April 14, 2006
Gridlock defined - Alpharetta GA
I don't care where you live - your traffic is not as bad as Alpharetta GA. The entire town (a burb of Atlanta) is gridlocked. North, south, east west, major road, two lane twisty road, it just doesn't matter. Every one of then is backed up to hell, all the time.
Permalink | Comments (0)November 13, 2004
Full Planes & Legwarmers
Spotted in the jetway while lined up to board my flight from San Jose to Vegas.
1 Asian female, age approximately 30, wearing a sweater dress, heels, and (I'm not making this up, I swear I really saw this, I was stone cold sober at the time)
Legwarmers.
I was looking for a calendar to make sure I hadn't somehow time warped back to 1983. Legwarmers?
The red-eye home from Vegas was packed. My aisle seat was next to two ladies who really needed all three seats to handle their girth. The aisle seat behind me was empty, as was the middle seat next to it, and nobody had got on the plane in 5 minutes, so I took a shot. The flight attendants were starting the safety tape, everything looked golden, and then somebody came running down the aisle. I knew she was headed for the aisle seat I had tried to move to.
She was.
She was also winded from running to catch the plane, flustered because she couldn't find her drivers license, and more than a little bit drunk. In fact, she was just out of it enough that I was able to convince her she really wanted the middle seat. I'm not sure how I pulled that off.
Speaking of drinking...did you know bartenders in Vegas are unionized? The airport bartender was telling us that he can retire in two years with a 50K annual pension. Not bad for putting in 20 years serving drinks.
It probably also explains the $6.75 price for a 20 oz draft in the Vegas airport.
Oh, I scored a 99 on my certification test - so I'm now a Zultys Certified Systems Engineer, and well as Zultys Sales certified. Hopefully, that will be a rather lucrative combination for the next few years.
Permalink | Comments (3)October 07, 2004
Unemployed
Did I mention I was unemployed? The start up I joined in June shut the doors last week. No severance package either. If my career was a professional baseball player I'd be Dave Kingman. Always swinging for the fences - usually striking out. :)
So, if you happen to have a connection to anybody who might be looking for a techie sales rep in the DC area....now would be real good time to speak up.
Of course, my resume is online (and has been since 1995!)
Note - I'm going to alter the date of this post to keep it on top for a while.
Permalink | Comments (2)September 20, 2004
Jobs I Want
Meteorologist - Is there any other job where you can be so wrong so often with no negative consequences to your career?
Network Newscaster - See above
Tech Company CEO - See above
Professional Baseball Player - Union scale minimum of $300K, league average of several million to sit the bench and rarely play. Right or wrong doesn't matter since nobody cares what you think. Where do I sign up?
Quality Control Manager at Guinness - Does it matter how much it pays?
Professional Blogger - I'm doing it for free anyway. Might as well get paid...
Permalink | Comments (4)July 30, 2004
Highway to Hell
I had to drive into the office 3 days this week. Today it was 3 hours to travel the 70 miles to get home. 68 of those miles are interstate highway. Do the math, it's not pretty. No accidents or anything like that. Just too many cars going the same direction on Friday afternoon.
Going in mornings I've been picking up slugs (white collar hitchhikers) headed to the Pentagon. That way I can use the HOV lanes and zip along at a comfortable 80 miles an hour, drop them off at the Pentagon, and continue on my way. It's a totally self organized system of hitchhiking that works amazingly well. Probably because there is absolutely zero government involvement.
August 01, 2003
More Footwear advice for men
It is never, ever acceptable to wear Birkenstocks with a suit.
I've got to start taking a digital camera to work with me.
Permalink | Comments (0)July 25, 2003
Random Thoughts
A few random thoughts that have occurred to me as I commute across three time zones, two deserts, and one ocean daily just to put food on the table for my family.
- Briefcases on wheels are a very bad thing, especially when the idiot steering it rams your ankles on a busy sidealk. If you have that much crap maybe it's time to clean your briefcase.
- Guys can not wear athletic shoes with their suits. I know women have been commuting for years in comfy shoes, then putting on the heels once they get to the office. It doesn't work for men. You look ridiculous in a Brooks Brother suit and Nikes. High quality men's dress shoes are usually quite comfy. Invest in a pair.
- If you see the same homeless guy sitting on the same bench every day, is he really homeless? It seems like the bench is his home.
- It's getting very difficult to differentiate between the crazy bums talking to themselves, and the self important folks talking into hidden cell phones.
- People drive like idiots. This is not news, but it is much more noticeable when your sitting on a bus and not concentrating on driving yourself.
- Do Dept. of Agriculture employees really need to carry guns?
- There are a lot of really attractive women in DC. I never noticed when I was working in faceless suburban office parks.
- Tourists really do stand out like a sore thumb.
May 30, 2003
Two Old Guys, and Beer
Today we break in a new category, Adventures in Commuting. I'm spending 2.5-3 hours a day on a bus. I'm guessing that has to be good for a few stories.
Today, the bus pulled into the commuter parking lot near my house at 6:30 PM. As I'm walking to my car, I noticed two other cars parked perpendicular to each other, with the hoods, trunks, and all 4 doors open. It was very similar to the scene you see in suburban parking lots where the kids gather to hang out, blast their car stereos, and show off their tricked up economy cars. However, these weren't kids.
