This guy ruled. We saw him around Union Square, San Francisco, California. He was actually really funny, talking to and about everyone passing by, and singing songs like “You’re a Cheap Bastard”. “I like money… I even like Euros!”
Best… bum… ever! We gave him a dollar for the entertainment value.
Rob and I went to “The Tech” Museum of Innovation in downtown San Jose on Friday. It was okay, but mostly oriented towards younger kids than ourselves. There were still lots of fun toys to play with, though. There are various places where you can create web pages, have your picture taken, etc., and with a wave of the RFID tag they supply you, you can get to it later. I saved this nice picture of me taken with a videotherm camera.
I biked to work this morning… not too bad time:
When I left in the afternoon, I missed the light rail by like 30 seconds… again. I figured.. screw it, I’ll just ride home. I made it! A little slower:
My totals for today:
I’ve reached my goal now, though. What should my new goal be?!
When I’m out biking, I almost always bring my GPS. It makes life so much easier… I can always tell where I am, at least relative to home. In addition, one of the best features is that I get real-time statistics about my ride, such as current speed, average speed, maximum speed, and trip odometer. As a bonus, you also get your current position as latitude and longitude (not too useful on a bike), elevation (very useful), sunrise and sunset times relative to your position (don’t stay out too late!), and a “compass”1.
I use the Garmin eTrex Basic with the bicycle mount accessory. Pros: It’s waterproof, has good battery life, plenty of features for biking, and is relatively cheap. Cons: It doesn’t have a pause button2. If you use multi-mode transit (e.g. bike-train-bike) it’s difficult to get statistics for only the bike portion.
1 Not really a compass, it’s not magnetic. You have to be moving for it to be useful.
2 Does any GPS have a pause button? Leave a comment if you know of one…
Comcast is sucking today:
132 packets transmitted, 93 packets received, 29% packet loss round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 56.657/174.043/1080.477/181.553 ms
Bah. 
There was a bit of excitement on the train today…
Apparently, before I boarded at Mountain View, this guy got into a bit of an altercation with the fare inspector. He had a 10-ride ticket, but hadn’t validated it, and the fare inspector and he got into it. He was told to get off the train at Mountain View. Keep in mind that being on board without a valid ticket is an ~$250 fine. Fast forward to me boarding…
I got on the train and took my seat. I had no idea that anything had happened. I managed to sit right next to the guy, so I got front row seats. Apparently he got off the train, validated his ticket, and got back on. The fare inspector saw him get on, and pointed to him and said “You! We need to talk.” The guy ignored him. The inspector left the train.
We’re still sitting there, doors open. Everyone’s looking around like “Why aren’t we leaving?” The fare inspector returns with the conductor, and says “That’s the guy”, pointing to him. The conductor says “You! Get off the train.” To which the guy replies “No, I’m going to San Jose”. Back and forth this continues until the conductor says “Get off the train now, the nice way, or I’ll have to call the cops to have you removed. If the cops come, you’re going to be arrested and fined $1000.” The guy is like “Well then you jus’ gonna hafta call da cops, I ain’t goin nowhere”
The conductor radioed to base, “We’re gonna need the police to come out here and remove someone from the train.” They reply “Here, or in San Jose?” He says “Right here.” They get to calling the cops. The offender decided they were serious and it wasn’t worth it, and got off the train finally.
Amazing, all they wanted him to do was to get off the train and take the next one. Basically to discourage people from thinking they can just validate the tickets when they finally get inspected. I’m torn between being angry that they hold up the entire train for a $3 fare, and being amused at how stupid this guy was.
Well, I’m officially one of the crazies now, as I biked directly to work today! I took the route I had planned, although I missed the turn at Evelyn, so I took Reed all the way to Fair Oaks. That added a bit of extra time and mileage. My stats for today were:
Ryan suggested an alternate route along the San Tomas Aquino/Saratoga Creek Trail, which I’ll investigate and possibly try out (if I can get on it somewhere South of Highway 101, perfect).
I tested out my planned route today with my bike, and picked up my Jeep, which I left at Yahoo on Thursday when I had to fly out to Portland.
Here are the stats for the ride from home to Yahoo:
In addition, I rode a few laps around Yahoo after I got there, to bring my total ride up to 15.5 miles, since my goal for today was 15+ miles.
The SFO Airtrain which connects you to BART has these poorly thought-out announcements:
The train is about to depart. Please hold on. Please set your luggage cart brake to “on”.
That seems fine when you read it, but imagine it as an announcement. The quotes just don’t come through. What’s wrong with like, “Please set your luggage cart brake”, or “Please engage your luggage cart brake”, or even “Please lock your luggage cart brake”.
Don’t you realize your announcement sounds stupid?
So I left San Jose, and it was a nice, breezy 85F or so. I board a plane from SJC to PDX, and arrive in Portland to find that… it’s HOT. It’s currently 94F in Portland and 83F in San Jose. WTF?
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