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Leaving Texas

Sep 5th, 2010 by

I never thought I’d leave Texas. Earlier this year I remember re-affirming to a friend that I’d always live here. I might live in Austin or somewhere in west Texas. I might not necessarily buy a house, but I’d be around somewhere to call the Lone Star state “home”. I love the state, its history, the food, the people, the weather, and it seems to fit my inflated ego. Now I’m moving to the Seattle area.

It was a set of unexpected and sudden realizations in May in my personal life that made me want to move. The decision on where to move was surprisingly simple. However, dealing with the underlying reasons for wanting to move, the consequences of actually uprooting and finding a new job has really worn me out over the past 4 months. The constant anxiety and loss of sleep are the real reasons I’ve lost so much weight this summer.

I’ve been editing and re-editing a blog entry for months to try to explain it, but I think for now I’m going to keep that to myself. In retrospect, I wish I had done a better job jotting down my thoughts privately every single day, because it’s been emotional turmoil. On paper, all the reasoning seems to check out. No less than four people have actually told me “you have balls”. Pretty much everyone I know has been supportive of the idea, which helps.

I had pondered “someday” about moving, knowing my lease was up later this year. It was the day I came home to a lease renewal notice on my door that forced my hand and required commitment to either stay or leave. I put in notice to vacate and started figuring out what I wanted to do. I was now committed so I started selling off my furniture and giving other goods to Goodwill. I didn’t expect to keep my job, so the general plan was to take a couple months off to unwind and figure things out before being a productive member of society again.

In the end, I’m still moving and I was asked to stay on at my current job and telecommute. Finding a new job had been the scariest aspect of the whole move idea. I didn’t want to get a new apartment until I was settled down at a new job. But, I also didn’t want to be somebody’s roommate and I can’t sleep on a floor forever. I have the savings to do it, but it was all a big unknown.  Keeping my job solved a lot of problems and removed a extraordinary amount of weight from my mind. I’m finally excited at the idea of moving now!

I honestly have no idea how I’ll like it in the Pacific Northwest. I look forward to doing lots of things with my friends there and having an entire new region to explore. Being acclimated to sunny 100+ F summer days, I really am concerned about the whole drizzly cloudy weather thing. I like to think I’m more capable of adapting than I think I am, and I’ll just deal with it. The PNW also has a different breed of people, and I hear the “Seattle freeze” of making new friends is no jokes. I’m going to miss girls in sun dresses, my Tex-mex and Sonic iced tea horribly. I’m also going to be a plane flight away from my family instead of six hours on the road. Offhand, I’m going to give it two years (or 6 months if the clouds kill me). Past that, I have no idea if I’d stay, move back to Texas, or try out California.

So, this is my last week in Austin. I intend to pack up a trailer this Friday+Saturday, and be on the road next Sunday. I’ll be graciously crashing on the floor of the Coppoleigh household as I look for a new apartment in east bay, probably either Redmond, Bellevue, or Kirkland. Keeping my job means I can (and need) to get a new place as soon as possible. Unfortunately, I won’t get my two months of wanderlust camping.

I’ve been thinking about this whole move for months now to the point the newness has worn off and it’s a dead and buried issue. I know it’s a major thing, but it still doesn’t feel major. My emotions and constant anxiety have finally settled down, especially after sorting out the job issue. It feels like I’m going down a checklist: buy fuel filter, pack books, move to Seattle, water plants, do Christmas shopping.  On some days I think I’ll believe it when I’m sitting at Brown Bag Cafe.

I hope I know what I’m doing!

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Ah, Apple blue-shirts

Aug 31st, 2010 by

God bless the blue-shirts at Apple stores for helping non-tech savvy users find what they want, but they try too hard when you already know what you want.  I had heard stories of this, but hadn’t experienced it yet.  I walked into the Apple store today to buy a Mini. That’s it.  After waiting around to snag a blue-shirt, the exchange went something like this:

“Let’s go take a look at them, is this your first Mac?”

“No, this is number five for me.”

