Back From NYC and DC

I’m back from my whirlwind trip to New York and Washington. Yes, I had originally planned to just go to NYC but I realized I had to take a detour to DC for my China visa. I will be leaving a week from Friday and there is no way I could get a visa that soon without doing it myself.

The NYC trip was highly successful, though. We arrived onsite around 6 PM (since my Continental flight did 90 minutes worth of doughnuts waiting to land at Newark) and got to work. By 9:30, the customer was pleased with the product and had agreed to buy. Yes!

We went to a local diner for dinner around 10 PM. I was in bed by 11:30, begging off going to a bar with the guys. At 4:11 my alarm woke me, whereas I packed up and took various trains to the airport. At 7 AM I was airborne for DC, arriving with enough time to get breakfast at the airport.

Then I hailed a cab for the trip to the China visa office. The office was tucked into a commercial office building. I was fourth in line 30 minutes before it opened. When twenty minutes later the line was in the dozens I was happy to have gotten there so early.

It took all of two minutes to drop my documentation off. I then camped out at the neighborhood Starbucks for a couple of hours.

Lunch was at a local Italian diner. Then it was back over to the visa office where I picked up my documentation early before hailing another cab back to the airport. It was National Airport, so I booked my return trip on US Airways.

I was soon reminded why I don’t fly US Airways anymore. Because they suck! The self-checkin ticket agents whined about having to change flights when they could’ve directed people to the right line in the first place. The gate area was overflowing with unhappy passengers waiting for their delayed flights. The gate agent was practically yelling for late passengers on the PA system, raising more than one eyebrow in the seating area. Oh, and to top it off my flight was over an hour late. The classic, catch-all “maintenance problem” was to blame.

It just seems that practically everyone at US Airways hates their job. Its such the opposite of my Southwest experience. Even Continental is leagues ahead of US Airways. Thank goodness Continental fended off US Airways’ recent takeover attempt.

In spite of all this, the plane crew was competent and seemed to enjoy their jobs. The flight was smooth, too. I made it back in time for dinner. Now to catch up with Kelly and do some reading before collapsing. Its been a pretty intense two days.

Off to NYC

I’m off on an overnight trip to New York City to close out a long-running eval with a customer. Sleep may not be in the cards for me tonight in the worst-case scenario. I don’t expect any issues, though.

Wednesday morning I jet to DC to get my visa at the Chinese Embassy. In the days of the Internets, one would think one could do this without going in person. One would, of course, be wrong. To top it off, tomorrow is the first day after the Chinese New Year, so I should have plenty of company at the embassy. Yay.

Ah well, that’s the cost of doing business, isn’t it?

Cory Doctorow At UNC Thursday!

Cory Doctorow, science-fiction author, technology activist, and creator of BoingBoing, will be speaking at UNC Thursday at 2PM. His presentation is entitled “Pwned: How Copyright Turns Us Into IP Serfs.”

I’ve read BoingBoing since its inception. I’ve been quite impressed with Cory’s fight against DRM, overly-restrictive copyright laws, and other attempts to eat our brains and turn us all into Consumer Zombies. I’d like to have a job like Cory’s, to be honest. Few geeks on the planet are any cooler than Cory.

Ironically, Cory is a huge fan of Disney, one of the most copyright-addicted companies on the planet. Disney was instrumental in the passing of the dreaded Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act, passed right about the time a certain Mouse was to enter public domain. Can you like a company’s products without liking the company?

Anyway, Cory’s speech should be insightful and not to be missed.

Oh, and whatshisname will be in town Thursday, too. Yawn.

Storage Shelf Added

I spent yesterday afternoon adding a shelf to our utility closet. It was a wire Closetmaid shelf, the kind I used to sell as a hardware salesman after high school.

You’d think it would be a snap to install a wire shelf, but you’d be wrong. Because these shelves are designed to be mounted without using wall studs, they require multiple screws in the drywall. I had to carefully remove 10 or so drywall fasteners to get the old shelf out, then add another twenty to put the new shelf and the old shelf in their new locations. I did this all the while Travis was sleeping in his room ten feet away.

By the time he awoke from his nap I was done hanging shelves. Now to paste over the old holes and everything will be finished. The new shelf doubles our storage space in the utility closet.

Dry Air

During winter its a challenge to keep indoor air from getting too dry, yet when heaters defrost their coils they regularly expend a large amount of water vapor in a cloud of steam. I wonder if that steam could be safely captured and somehow used to add moisture to the indoor air? Probably not, I suppose, since it might not be clean enough, but it does make me wonder.

Cheap Thoughts: Polar Air

When a “blast of polar air” descends from the Arctic Circle, what takes its place? Balmy, humid Carribean air? Is Santa Claus so lazy that the warm weather has to go to him and not the other way around?

Where does our warm weather go for winter vacation?

On Wikipedia

Wikipedia, the Internet’s free encyclopedia, is a wonderful resource. Its strength is its ability to be updated.

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Going Green With More Green Lights

I read that the city of Raleigh is testing LED lighting in its parking decks. Then I suffered through a long stop-and-go morning commute down Capital Boulevard. I was about to suggest that if the city really wanted to go green, it would spend that money instead on synchronizing traffic lights. That would cut down on greenhouse gas emissions from idling traffic and make everyone’s life easier.

Then I drove home from work and sailed up Capital Boulevard, having only one red light out of dozens!

That almost never happens. I had to laugh when my commute undercut my argument.