Advantages of multimodalism

Although I'm back on my bike today as my preferred mode of getting to and fom work, I used the bus yesterday because of uncertain weather.  The rain as I walked to the bus was actually barely noticeable.  On the way home I just missed the 52L at my stop on University Ave, but the 51 that I hopped onto next caught up by the time it got to San Pablo Ave, where I used the Next Bus web site on my phone to decide which 72 bus to ride to Albany.  On the first bus I had browsed the free applications for my Blackberry and found a translator program that will come in very handy on an upcoming trip to Europe for my 10th anniversary.  So on the second bus I had just enough time to use the new application to figure out how to ask for directions to the train station or bus stop in French or Italian.  I won't be in France or Italy until July, but I should have no probelm being car-free in Europe.  As much as I enjoy the excercise of riding my bike I can't read e-mail, check the news, or browse the web unless I'm on a bus or BART, so I do enjoy the variety of using multiple modes of transportation.  Either way (bike or transit) I feel like I am getting something useful done as opposed to commuting by car which mostly felt like wasted time unless there was something particularly good on the radio.