Category — commute

I know, it’s been a while. Here’s the thing: I got a new job!

After almost four years at the firm I work for, I am moving on to a new job, in a new town. It’s still a lighting/daylighting/sustainable design job, but it’s in an entirely different setting for me: a national laboratory.

To say I’m excited understates things a smidge.

In a few weeks, I (and my co-worker) will be the new resident daylighting “experts” at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, down the road in Golden, CO. I’ll be applying my skills as a lighting designer and simulator, hopefully assisting research aimed at helping us bring light into buildings in more sustainable and useful ways.

I’m gonna have access to a supercomputer; can you say petaflop—oh wait, I JUST DID, beyotch! Ka-PoW!

I’m also going to become a commuter again. The upshot is that my posting frequency on this blog will likely increase.

Knowing I am extracting myself and my favorite-co-worker from an increasingly untenable work situation is one thing, but realizing that my career is not only intact but branching off into a new direction—a totally new direction—is just too good for words.

Yes, this means I am putting dreams of vet school on the back burner, but the burner is still on a simmer. After I ace Biology 2 in a few weeks, I’ll keep taking classes toward my vet school prerequisites, but the pace at which I take them will likely become even more glacial than it is now. I’ll keep going, I just may also mix in some thermodynamics now. And that’s OK.

It’s been a crazy month or so. I’m relieved to be able to let this out. Onward.

- Rob

P.S.
Here’s where I’ll be in a few weeks:

http://www.nrel.gov/buildings/

Today in Colorado it’s “Bike to Work Day”, part of the greater “Walk and Bike Month” promoted by the state and various organizations. (Nationally, this event happens in April or May, but in Colorado there could be a foot of snow on the roads then, so we do it a little later here.) Now, on the surface of things, this is great. a major promotion of the use of alternative transportation, to open your eyes to the wonders of commuting outside of that steel box you drive the rest of the year. In the spirit of promoting the event and rewarding the riders and walkers, businesses all over Boulder set up stands and hand out free breakfasts and free samples of energy drinks, granola bars, what have you. Mechanic stations are set up to help riders fix problems with their bikes, bands play, and a general circus atmosphere prevails.

And this, of course, brings ‘em out in droves.

It should be a great day; bike paths jammed with riders taking advantage of one of the greatest resources Boulder has to offer, empty parking lots all over town, people awakening to the joy of cycling and independent transportation.

But the reality is, it’s a Bataan death march, a gauntlet of epic proportions, a slog through a thicket of out-of-shape dopes weaving around on the paths with no regard for anyone but themselves, barely able to keep their bikes—that all sound like a chorus of crickets because they haven’t seen a drop of chain lube in ten years—upright while trying to shovel yet another free breakfast burrito into their cakeholes as they disobey traffic signals and make a general mess of things, all the while giving cyclists a bad name.

Look people, I’m thrilled you chose to get on the bike today. But here’s a thought: how’s about you get on the bike tomorrow too, and the next day and the next? Ride because it’s fun, healthy, green and all that good stuff, and not just because you get free shit, ok? Maybe buy a tube of lube and learn how to maintain your bike to the most basic level of safety and mechanical efficiency. Maybe, just maybe, learn the rules of the road (and obey them), get a clue that you are not the only bike on the path, and for god’s sake take the fucking earphones outta your head.

Maybe Bike to Work Day needs to be preceded by a “fix your bike and learn to ride week” or something. I’m not being facetious here. It could make for an even more successful day. I used to teach a bicycle maintenance course when I worked at Bike Tech in Philly, and people always emerged with a greater appreciation for their bikes and for what they were doing with them. Basic traffic awareness and riding skill courses would make riders safer and more confident, and might just keep more people riding throughout the year instead of just on these big promotional days. There is a great non-profit bicycle advocacy co-op, if you will, here in Boulder, Community Cycles. They have the right idea; they have been promoting this very idea on their website and through their actions all month:

Walk & Bike Month is about educating and trying to change behavior in a fun and smart way. It really is not about a day, week or month, it’s about committing to reduce our dependency on cars and reaping all the benefits that walking or biking can entail – saving money, getting out to see the community, meeting your neighbors and staying fit.

