Be a Green Traveler

Have any of you guys seen this?It's INCOG's Green Traveler. It's a pretty cool deal. After signing up, which is easy as pie, you can search for anyone looking for a rideshare according to where you live, where you work, where that person works, your commuting times, and more. You can even tell the system whether it'd be cool with you to rideshare with a smoker.

A few Tulsa employers have put Green Traveler on their Intranet systems to make rideshare finding easier for employees, and other employers have taken steps to help employees find coworkers with whom to carpool via the Web-based version of the program.

It's free to register, and who knows, carpooling could be a wonderful experience.

Case in point: When I learned I was about to be a baby momma, I decided to start carpooling with a coworker to assist my husband and my efforts to stock pile some cash for our soon-to-be kiddo. Until I got to the ultra-hormonal nesting stage in the middle of my eighth month and could no longer grip the door handle hard enough to deal with her New York-style of driving, our carpool contributed to a friendship that grew very close by the time my doctor told me to lay off work and have a baby instead.

When you drive to work and back with someone each day, you learn all about him or her. You have chances to talk about anything and everything, from the merits of vegetarianism to spouses to issues of faith. Carpooling was an enriching experience for me in that I gained a close, life-long friend out of the deal. Plus, I didn't drive, so I got to look out the window a lot. I like that.

Even if you don't use Green Traveler - but you should at least register so you can get a look at it, because it's pretty darned neat - try to carpool every now and again. You'll be enriched and, if nothing else, you'll learn something about yourself.

Like that when your carpooling buddy inexplicably turns on the heater full blast on the way home from work on the 20th of August and you're pregnant and your clothes don't fit and you're in a constant state of sweat-astic, you must go into the house and promptly barf up everything you ate for the past three weeks. I know that about myself now, and I'm better for it.