Why didn't anyone tell me…

Gee Dave, why have you not been posting so often?

Well, I’ve been changing jobs. The specifics of that are another post, but mainly right now I’m fussing about with commute options now that my drive is not only longer, but goes down one of the central traffic corridors of the bay area: 101 Northbound to Redwood City. My drive to VMware was relatively tame, taking 85 and 280, which lands you nearly at the door of the office. My drive to Nominum is quite simply awful at the moment. Average drive times for the additional what, 12 miles, is something like 45 minutes. The difference between them isn’t the issue – the issue is which roads I now have to drive. The puzzle looks so much like one of those word games you get in Math class it’s not funny. But why not, here we go.

So here are the rules:

• Kids must to be at school no earlier than 8:15 and no later than 8:30.
• Kids sometimes get sick in the middle of the day, requiring you to go pick them up. Babysitters/neighbors might be able to help with this.
• It takes 21 minutes without traffic to get to the nearest Caltrain station. Currently the last train leaves at 9:33, and after January the last train is at 8:33. (This morning I dropped off the kids, hit a lot of green lights, got there, and watched the 8:33 train pull away.)
• Even if I take the 9:33 train, I won’t get to work until nearly 11.
• It takes 45 minutes with traffic to get to the next nearest station. No hope.
• The light rail connects to the nearest Caltrain station, runs every 15 minutes, but still won’t get me to the early train.
• Motorcycles are allowed in the HOV lane, assuming you accept the risk of becoming Toyota Driver Puree. They are also allowed to ‘lane split’ by law in heavy traffic, making it possible to take even the shortest path and make good time. The ones I might want generally get 60+ mpg, I don’t want a race bike.
• Tesla Roadsters and Sedans (shipping 2012!) are allowed in the HOV lane, along with some of those little annoying cars that still have puny useless gas engines.
• Driving solo gas car, no HOV, etc. takes about 1:00 to 1:20 on the shortest path. About 16mpg in 101 traffic, about 31 miles.
• Driving solo gas car, taking ‘the middle path’, takes about fourty-five minutes to one hour: half open highway, half getting through the city to get there. About 22 mpg, but 5 more miles.
• Driving solo gas car through the mountains while embarrassing an old man in a Miata takes about 1:30, adds 15 miles to the commute, but makes me smile more. About 24 mpg, 15 more miles.
• My car is already at 151 kilomiles and one day will need replacing. The longer I can wait, the better the replacement is, but it is technically possible to replace the car at any time.
• I want to reach work sooner than 10:15 AM.
• Caltrain operates a shuttle from the northern station to the campus I now work at. They meet the 8:33 train, but not the 9:33.
• There are a couple express Caltrain runs from the work end to the home end, taking only 45 minutes on the train.

So here are the options I’ve considered in no particular order.

• Always take the middle route to save sanity in exchange for more miles, less car wear, and much less frustration.
• Work from home 3 days a week as soon as possible, driving/training in only when I have to be physically present for meetings. All sorts of advantages doing this, a separate discussion.
• Drop kids off too early, sprint for Caltrain and get the 8:33, take the shuttle, and return same path.

There are also ‘savings’ options to try to make the drive cheaper.

• Pick up a more efficient car sooner (335d? 528i? Tesla Model S?) I still can’t believe the new 528i gets 32mpg. Astonishing.
• Efficient motorcycle.
• Carpool/vanpool if possible.
• Drive my car until it can’t realistically be repaired any more before replacing.

Now let me back up and point out – this is much too hard. The “Get to Work at 8 AM” folks have lots of options. Why don’t parents? The shuttles meet up with all the early trains, the trains run far more often and closer to home here in the South Bay, there are multiple express options to choose from. There are even a couple express buses that go directly from the south bay to the peninsula. But it becomes obvious that you’re just doomed if you have kids to drop off. It’s just not going to happen.

How did this go so wrong? With all these brilliant Silicon Valley minds, can’t someone come up with a way to get more people where they actually need to go without having to drive themselves?

I was just walking back from the break room at work and overheard someone abusing the adage “need for speed”. This got me thinking about my reaction to this. I want to go back to the track, although I’ve only been once. I feel the proverbial ‘need for speed.’ Bloody hell, that means I’m insane. Or does it?

The most obvious answer is that I feel the need for some sort of catharsis. In the same way that sometimes people like riding roller coasters. The speed and physical sensation is fun – it invokes (imagine something deeply chemistry or biology sounding here). Juices flow. I smile. This is good.

But here’s the weird bit. I can get a similar emotional reaction from a good session with Gran Turismo or rFactor, minus the physical reaction of having been thrown around corners and hopefully not crashed a 10-to-100 thousand dollar car weighing 1 to 3 tons and damaging this meaty thing my mommy gave me. The thrill is real enough, the physical reaction is of course different.