Right on, Community Cycles! I’m thinking maybe next year I’ll attach giant speakers to a cart and pull it around Boulder the weeks before Bike to Work Day, informing the villagers of this great establishment and their programs that could make the big day far more pleasant for everyone involved.

I came across this very interesting art piece, by way of Kottke’s website. It upset me.

First of all, this guy is essentially ripping off Walker Evans. Walker did it better, far better, and he did it seventy friggin’ years ago. But there’s more to this story.

The Walker Evans photos from his 1938 project are really haunting because they were taken with a hidden camera; they capture the very souls of New Yorkers trying to endure the daily grind of city life. These Bill Sullivan photos are more in the “caught on camera” vein, which is a little more obvious — more supermarket tabloid work than photographic art, and it annoys me that this is being peddled as the latter.

But the really disturbing thing is that all the people in the Sullivan piece look either really tired, really pissed off, really harried, or some combination of the three (Except for the dude walking through the turnstile with a brand new pair of Skyway TuffWheels (and you can’t help but feel happy for that guy (where in the hell did he find those gems, anyway?))).

Those turnstile photos reminded me of my life as a New Jerseyite commuting to Manhattan every day, and my daily experiences ebbing and flowing amidst the many different kinds of wildlife calling New York City home. Honestly, in retrospect, I hated it, and these photos illustrate quite well the mood of the average New Yorker: the “what are you lookin’ at”, the “ugh”, the I can’t take much more of this”, the “why am I doing this”, the “there’s got to be something better”; the “go fuck yourself”.

Well, after a year and a half of living 2,000 miles from New York City, I can say that there is something better, and that I wouldn’t trade this for the world, despite all the goddamned snow.

So, last Tuesday, Boulder got hit with its first snow of the year. The forecasts were calling for the possibility of “flurries” later on in the day, but the way it went down was that the flakes started falling around noon, and didn’t stop ‘till Wednesday morning.

Around 6:30 pm, I decided that things weren’t going to improve for a long time, and, despite being totally unprepared for the winter weather, I headed home on my bike. No gloves, no hat, no rain gear. At least I had a headlight on my bike.

A couple minutes into the ride, my front was completely white and I was slipping and sliding all over the place. The tires I bought a month ago will make great springtime tires, but they are out of their league when the snow and ice comes to town.

By the time I got home, I was freezing and my fingers were starting to bark at me. It took a minute to get them to behave enough to enter the security code on my garage door, and once I got into the warm, things got worse. I stood in the foyer with Emma meowing at me for five minutes while I blew into my hands to warm them up enough to unbuckle my helmet! After changing clothes I headed to the bike shop for some real snow tires, and fenders are next on the list. It’s time to accept the reality that winter has arrived.

My fingertips remained numb for three days after that ride, but the view from our bedroom the morning after the first snowfall was worth it, I feel:

True to form, the sun came out in full force Wednesday morning and melted much of the troublesome snow away and dried the roads out. It snowed again on Friday night, but once again, by today things were basically dry, which was great because it allowed me to get out and ride my latest two wheeled acquisition, which is surely going to be talked about in the coming days…

A year ago, I would have been affected by this: “Power Failure Snarls Commuter Traffic”

A year ago, I would have been one of those poor bastards shuffling along for a MILE to get to some other mode of transportation, cursing the whole way. A year ago, today’s latest regular dismal failure of the northeast corridor railway system would have likely hatched a profanity-laden tirade about how shitty my day was, followed by several gin and tonics.

But today, I rolled out of my house and took pictures of the goats (yeah, that’s right, goats) trimming the field across the street from my house, and arrived at the office 5-10 minutes later after dodging prarie dogs on the bike path and watching the occasional hawk.

So instead of complaints, you now get gloating. Sorry about that.

“Attention New Jersey Transit Rail Passengers: We still, like, totally suck.”