“Is this for home or for business?”

“It’s a desktop for work. (too late, I know where this is going). I just want a base Mini.”

“Er, okay, well if this is for business then we have this business program to…”

“No, I just want a Mini.”

“Right now we’re also offering $100 on a printer…”

“No, I don’t need a printer, I just need a Mini.”

“If you get one, then you’ll want to buy Apple Care for $150…”

“No, don’t need it, I just need a Mini.”

“Oh, well, if you don’t have any questions I’ll go back and get one!”

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Roadtrip: West Texas re-visit

Aug 22nd, 2010 by

All photos over on Flickr.

Saturday, Aug 21: It wasn’t until I was laying on the toolbox of my truck gazing at the stars from the side of the road that I realized I found a solitude I hadn’t been looking for. Up until now I was tired from driving all day, a bit gloomy from getting a pair of traffic citations (speeding + expired tags) on my trip and the weather still being too cloudy+stormy to do night photography & camp in Big Bend. Plus I couldn’t decide if I wanted to stay the night somewhere or start home. I had all this on my mind as I drove north of Marathon, and I just thought “damn it, stop it, stop right here.” I pulled off to ponder at some turnoff on highway 385 and noticed the sky had cleared up. I set up the camera pointing at Polaris and laid down on my sleeping bag. All of a sudden, all worries and the concerns of what to do completely disappeared and it was very peaceful.

For being a main highway between Marathon and Fort Stockton, it was a very quiet place. For the three hours I was taking photos, only three cars passed by. There was a strong breeze that really cooled things down, to the point I needed to be in the sleeping bag. Nearby I could occasionally hear packs of coyotes howling at each other. The moon was pretty bright, giving the land a white glow. Unfortunately this glow made the star photography hard, despite fiddling with exposure settings the moon was just too bright. I saw several bright green meteoroids burn up (Leonid?) and a few faint satellites pass.  Firing up a constellation app on the iPad, I learned & saw where Cassiopeia was for the first time!  It was so nice here I decided to just spend the night on this little turnoff, and hope nobody stopped to bug me.

This day started by waking up at a rest stop on I-10 near Ozona, having gotten pulled over the night before on the way out. I wanted to visit Big Bend again, but wasn’t sure where I wanted to go.  In Marathon I pulled over at a little visitor information center. Thumbing through a random travel guide, a statement caught my eye:

“Highway 170 between Presidio and Lajitas, was designated by National Geographic as one of the most scenic drives in North America”

I knew this was exactly where I wanted to go, so I headed over through Alpine and Marfa and down to Presidio. On the way there I brushed with a thunderstorm and got to see a lightning show off on the distance. The temperature swung greatly from 100 F to 75 within the storm and back to 107 when I got to Presidio. This is a odd town to me. One fork in the road leads to the Mexico border, the other leads to the main street. It’s very hot, lots of shoddy gravel lots and junked up trailerhouses.

As soon as I left Presidio on FM 170 I ran right into the middle of the thunderstorm. The highway was underwater in places due to flash flooding. I was in a downpour, getting hit by little hail occasionally and the wind was very gusty. Basketball sized rocks were washing off the side of hills into the roadway. I was afraid there would be no scenic viewing on this trip, but after a few miles I was able to push to the other side of the storm and it was clear again.

FM 170 really is a great scenic road. It’s endless dips and in very good condition. It runs right along the Rio Grande, up a few hills, and surrounded by canyons and large mesas. Mexico is often just a few meters away. There’s even the leftovers of a movie set from Uphill All the Way that I wandered about. It was kinda sketchy when I saw fairly fresh footprints in mud on the riverbank.  I imagined illegals or drug mules hiding out in these prop buildings, and I was unarmed 20 miles from anywhere, so I left. Back on the road I stopped top of the tallest hill to take photographs. While I was there the wind kicked up and I was being sandblasted by little particles and rocks as I walked around. Afterward I wiped my brow and noticed I was completely covered in sand. Fortunately, this was the last of the freak weather I encountered.