The apparent owners were well past retirement age. And the cars weren't tricked up anythings, they were a very ordinary looking Lexus sedan, and a Mazda 929. They were clean and shiny though. Definitely freshly washed, and maybe freshly waxed too. If the car stereos were on they were at low volume.
Then I noticed the bottles in their hands. Beer bottles, definitely beer bottles. There appeared to be a six pack (or the remnants thereof) in a grocery sack on the ground. These two senior citizens are just hanging out in a commuter parking lot on a Friday evening, drinking beer and showing off their ordinary cars to each other.
There is an assisted living home nearby. Maybe they escaped.
Permalink | Comments (0)May 29, 2003
Reading in Motion
Apparently, reading in a moving vehicle is a skill that can be learned. All my life, I have been unable to do this. It either made me queasy, sleeply, or both. However, now that I am commuting over an hour each way via bus, I really want to be able to use that time to read, whether its work related or recreational reading.
My first week was rough. I found myself half asleep within 5 mintes of starting to read on the bus. It's no big deal in the morning, the extra hour of rest is kind of nice. However, it was a pain coming home. Not only was it wasted time, the half nap made me feel like crap for the rest of the evening.
On Friday, I closed my eyes and took a cat nap immediately. Then, I got out my book. It worked. I was able to read all the way home with no ill effects. This week I've been able to read every day without falling asleep. I think I've got it.
I've got about 8 books in my "to read" pile, but if you have suggestions feel free to leave them in the comments.
Permalink | Comments (2)October 10, 2002
Isn't it about time for a better road?
As I was driving though The Mixing Bowl today, I started thinking about the 2008 completion of this road building project. Road building really hasn't advanced much to my eye. I'm sure some civil engineer could list off a plethera of improvements in materials, techniques, etc. But to us common folks, we are still building roads exactly like we did in the 1950's. Level a bunch a land, put down tons and tons of an aggregete, like gravel, and then pour either asphalt or concrete on the road bed. Repeat every few years.
Shouldn't we have come up with some super hard plastic resin with amazing heat and cold tolerance, the ability the withstands years and years of driving, be be completely immune to the corrosive effects of salt? Like maybe make roads out of recycled Tupperware?
Seriously, why haven't we come up with a better alternative by now? We put a man on the moon in 8 years, but we still build roads out of asphalt.
Permalink | Comments (1)September 09, 2002
A Service I would Pay For
Twice yesterday, I got stuck in traffic on I-64 between VA Beach and Richmond. I really wanted to know what was causing the backup. Construction delay? Accident that will clear quickly? Oil tanker overturned and I'm stuck for 12 hours unless I take evasive action? I had no way of knowing, and apparently no way of finding out. I did call the state DOT as I sat there, and after wading through a fairly impressive voice response system I did learn that there was no construction projects in the way.
However, if there had been some toll free number I could call, and pay about a buck for a definitive answer, I would have done it. I was sitting there with my Rand McNally open trying to decide if I should bail on the Interstate and head cross country - or wait it out. I no intel to help make the decision. As it turned out - a severe lack of exits on that section of the Interstate made the decision for me.
I don't see how a system like this could be automated - way too many disparate data sources for very short lived data. I think you would need live people very skilled a web research, with access to police scanners in every state, etc. Seems like a awful lot of overhead, which may explain why this service doesn't exist. Even in major metro areas, the news radio traffic reports every 10 minutes frequently don't hit "YOUR" traffic problem during the segment you happen to tune into.
With the continued availability of cheap gas, and our countries utter incompetence at anything resembling a mass transit strategy, this seems like a problem that will only continue to get worse. Which means that there should be a way to make money on it!
Permalink | Comments (1)August 25, 2002
Dog on a Cycle?
As I was toolin' around town today, I saw some guy on a motorcycle, with his dog somehow attached to the bike behind him. I only got a brief glance , but it looked like the poor animal was strapped in place somehow behind the driver. And no, the dog was not wearing a helmet!
I wish I would have thought to call the cops, that can't be legal. And it certaintly isn't safe, for the dog or the driver.
Permalink | Comments (1)November 05, 2001
Noticed on the toll road this morning...
As I sat in traffic this morning watching the cars in the Dulles Toll Road HOV lane whiz by, I noticed the following:
Percentage of cars violating the law with a single driver - 25%
Percentage of Mercedes violating the law with a single driver - 100%
Permalink | Comments (2)July 24, 2001
Fireball
If you've seen the news reports on the fireball or meteorite that was seen all over the Northeast US on Monday, you'll know what I'm talking about. I saw it at about 6:05, I was near Dulles Airport in VA so my first thought was that I was seeing a jet coming down in flames. The thing appeared to be the size of an airplane, and it was very bright. It looked metallic, or at least it reflected light the way you would expect something metallic to reflect light. The amazing tail on it clued me in that I was seeing a fireball and not a plane, however it appeared to just vanish after about 3-5 seconds, causing me to doubt if I had really seen anything at all! I saw on the news that a fireball that visible in daylight is very rare -less than 1% of people on the planet will ever see one. Maybe I should have played the lottery last night :) That was a joke - I consider state lotteries to be a voluntary tax on ignorance so I don't contribute.
Apparently nobody has found anything on the ground yet. I hope they do
Permalink | Comments (3)