You know, these last few weeks I had noticed that the trains were running fairly close to on time, the majority of the time. I almost said something about it, but didn’t want to jinx anything. But obviously someone out there did say something, because we’re back to square one on the whole NJT performance thing, and I’m as filled with hatred for that miserable transit system as ever.

Last week I arrived to this mess of a scene at Penn Station: that’s the entire main concourse completely solid with pissed-off humanity. A brush fire earlier in the day had screwed up rail traffic for hours and trains weren’t moving. I know it’s a poor quality photo, but give me a break; I took with that with my little phone camera, and my hand was quivering with rage at the time. Still, I think it conveys the gloominess of it all. I got home hours later than I was supposed to.

Now, these kind of colossal failures of the system are to be expected every once in a while. But they seem to happen once a week with these yahoos. Last night, My train was 50 minutes delayed as a “disabled Amtrak train” was blamed. NJT loves to blame Amtrak whenever possible, saying “It’s not our fault, Amtrak owns the rails we operate on, and they get preferential treatment, blah fucking blah…” This excuse holds absolutely no water, however since NJT only shares rail with Amtrak on ONE LINE, and from what I hear, NJT’s performance on all the other lines (where NJT has full access) is equally abysmal, if not worse.

So, thinking I had my one Colossal Failure of the Week out of the way, I arrived on the platform this morning at 8:09AM for my 8:11 train and was greeted with an announcement that the 8:11 was not stopping at Metropark today, and the next train to stop would be the 8:38 — which of course showed up at about five minutes to nine this morning.

What’s really fun about that is that you get to play russian roulette with the trains that are blowing you off, as the platform fills with people and the trains speed past at 60MPH, horns wailing, inches from your face.

The only way this this morning’s commute could have been any more annoying is if today was the day they distributed the NJT propaganda newsletter on the seats, which is usually filled with stories like “NJT boosts on-time performance”, and “Rail riders speak out… and NJT was listening”.

Well, turns out that today is that day, but it gets better: today’s NJT propaganda newsletter featured a story about how they’re raising fares almost 10% this June, and the headline read: “Fare Plan Reflects Customer Input”. That’s funny, my input to them was “fix your goddamned service before you come to me asking for more goddamned money, you assholes”, or something like that. I know it was more politely worded; I waited for an on-time day to fill out the survey, I remember this quite clearly.

I figure at some point, that headline will be really amusing to me (as I’m sure it is to you already), but right now I’m just as pissed off as ever at that rotten transit company.

Moments after pulling away from the platform, the conductor entered our car and said “all tickets and passes, please”, and everyone in the car went “fuck you!!”. Well, that’s what I imagined, anyway. As I exited the train at Penn Station, I noticed most of the newsletters were now strewn all over the floor. A bit of a silent protest about the fare hike? Perhaps, but the more logical explanation is that most of the people on the train are littering slobs.

I am weary with rage.

(bring bring)

Hi. Yeah. You still in the office? Yeah, I’m on the train. No, I can talk. (earpice in, he places his Wall Street Journal on the seat between us — yuk.)

Yeah. No, yeah, I read it. Uh huh.

Well, they think we can just put together a term sheet now, and I… I uh… I just don’t think we’re there yet.

No. Yeah. Well, quite frankly, I read it, and I don’t understand it.

Yeah! (laughing) These guys, they think, quite franklyyyyy, that uhhhh, we can just do this deallll, and frankly, it ahhhhh, just doesn’t work that way (sanctimonious guffaw)!

No. Yeah. Yep. Well these guys, they think they’re giving us SEVEN MILLION DOLLARS for a product. They don’t know what they’re getting, quite frankly.

Look, look. We can’t get backed into a corner and throw out a term sheet, and have another stinky DEAL on our hands, we have enough of those. Right. Yeah.

Well, our guys are ready to do the development in house! Quite frankly, we don’t need their money, is what I’m saying. I’m saying, we need to have our guys look at this one more time and put together a solid TERM SHEET on this DEAL before we go anywhere. Yeah. And I want the guys upstairs to look at this as well. Yeah. Because I don’t understand it.