Lajitas is another odd town on 170. There’s a nice looking hotel and the “Lajitas Boardwalk”, this little strip of well kept stores that looks completely abandoned. At the other end of town is a general store, a fire department and the town hall. That’s it. I’m not even sure I saw any homes!

From there I traveled into Terlingua/Study Butte and onward to Big Bend. I drove through the park to the Chisos Mountain Basin area.  I had no idea there were campgrounds, a general store and a little motel here. It is a really nice area! The sun was almost down, and the storm was beginning to catch up with me. It was cloudy and cooled off again. You’d see lightning and it would make this wonderful thundering sound as it bounced around in the mountains around the basin. Otherwise it was completely quiet. This area also serves as trail heads for several peak trails, including to the tallest in Big Bend, Emory Peak.

At the southwest end of the basin is a giant notch called “The Window” where the basin drains. There’s a great little trail from the parking lot out to a viewing area where you can just sit and look at the canyon. You really couldn’t go wrong here, everything in this area had a great view of it. There were plenty of chairs and picnic tables, plus many of the lodge rooms faced it. A side note, the room rates are pretty steep ($100+) and spartan (no tubs, no A/C in some), but if you just want a place to collapse and shower after hiking, they’re perfect. I’d probably recommend it, I definitely recommend the location.

Because of the impending storms, lack of rain gear, and it being too cloudy to see stars I decided to leave Big Bend. When I got to Marathon I hadn’t decided what I wanted to do and had my crisis of choices which lead to stargazing.

Sunday, Aug 22: I woke up at 10 AM to a warm breeze blowing through the windows of the truck. I survived the night without getting robbed and murdered or having any visitors. It was still quiet, I remember hearing only two cars pass by as I was waking up. I was hungry and went back to Marathon in search of food. I actually recall seeing a few places to eat, but there was one, Marathon Coffee Shop that had a little crowd on the front porch that gave it life. I had a turkey sandwich and coffee (serve yourself), both were great. On the counter was a large pickle jar as a “Texas sized” tip jar that made me lolz. There was a postcard rack with a cute sign chastising e-mail by saying there’s nothing more precious than a handwritten note.  I of course was sitting there uploading photos to my iPad. The camera kit, btw, is a great add-on.

After I finished lunch, I decided I didn’t want to get home so early so I sat out to wander. Against what I didn’t want to do last night, I drove back into Alpine for no reason. I took a few photographs and hit up Sonic. The weather was so lovely, clear, and moderately warm. It was fantastic to have the windows rolled down and listening to the stereo the whole way home.

Despite the fuss I make of not wanting to go home at nights, it certainly feels nice right now to shower and sit down. I think if I do this again, I need to find some better constellation and satellite tracker apps for my iPad+iPhone. The random free one I installed was certainly instantly useful and helped me find Cassiopeia, but kind of annoying to use. I never was a Boy Scout nor finished Astronomy in college, so I have no idea what I’m looking at at night and want to know!

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155

Aug 5th, 2010 by

I’ve been at 155 for a week now, so I’ve officially lost 20 pounds. huh. I was totally not expecting to get down to that weight at all. Now I wish I hadn’t taken my old skinnier clothes to Goodwill a few months ago, as I’ve ran out of belt notches. I guess I should start doing side bends so I can get those teen heartthrob obliques!

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Weekend roadtrip: New Orleans

Aug 2nd, 2010 by

This weekend lead me on a last minute trip to Houston, and ultimately to New Orleans. The drive surprisingly wasn’t bad, roughly 500 miles and takes about an hour longer than it does to get to my parent’s. I-10 going east is certainly much nicer scenery than it is going west, more green and actual trees. An overnight stay at a Beaumont rest stop, and I made it to NOLA about noon. I had no idea Lake Pontchartrain was so huge!

The first thing I did was wind up in the Lower 9th Ward (“L9W”) which was completely under several feet of water back during Katrina. I have no idea what this neighborhood actually looked like before, but there’s not much to it anymore. Street after street of lots that have empty foundations, overgrown weeds, or a house with some sort of major damage. Everything is either brand new or completely busted up, and it’s all for rent. On the west side of the ward, there were some designer houses that went in. These were on high stilts, came in floral colors and had many solar panels installed.