There is something to be said for my weekly trip up the narrow twisting roads of the Santa Cruz mountains as a detour on my way to work. I get to feel a little of the inertia of a real car in tight corners, the roar of a real engine, the smells and sensations and sounds of a real car going beyond it’s minimal tasks of coasting along a straight highway at the speed limit or sitting quietly at a stoplight. But what about those menial tasks invokes the physical reaction of me wanting to stomp the gas, screech away from the lights and take corners at 45 mph to offset the tedium? Why do I suddenly need this sensation?

Maybe because it’s just AWESOME.

Curse you Dexter. Netflix can’t keep up with our two-episodes-a-night viewing habit.
Just finished season 2, and we were glad to see ‘her’ go. I’ve even heard it said that the newer seasons are even more fun. Somehow I think this is Crazy Talk.
I’ve always known I have this root-for-Batman side in me, and Dexter is just like crack candy for someone like me. I guess this means the end of my political career.
Who needs it. I have at least two more seasons to get through.

We have a quite good Roland digital piano. Or maybe had is a better description. The piano remains, but the sound does not. We got it from Craigslist a while back (measured in years), and it behaved nicely. Last fall (I think) it just stopped turning on. We did manage to find a local shop that was willing to do the repair, found the parts, and put it back together. But here we are some months later and it’s gone busted in a new way – power but no go. Some days I miss wood, leather, cast iron, and hard white and black plastic.
Those that know me will know that I don’t always take this view. Frequently I’m the champion of the newest API, the latest way to take a mountain of paper and turn it into an indexed hard drive of text-tagged PDF files, blah blah blah, but sometimes, stuff just doesn’t work.
In my mind, I have the same opinion of televisions. I know the new flat panels are (were?) more power efficient, lighter, easier to transport, etc., but my dad’s CRT at age maybe 20 is still functional out there somewhere. Anyone here think the backlights, colors, etc. on their TV are going to last that long? I just don’t believe it yet.
Some days I’m glad that my shoestrings are still made of silk and that my shoes are still made of leather. Maybe not everything needs changing.
Welll, off to load a 250 lb. piano into the back of my car. Which just rolled 150,000 miles today, by the way.

Bought a race car.

Really?

Why, yes. For $150.

What?

It’s a ’91 Mazda MX-3, with all that heavy annoying glass removed except the windshield, all that heavy creature comfort nastiness removed, like carpets, door panels, and handles and things. Gone! It’s nothing but a shell with an engine.

Wha… why?

24hoursoflemons.com, that’s why.

Oh yeah. I believe the word you’re looking for is Awesome. See you on the track. The car to look for will look like Cookie Monster.

Graceling

So at first, there was a lot of kitch. A lot of too predictable-ness. An ominous guy appears in chapter 1 that is able to counter her, what a surprise, he’s ALSO a super-rare fighter. Yeah, we won’t be seeing HIM again. And he won’t be the love interest.
But the thing is, that having pushed through the bad, it got better, and quite a lot better. The chase sequences are good. The love sequences, not so much, but the action stuff is so good that you put up with it.
All things told, a good read, and I’ll pick up book 2 if it comes along.

Band of Brothers, which I’m finding utterly fascinating. Yes I know I’m about two years late to this party. My family has never been a military one, so these stories are foreign. I’m completely hooked with 3 hours left in the book.

Ultralight roadster, 47 mpg, racetrack worthy. Bolt a couple seats on the back and it’s a family car. It doesn’t rain in California anyway.

And I WANT ONE. Just not orange.

2011 Lotus Elise S, 46.7 mpg - not kidding

Well, just finished. Brave New World by Aldus Huxley. Alright, maybe in the ’30s this was crazy hardcore scifi porn (suggesting that people have intercourse is the limit of its graphic nature), but in the new millennium, it just bored me to tears. I barely remember the characters names and it’s only been 3 days since I finished it. Let me spare you the trouble:

SPOILER TIME!

In the future, people are manufactured a-la Ford. All instances of the word “God” or “Lord” are replaced with “Ford”, as he is their deity. This is mainly to piss off the reader. People have purple eyes or something. This is some side effect of the test tube people-growing process (Matrix anyone?), which they are very proud of. Parenting as we know it is a lost art, replaced by – wait for it – pills. All your needs are cared for by pills (watch Equilibrium). Some disgruntled stooge and his floozy go out to go camping and see “natives” in Arizona, and come home with a “civilized woman” that was lost on a camping trip 40 years ago, and her *gasp* natural born son. They return, the woman doses herself to death on the magic pills, and the son is the only person that can feel any sympathy for the dying, so he throws a fit, gets dragged off to the Principal’s office, and they go all poly-sci theory on him for a while. Somewhere along the way he falls in love with the girl that went camping and discovered him, but when she offers to sleep with him for nothing, he calls her a whore and decides that people are scumsucking meatsacks. He decides to go live au-natural off in the fields outside London (hah!). The New World people catch up with him and notice that he’s taken up self mutilation because he’d rather feel pain than make sense. At this point in the book, you’re hoping he hits an artery. It turns into a media circus, he shouts at them, they ask him to hit himself again. The reader cheers with the crowd. The girlfriend-wannabe shows up, boy hits her (presumably killing her, it’s never made clear), and an orgy breaks out. He wakes up and hangs himself.