Look, look, let’s do this thing, tomorrow morning. Yeah. Yeah. Get Kevin on this too…

(Mercifully, the train arrives at my stop. I still hear him talking as I step onto the platform and the doors close behind me.)

Hi folks, Rob here. You see the kind of shit I have to listen to on this train? This little jerk thinks everyone gives a shit about his currently stinky deal that he doesn’t understand anyway. Oh sure, there’s SEVEN MILLION DOLLARS at stake here, which “he” doesn’t even need in the first place, but you know what, hearing these bullshit macho conversations gives me a glimpse into the world of the Wall Streeters, and the more I know about these people the less I like them as a group. And this clown, if he was actually worth a good goddamn, he’d be driving in his Mercedes to his home in Montclair, not riding on this miserable train with the likes of me. So, he’s just, like, a dick, quite frankly.

Remember the guy who always complained about his commute? He’s back.

I have tried to keep my complaints to myself about NJ Transit’s absolutely horrid service on the Northeast Corridor, but today I am forced to once again complain.

It was 13 degrees before wind chill outside, when I said goodbye to Brenda this morning. As her car sped off, I heard the announcement: “due to a broken down train, all trains bound for New York are subject to at least a 30 minute delay”. I noted the time and the cause of the delay, as both of these things tend to change as time goes on.

Waiting on the open platform, I adjusted my coat as best I could and hunkered down behind an advertisement for The Lion King. The Lion sheltered me from the wind which, while light, still brought the “feels like” temperature to about 5 degrees. After dutifully waiting the thirty motherfucking minutes, an announcement was made that a train just left Jersey Avenue, was making all local stops, and was already standing room only. To put a time reference on that for you, that meant that a train wasn’t likely to show up at Metropark for another 30 minutes, then would take almost an hour to reach New York City, and I may not even fit on it anyway. Oh, and now they were blaming the delay on old reliable: “signal and switch problems”. Motherfuckers, all of them. Every single goddamned one of them. NJTransit, you suck. You suck long and hard.

I headed for home. I didn’t have any reason to be physically in the office today anyway, so I decided to work from home. Since abject hatred only warms you up so much, I stopped in the QuickChek and got some cash, and tried to warm up a little. I was going to get a hot egg & cheese sandwich, but there was a woman arguing with the cashier over change, and four people behind her in line to pay, so I split. I covered the mile or so walk back to my house faster than ever; my heart stopped twice, I got ice on my beard, and my left ear cracked and fell off. But I made it home. I wore Emma like a hat for ten minutes, and I was 100%. It was time to call NJTransit’s complaint line. I know the number.

Here’s the thing: the customer service rep on the other end blamed this morning’s delays on a bridge strike (this is when a truck accidentally hits a railway overpass, and they enforce a speed restriction for the trains). So that made it three different reasons for the delays this morning. I knew I would get no satisfaction from complaining, but I never suspected that NJT would actually find a way to piss me off even more. I decided that, while I had this person on the phone, I’d go ahead and complain about the million and a half dollars these idiots spent about a year ago to give all the conductors cell phones. She told me that was for “Homeland Security”, which is funny, because not only is that a total bullshit answer, it’s also a different reason than they gave at the time they bought the phones. These guys just can’t get their stories straight. At that point I figured I’d end the call since I was only getting more upset. I promise, I didn’t call the bitch any names. I was very cordial, muttering something like “this is bullshit; we’re finished talking now” and hung up.

So now I start my workday, the only comfort being the knowledge that I’d probably just be getting to Penn Station right now had I tried to use my $188 monthly pass. What a rotten deal that is.

I could get used to this. My computers are ten feet from the bathroom, so after a quick shower it’s a few paces and I’m at my “office”. Oh sure, the RNC has scared away lots of people from the regular nexus of commuter angst that is New York’s Penn Station, but I’m not taking the bait; I’ll wait till Dubya has butchered his speech and the conservatives have packed up their shit and headed back to the red states before I go back to Metropark station to make my dreaded sojurn to the city. In the meantime, I’m loving this work from home gig.