"Commercial license since 73, No job BP"

Next, I went down to Venice to see what was going on with the Gulf oil spill. I didn’t really know what would be a hotbed of activity (apparently I wanted Port Fourchon), I just picked the southernmost road I could find. Along the way I saw the Naval Air Station, with a F/A-18 perched out front. Next was Empire Marina with several fishing boats, several with yellow oil boom on-board. One boat had a large sign that said “Commercial license since 73; No job BP“. Lots of BP hate around here, many signs calling for prayer for fishermen.

Venice had quite a bit of activity, and it looks like it’d be busy without the oil spill. Several oil and fishing companies are represented here. There was at least one large parking area for response workers and dozens of temporary trailer homes. Several heliports are here, and they all appeared to be launching flights to take workers out. Deep into the bayou were several private company work yards and harbors. Each company had people in tents manning the gates, the occasional sheriff’s deputy, and shuttles to carry people to/from heliports and town. BP’s lot had a flurry of bus activity and even had state patrol parked out front. From here, it was a mere 68 miles to the MC252 well out in the gulf.

Also parked out in the Mississippi River is the TMT A Whale, a giant oil skimmer. This has been in the news a lot lately as it’s been going through trials. Last I heard it was decided to be too big, so I guess now it’s idling away its time here. I also saw the white observation airship floating around. I never saw any oil here, much less any coastline. One needs a boat to get out in the water to see things.

The parish sheriff’s office is hardcore here. Highway 23 is well patrolled by deputies, and they have a large presence in Venice harbor. They were escorting several wide loads down the road. Near the company yards, they have an intense little tactical compound of office trailers. It even features a shipping container turned into a jail (called “Jail-to-Go”). I found out later that apparently BP was using inmate labor in the cleanup, so this portable jail was to help assist if there were any problems. I wish I had taken a photo, but I was afraid winding up inside it.

Back to New Orleans, I sat out to find a nice quiet dinner and found myself fighting with the French Quarter at 5 PM on a Saturday evening. I had no idea where to go or park, and some of the parking was quite expensive at $25/day. Cars and people everywhere. Eventually I gave up and parked at the aquarium.

It was crazy hot this weekend and I didn’t really think ahead enough to bring shorts or linens. I was thoroughly drenched in sweat as I walked down Bourbon Street, ducking in wherever I could that was air conditioned. I spent about six hours wandering up and down and across the quarter. Overall it was a great experience taking photos, eating and drinking, and people watching. There’s certainly a large number of attractive blondes here!  I think the bead throwers have really lowered their standards since there was virtually no nudity. On the food side of things, I tried an alligator po-boy (which was huge) and cannoli at some Italian place.

By midnight I was thoroughly filthy and tired from walking around and sweating so much. Being what it is, there’s not many places to sit down and people watch without being in the middle of a bar, so I decided to leave. The iPad told me if I wanted a cheap motel room, I needed to look by the airport. $55 later and I was down for the night. In retrospect, a wise tourist would have planned ahead to get a motel room first (in FQ or near the streetcar line) in order to clean up and have a convenient place to crash later without thinking about it.

Sunday morning I had planned to go back to the French Quarter to see a giant cemetery. By 11 AM it was already 95 F so I quickly ruled this out and decided that was a trip. After breakfast I drove across the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway. I didn’t know how large the lake was exactly, so I was impressed when I saw that this was a 21 mile long bridge. It was neat to be in the middle and not being able to see the west/east shore and just barely able to see the north/south shores. From here I drove back to Austin and arrived at 8:30 PM.

More pics on Flickr.

