home around the same time we would have had the train functioned.

By the way, and on a separate note, one of the things that has always impressed me is how small companies--companies that don't employ scores of copywriters and marketing people, almost always have better taglines that Fortune 500 companies. In the dingy bar in Boston's South Station last night my wife and I picked up burgers to go for dinner. I came across a middling tagline, shown above on the receipt. It reminded me of my favorite tagline, shown above on the van.