Real feel-good book there.

The point is, this book, while it may have been somewhere between shocking and progressive during the ’30s, is just pointless now. I can see it as maybe the first place that many people will have encountered some of these ‘ideal society’ ideas, but the modern versions are more current, more polished, and closer to home. Save yourself the time – leave it on the shelf in the public library.

So I finally saw Million Dollar Baby last night. Wow what a film. But as I was thinking about it later, I thought, “But this is Hollywood. How will they do the sequel?” And I was off. And so, humble readers, I present to you, my draft plot of next summer’s blockbuster hit: Million-and-one Dollar Baby.

WARNING

If you haven’t seen the film – which I wholly suggest you do – don’t read on – it’ll ruin it for you.

Frankie has taken up ownership of the cafe indicated in the movie. He spends his days cooking behind the bar to keep busy. He discovers that his misery for lost loved ones in the past is only satiated through work, and even that is not enough. His detachment from his competitive boxing days and all the people he knew is eating him slowly. He makes friends with the locals and lives in complete isolation otherwise. He has learned of the warrant for his arrest related to the death of an invalid, and has changed his last name.

A couple times a week, an overweight kid comes in with his grandpa. They order a whole pie each and sit quietly for the entire afternoon, laughing and chatting, always finishing both pies. Time passes, and one week the kid comes, but the grandpa doesn’t. In a deep depression, the kid orders pie after pie, eating himself into a miserable state. Frankie feels compassion for anyone that depressed that has lost someone and they become friendly. Week after week, their friendship grows. Frankie then decides, “Man this kid can eat. I wonder if he could do pie eating contests.” He provides the kid with all the pies he wants and a few months later, offers to take him to his first contest at the county fair.

The kid loses the contest to The Pie Eating Champion Of The World (why he’s in the back woods, nobody knows), but is exhilarated. They work on his technique and come back again for a local charity event. The kid does fabulously, but pukes it up just before the end of the contest. The kid finds that the pies have been tainted, and an investigation is called for.

Around now there are whisperings in town that a stranger has arrived and is asking questions. Frankie starts to get scared about his warrant and suggests they take the challenge in Wyoming eating watermelons in the summer. They pack up and drive north. They arrive and take up training in a rented apartment.

Frankie’s ghosts are getting the better of him now that his hands are idle, and he has started sleepwalking. He wakes up in various places, in barns, on highways, in the woods. He is visited by ghosts of all his previous proteges. Wherever he finds himself, he always wakes up with his knuckles bleeding. He hides this from the kid by insisting that he wakes up early and goes out for walks. The bleeding hands are covered by fingerless gloves. (It is Wyoming after all.) Between training sessions, he is visited even in waking by his previous students, who pass judgement on him.

The kid wins the watermelon contest handily – and his first win is accompanied by their first glimmer of hope. They plan to travel to Michigan to enter a hot dog contest next. The kid is now troubled by indigestion issues. They visit a doctor, who tells them that the tainted pies have left him with internal scarring that may limit his ability to keep up the eating contests. The kid presses on regardless, counting on the resilience of youth to make up for the problem. As they are leaving town, The Stranger’s pickup appears, and they pass in the street already on their way to a different location. On the road, late one night, Frankie’s ghostly apparitions appear in a line on the highway and he swerves wildly to avoid them. They chalk it up to driving drowsy and pull off at the next town to rest. Frankie is still disturbed.

In Michigan, they take up training for the next contest. October is now fast approaching, and savings are running low. They need to win the next contest to move on to the next town and stay ahead of The Stranger. The kid is starting to experience serious discomfort most of the time from the stomach scarring. Practices are shortened, but they persist. The contest is delayed two weeks. Finances getting tight, Frankie decides to tough it out and hope for a win. There should be just enough. Nothing is heard of The Stranger, but The Stranger has heard tell of the next contest as well.

Halloween has arrived in rural Michigan, and the contest is hosted on the fairgrounds with the local festivities. The Stranger is already at the contest. Frankie and the kid arrive without observing The Stranger who is milling around looking for them, a Stetson on his head as disguise. They go to the contestant’s stalls in the barns provided for them, and set up. The kid hasn’t eaten since two days ago and is famished. The smells of the food are becoming hard to ignore. Frankie is being tough on him to get his game up, and the kid is looking pale and beaten down.”Get on with it coward! They’re tubes of meat!”

The kid snaps. He grabs Frankie and bends his neck over backward, biting. He roars with a demonic sound. Frankie falls to the floor, dead. The kid hears screaming and runs out to the fairgrounds, only to see Frankie’s previous students looking pale and dripping blood from their mouths. A scrawny kid with curly hair runs past, yelling, “CARDIO!” They all start running after the kid. Our kid grabs the nearest stationary person and begins to devour them messily. The Stranger is back in his pickup truck. The Stranger smashes the accelerator and pins the kid between the front of the truck and the ice cream shop.

“Zombies! I’ve got to get to Tallahassee,” says the man, and drives away in his pickup, Twinkie in hand.