Aside from a chair that seems to consist of only a plywood board and some low-grade foam, I’m very comfy here. The smell of fresh cut grass wafted through the windows today. I had a sopressata & provolone sandwich for lunch and caught a half-hour of “Reservoir Dogs” on the TV. Emma paid me a visit at 5PM—and every fifteen minutes thereafter—begging for dinner, which she knows full well is not served until 7:30. I could set my watch to her meows, and they brought me much joy and comfort.

My computer area was never meant to be a home office, but my makeshift setup is serving quite well, save for the DeSade chair that is flattening my ass as I type this. I have my Powerbook sitting next to my PC monitor, and I can check & send office email, grab files from the server via VPN, and chat with co-workers using IM. I check my office voicemail every hour on the hour (personal best for navigating the menu and entering my password is ten seconds, but I’m confident tomorrow I can break into the single digits). I have a lighting calculation running on my Powerbook, and if I need to do more calcs tomorrow I can upload the model to the office via SSH and run them on a faster computer there. A co-worker’s email woes were diagnosed over the phone, and save for the lack of face time, the entire process from problem report to resolution was no different with me being at home than it would have been if I were at the office.

I will say this, you end up working more hours when you work from home. With the commute eliminated, you still wake up when you wake up, and so you end up ready for action long before the usual starting bell. Then, when six pee-em shows up, I’m starting to hit a groove, and since there’s no train to catch I end up sitting at this very computer long after I would if I were in the city. I guess that’s only fair, and I don’t complain, I only mention. For example, tonight I decided I was done working for the day at about 8:30PM, and I pulled up a chair this morning at about the same time, only AM. Subtract an hour for lunch, petting the cat, and munching on cashews (which must be banished from the house if I ever do this again) and you have an eleven hour workday. But I don’t complain, because at 8:31PM I was on the couch talking to my wife and drinking a beer.

Why do I make that miserable commute to go to that miserable city every day? It makes less sense to me all the time. Hmm.

Hmm.

On any given weekday, about 600,000 people pass through Penn Station in midtown Manhattan, on their way to and from work. Located directly above this train megalopolis sits Madison Square Garden—home arena to the Knicks & Rangers, site of countless concerts and other sporting events, and beginning tomorrow, home base for the conservative religious party and their homophobic imperialistic right-wing upper class love-in, which they call the Republican National Convention. So, one of the busiest, most congested buildings in all of New York City, terminal to one of the most inefficient mass transit systems ever, will close 90% of its entrances, and close most of its perimeter pedestrian walkways to all traffic. As an added bonus, all trains inbound for New York will be boarded and searched by bomb-sniffing dogs at the last stop in Jersey, prior to entering New York City.

Now, let’s put aside the obvious snub that all New Jersey natives must be feeling—it’s OK if the rails from New Brunswick to Newark are alight in a blaze of Al Qaeda’s finest freedom fighters “evildoings”, but we’ll be damned of those hooligans are gonna make it into “the city”—New Jerseyans are sooo used to getting the shaft from New York City. But the more important question is: who was the fuckin’ idiot who thought it would be a good idea to lock down a building that serves as a gateway for over half a million people looking to conduct business in that unfair city?

No matter; the damage is done, and all last week I watched as Penn Station and the surrounding area was transformed into a war zone. It was crowded enough before; now, there are as many police officers creeping around that place as there are commuters.

Since I have a bunch of database development work to do, work that can surely be accomplished working on my computer at home just as easily (easier in fact, because of some filesharing oddities of Filemaker Pro) as at the office, I’m working from home this coming week. I’m looking forward to it. I’ll let you know how it goes.

As for the convention, I hope it’s a flop for Dubya and Bloomie both. Did you know that New York City’s annual “tax free shopping week” coincides with the RNC? Jesus Christ, when the hell are these Republicans ever gonna pay taxes?