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Weekend daytrips: Fredericksburg, Corpus Christi

Jul 26th, 2010 by

July 18, Fredericksburg: The weekend before last was a trip to Fredericksburg, TX.  Along the way in Johnson City, I stopped by the Johnson Settlement.  I’m ashamed to admit I’ve been playing Frontierville on Facebook a lot lately, and this park screamed “real life homestead” to me so I had to go look around out of amusement. It has everything: windmill, barn, crooked wooden fence, wild flowers, horses, cabin, outhouse, even a horse-drawn wagon.

Another place I stopped in was the National Museum of the Pacific War in Fredericksburg.  I’ve been through this town at least a dozen times on the way to Enchanted Rock and had never been to this place.  I thought it only consisted of Nimitz’s birthplace, but there’s actually a large museum on the street behind it. I had arrived late in the afternoon and the girl at the information desk stressed that I’d probably need around five hours to take everything in. So, I did what I could in the couple of hours I had before closing.

I’m a bit of a WWII junkie and there was a lot of good material here.  A significant amount of background material going back to the 1800s about China and Japan was presented to highlight the events that eventually led us to war. Several large exhibits here, a B-52, a Japanese sub, a model of Fat Man, and several other planes that I forget the details about. I recommend visiting if you’re in Fredericksburg!

Hiking on Enchanted Rock was uneventful. It was a real scorcher of an afternoon, so virtually nobody was there. On the summit hike I only ran into about a dozen people.

July 24th, Corpus Christi: Last Saturday was a trip to Corpus Christi and the Gulf coast.  I was happily cooling off in the Corpus Christi bay like everyone else until I saw a jellyfish in the water, then another, then another, and then another. They were all over the damn place, watch the water for a few minutes and you’d see another.  Several were washed up on the beach. Notably, they really do have some mass and are squishy to step on, like firm Jell-O.

The beaches on Padre Island were much nicer. Much finer sand that was easy on the feet, “real” ocean, and few people on the vehicle-restricted part of the beach.  Wading around the surf for an hour is a great leg workout. Taking the long way home, I went up Mustang Island to Port Aransas.  I guess I’d never actually been to Port A before. For one, I didn’t know getting back to shore on highway 361 required a short ferry boat ride.  Compared to Corpus, which I thought was rather sleepy, Port A is a happening little town.  Being Saturday evening, all of the bars and restaurants were packed and people were everywhere. I now see why this is a popular vacation spot!

Sunday, July 25: Yesterday afternoon was a visit to the Zilker Botanical Garden. I had no idea the park was 30 acres, but that now explains what’s between Barton Springs and Zilker Park in all the trees. The Oriental garden is nice, serene, cool and shady and had several running water features.

What I especially liked about this park was the number of stone pathways leading everywhere. In other gardens I’ve seen, you had to stay on the main walkway. Here, you can follow rock paths to really get in amongst the plants and landscaping to explore up close. I didn’t spend as much time as I intended there, the afternoon sun was really heating things up so I retreated for lemonade and ice cream.

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159

Jul 15th, 2010 by

It feels like such a great sin not to be doing something out in the sun after work. Nevertheless the past several weeks I’ve been bored and sick of the apartment in the evenings and cycling hasn’t been appealing to me, so I’ve taken up walking. I usually go for a 3-4 mile walk (not even a jog) around Town Lake every other day to watch the sun set or even a 10 PM stroll around the Capitol just to get out of the apartment. As a partial side effect of this, I hopped on the scale this morning and I weighed in at 159. It’s been a very long time (2003?) since I’ve been in the one fifties!

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Roadtrip: Boston, MA to Redmond, WA

Jul 6th, 2010 by

Monday, June 28: Monday morning I departed for Boston for the flawless, epic road trip. There was a storm system rolling in on the east coast, so both legs of the trip were delayed for a couple of hours.  While waiting at the gate at EWR, some old woman was getting irate at the gate attendant for the delay and demanded to know “just what kind of storm is causing the problem?”  The rep was a bit befuddled and answered “Ma’am, there’s major thunderstorms all up and down the east coast. You know, lots of lightning and wind gusts make things unsafe.”  She huffed, turned and went away.

