Travelogue: the miracle of technology
September 25, 2012
In flight from SFO to MSP.* Can’t tweet about it, so I might as well write an overdue blog entry about something, anything.
And what’s on my mind at this moment, big surprise, is the travel part of the trip. This is the first time I’ve flown since June 2010. In the meantime, things have gotten all appified. I flew on United Airlines and with their iPhone app, I never even had to look at a counter or live person. You frequent fliers are probably sitting there thinking, aw, isn’t that cute, but I got a big kick out of tapping a few buttons on my iPhone and having everything magically taken care of. Just showing a QR code on your iPhone screen to the magic red hole at security and the gate? Come ON! And when I crammed all the California beer that I bought into my suitcase thus necessitating a checked bag, how convenient to order that up via the app, too. Okay, so I had to briefly visit a person at a counter to drop it off, but still.
The car rental was very nearly as painless. Renting a car is something I never do. I’m going to say the last time was ten years ago, and that was only because my own (previous) car had trouble mid-trip and I had to leave it for service. Usually I embrace the local public transportation system (London, Chicago), but for this trip I had to get to a couple of inaccessible places on Saturday and Sunday. Anyway, the car rental process was very streamlined as well.
My only complaint about any of this is that the employees of these various companies process hundreds of people a day, probably, and it’s obvious they go on autopilot with what they’re saying which can make them a little difficult to understand, particularly if they have an accent. Though I could easily have gotten between airport and hotel Thursday evening and this (Tuesday) morning on the train service, I drove. On my free days Friday and Monday, I took the Caltrain into San Francisco from San Carlos and yet again, it couldn’t have been easier.Once in San Francisco, I got all excited and bought a day-pass for the MUNI and scratched off the date before I needed to use it, and then ended up not using it at all because I just walked and walked and walked. I regretted that had I comprehended better how it works, I could have saved it for Monday when I was back in San Francisco. But that day, I also just walked everywhere. I guess I don’t mind paying an extra $14 knowing I don’t have to stress out about a car in the city.
So now I will soon be back home, where I’ll hop on Minneapolis’ own light rail line, which will deliver me mere blocks from my home.
Technology and public transportation, for the win!Addendum: Today, three days after my return as I was bidding my coworker auf wiedersehen for her trip to Germany, I learned that she, too, was flying United. I promptly gave her a spiel about the app and sent her on her fröhlich way.
*As you may have guessed, I wrote this one before “I go out walking.” But “I go out walking” seemed more interesting a week ago, and it probably still is.Commute, in a few sentences
February 14, 2011
I am very grateful that for sixteen and a half years now, I have not had to drive my car to get to my job. For eleven years, I lived two and three quarters miles from my job. A little over five years ago, I moved and am now only one and three quarters miles from my job. It’s all in town so I can take the bus, ride my bike, walk, or, since I moved, hop on the light rail for eight minutes.
In the not-hot weather, I take the light rail in the morning and walk home. It’s about thirty minutes—a perfect amount to be beneficial as exercise and not so long that I get bored and don’t do it. The walk also serves as my unwinding time.
Here is a little two-minute digest of my train ride.
Hug a tree, in winter
December 21, 2010
I am no tree hugger—well, maybe I am more than some people—but there are no fake plastic trees in my neighborhood! I will start you with this gratuitous rabbit shot. I have come to know that a rabbit lives around these outbuildings beside my home train station. As I am leaving the platform, I stop to locate the rabbit. Tonight, it was snowing again and the pine tree was dressed up for a picture postcard, and the rabbit was giving me a nice, rabbity profile.
It is a few days before Christmas and some have been moaning about all the snow we’ve gotten already this season and about how kind of cold it’s mostly been. Well, I say, if it’s going to be cold (which it is), it may as well snow (I realized tonight after posting a different missive that I probably use “might” and “may” incorrectly in the context of statements such as the previous. I shall endeavor to do better). Unfortunately, that tripped me up with regard to getting to bowling tonight.
Last Monday, after the roads were well cleared from the seventeen inches of snow we had over the weekend, it took me an hour to make a drive that usually takes me twenty minutes, tops. So today, as five to eight new inches were predicted, with the accumulation culminating during rush hour, aka drive to bowling time, I made the decision early not to drive my four-cylinder, lightweight, manual-transmission econobox in less than ideal conditions.
On the other hand, the snow provides for wonderful visions of Mother Nature at her most beautiful, like in the opening photo, or in the photo above, from this year’s first snow in mid-November. For a day, it was a gorgeous winter wonderland. This is the lovely maple tree that’s in my front yard. It’s a beautiful tree, but it does throw a little too much shade on my gardening efforts in the warm season.
Other than the driving of my own car, which I only have to do twice a week for bowling, not commuting to work, you will be hard-pressed to get me to say negative things about winter. I like it.
I will end by coming full-circle, with what you probably knew would have to creep in at some point. This is one of my two favorite shots I’ve produced so far with Instagram, the latest apply-a-filter app. These are other pine trees next to the train station, taken after the snow we had the first week of December.
Winter is beautiful. Oh, and one time only, I hugged a tree.
1000 Paces: home to office
February 16, 2010
Here is an unprecedented look at my morning commute! The assignment was to walk 500 paces from your home and take a picture. That’s the big one in the middle. But I learned something unexpected—it is exactly 1000 paces from my home to my office coffee pot.
100 paces: I’m almost to the sidewalk along Cedar Avenue. That’s neighborhood institution Palmer’s Bar across the street and the Riverside Plaza highrises in the distance. (Pop culture note: In the Mary Tyler Moore Show, those highrises were where Mary moved to from her first apartment in the large house.)
200 paces: I’ve crossed the street and am walking along Cedar Avenue. On my right out of frame is the blue side door to one of the neighborhood mosques.
300 paces: Cutting through a parking lot at the edge of the highrises on my way to the light rail station.
400 paces: Taking a short cut through the driveway and between two other apartment buildings. (Pop culture note: some tiny indy movie was filmed here because these buildings were deemed to look like European apartment blocks. It’s more striking when you’re close-up, and I don’t know the name of the movie.)
500 paces: On the other side of the apartment building. There isn’t usually a truck blocking my way.
600 paces: About to cross onto the Cedar-Riverside Station light rail platform.
700 paces: I’m on the train!
800 paces: I’ve just left Nicollet Mall Station downtown and crossed the street.
900 paces: Approaching my work building which is out of frame on the right. I purposely looked to the left a little so that I could include the Shubert Theater in the frame. You may remember the Shubert Theater as a character in one of my early posts.
1000 paces: In the building, up the elevator to the 11th storey, into my office, and through to the kitchen. My coffee pot is the little one. In the almost fifteen years that I’ve worked for my company, I remain the only person who drinks decaf. But that’s in the morning. I enjoy regular coffee after lunch.
And there you have my ten minute journey. That was fun. I might have to do a series of these 1000 pace walks.
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