I finally arrived at BOS around 8:30 in the evening. Jordan picked me up, we had dinner and crashed for the night.  It felt weird being back in Boston, a city I’ve been to a few times now and who knows if I’ll ever set foot there again.  No furniture was left at Fight Club house, so I was trying to get comfortable on the hardwood floor by laying on a pillow and my jacket in front of a box fan in front of an open window. This basically reminded me of laying in camp at Burning Man.

Tuesday, June 29: Right at 8:30 AM we hit the road. We decided to just follow I-90 the whole way.  This had the advantage in that I got to see upstate New York for the first time.  Driving across Massachusetts and New York (and most of the mid-west) was pretty uneventful. Lots of road, lots of trees, even more toll plazas, and endless 65 MPH speed limit. Niagara Falls was a mere 16 miles away from Buffalo, but this really wasn’t a sight seeing trip.

Before we got to Toledo, Jordan gave me a quick manual transmission lesson in a rest stop parking lot.  Of course the first thing I did was stall the engine a couple of times, but finally got the hang of it enough to take over driving.  We stopped for dinner at a random sane sounding restaurant in Toledo that came up on the Garmin StreetPilot, this sketchy sports bar-turned-BBQ place that had more televisions than patrons.  I was adoring the Ohio accent of our friendly okay-looking blonde waitress, Destiny. With a name and accent like that she sounded like a cliche 24/7 diner waitress from a movie, but was still too young to be jaded on life. Outside of the restaurant, I think Jordan had a little moment where he realized everything he owned was now sitting in the parking lot. I thought it’d be a really good idea to park on a truck stop scale to see just how much his life and trinkets weighed.

Wednesday, June 30: Sometime after midnight I pulled into a ghetto section of Chicago to get petrol.  People were loitering all over the place and some aggressive hag at the gas station sat down next to me as I pumped gas, wanting to know why I wouldn’t give her any money. She had a laugh at me when she walked away as the tank overfilled and sprayed out gasoline. Rolling onwards, 4 AM and the sun was rising over Wisconsin.  I was hoping to find a good place to take a sunrise picture, but it never presented itself.

Around 7 AM I crossed the Mississippi River.  I had now been up for 24 hours and was getting very drowsy. Jordan took over and I promptly passed out for a while. When we neared the South Dakota border, it made me smile to see the “Welcome to Minnesota” sign that I tagged back in April during the Austin-MN-Austin trip.

Up until South Dakota the lack of A/C had been fine.  As the day went on, it got sunnier and hotter.  The strong gusty wind didn’t help, it felt like we were being blasted by a blow dryer.  After many hours of rolling grasslands and many signs telling us the remaining distance we finally reached Wall Drug.  This is an interesting tourist trap, and after baking in the sun I see how their gimmick of free ice water to get people to stop really took off. Half the town seems to be devoted to the Wall empire.  In fact, take Jackson, WY, replace the high-end wares in all the endless tightly packed stores with tourist trinkets, put it under the ownership of one family, and you’ll sort of have Wall Drug. I saw a group of people in cycling gear and overheard them say they were cycling from Seattle to New York, which was amusing since we were driving the opposite.

I took over again after Rapid City, SD. We decided if we made it to Billings, MT that night we’d be making excellent progress. By Sheridan, WY I was getting sleepy again so we just crashed at the nearest hotel.

Thursday, July 1: The next morning I continued on into Montana. Montana was pretty, but there’s so much of it that goes on for hours and hours much like South Dakota.  We passed through a brief rain storm which made the plains prettier and cooled things off, the only time we saw rain until Washington.  We stopped in this little middle-of-nowhere town named Alberton to stretch out. Not much to it. Both ends of the town were exit ramps to I-90.  The city hall was a double-wide and they had a quaint little bakery.  The “farmer’s market” consisted of two pop-up canopies with one selling hot dogs and the other selling handmade necklaces. Some woman was there playing a harp.  Another guy was walking down the sidewalk from the promising local bar, beer in hand, dog following at his side.

Things started getting interesting in Idaho.  The mountains really opened up and the road got twistier. Chugging up one side of a mountain in third gear at 50 MPH, barreling down the other side at 83 MPH.  We finally hit Washington sometime around 8 PM, just six hours left!  By now both of us were equally tired and I traded off yet again. Jordan was a champ and finished the rest of Washington after downing coffee and a handful of snacks.  The state really does turn into desert nothing-land after Spokane. Passing over the Cascades at night in the rain made for good anticipation of death.  Are we going to skid out of control? Where does the road curve into? Oh no it’s all plunging downhill!

Friday, July 2: We finally arrived in Redmond on Friday morning around 1 AM. 3,108 miles and 48 hours of drive time. This is roughly the distance of my AUS-WY-AUS trip, just five hours longer. Clementine gave all she could, but her four cylinders barely carried us up the hills.  I wished I had taken more photos; there wasn’t that much that caught my eye (especially on the east coast) and for the rest I was either driving or asleep. Looking back at it four days later, I just don’t remember large swaths of the trips.  I know I was there, I know what parts I was awake for, but it’s all just a blur.

Driving stick wasn’t so bad.  I certainly had a few times where I somehow skipped a gear and had a couple of starts in 3rd gear.  I still cringed every time I let out the clutch when going into first gear, wondering if I’m doing it correctly or going to stall out. Other than that, I rather enjoyed it and could see myself owning an auto with a manual transmission if I had to.

The set of photos that I do have are up on the Flickr.

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The road warrior rides again

Jun 23rd, 2010 by

I’m excited! Monday I fly to Boston to co-pilot a friend who is moving from Boston to Seattle. I was kicking myself that I didn’t go on the last BOS-SEA trip with H, so this is my last chance in the foreseeable future. Around 3,050 miles, roughly the length of my Wyoming trip. I’m pretty confident this can be done in 3 or 3.5 days. The interesting bit is his vehicle has a manual transmission, and I’ve never driven stick before. He promises learning is easy, so I’ll either show up in SEA a stick shift pro or we’ll be replacing the clutch in the South Dakota badlands on the side of I-90.

This also conveniently fills in a lot of the northern portion of my squiggle map. I realized that doing this, I’ll have traveled in almost every state of the lower 48. The only thing that will be left is Vermont, North Dakota, Kentucky, and West Virginia. These are odd, I don’t know when I’ll ever visit them. Any air force kids out there who can get me a tour of Minot AFB so I’ll have a compelling reason to visit North Dakota?

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Thoughts on iPad on the go

Jun 18th, 2010 by

I’ve suddenly discovered the iPad is deadly convenient for books and movies. Instead of milling around Barnes & Noble or waiting for a 2-day FedEx from Amazon, I can one-click order things and they show up via the Kindle app on the iPad. Want to watch a movie? It’s usually right there with Netflix streaming.

It’s almost perfect for air travel. In the air, it’s very convenient to stuff in a seat back pocket, or go through email or read an e-book without worrying about the guy in the seat in front of me leaning back and crushing my laptop screen or praying for a seat with a power connector.

In the terminal, it’s another story. The lack of multitasking is annoying. Fire up irc, nobody chatting, want to switch over to email? Gotta quit irc and miss anything new. It’s not clear that it will ever really be solved due to Apple being very particular on what they’ll allow in the background (audio, location, application suspension). But, the upshot with 3G, suck it $7.95/day airport wireless.

Google Maps is handy on the road. My Garmin StreetPilot doesn’t have a lot of details in places like Grand Tetons National Park. With the iPad I can fire up Google Maps for more detail, including topological contours. Amusingly without rotation lock on, turn a corner and the screen flips. Unfortunately, as I discovered with the iPhone last year, the places you generally really need a map in, there’s no cellular coverage.

Apparently the iPad also requires some serious juice to charge. More than once I’ve noticed that plugging the iPad into my MacBook it tells me it’s not charging. I don’t know if this is because the MBP is drawing all the charge to its own batteries first, or a limitation of the USB port. Plug it into the wall, it’s happy.

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