Avoid SFO for the Next 3 Weeks

Monday morning I flew from Salt Lake to San Francisco (SFO) for my weekly commute. As we got ready to board the plane, the captain came out and said we had a 2-hour delay. They unloaded the early boarders and then posted that the flight had been cancelled. My heart sank. Then the gate agent said that we would be heading to Oakland. So in the matter of 2 minutes, the flight went from on-time, to delayed, to cancelled, and then to a new destination. Personally I think the relief of not having the flight cancelled made the new destination much more palatable.

Once we arrived in Oakland, the airline paid for Uber to deliver me to my office. While the distance from Oakland to my office is significantly longer than from SFO, I thought the airline did a great job of taking care of their passengers (it is Alaska for those interested).

San Francisco is repairing one of their runways over the next 3 weeks. Unfortunately the repair cuts through 2 other runways and so they are down to a single runway instead of the usual four. The construction is expected to be completed on the 27th of September and until then air travel in and out of SFO is going to be painful.

Knowing about the construction I have been checking arriving flights from Salt Lake and departing flights in an attempt to guess where my flight this evening would depart. All the flights have left Salt Lake and gone to Oakland so I know that is a constant. Monday night's flight flew out of Oakland. Tuesday's flight made it out of SFO. Then last night's flight departed from San Jose. When I woke up this morning I didn't have a clue where I would be leaving from. I got to the office and got word that my flight was cancelled. I immediately called the airline and was told I could get on a 1pm flight through Portland. While I rebooked the flight, I got an e-mail saying my flight had been changed to San Jose. I got put back on my original flight and then figured out how to get to San Jose. The airline helped significantly and so I can't complain about them at all.

Ultimately the problem is that the runways in San Francisco need to be fixed and they determined now is the best time to make the fix. That has airlines scrambling to accommodate delays and cancellations. So if you can avoid SFO for the next 3 weeks, do yourself a favor and avoid it.

A Man with One Clock

I am at the San Francisco airport waiting to catch my flight back to Salt Lake and thought my flight might actually leave on time. Why? I checked the monitor and it said my flight is on time. Then I logged into my e-mail and it told me my flight is delayed by 2 hours! I have a computer and am too lazy to go back and check the flight monitor again and so I logged onto the airline website and asked for a flight status. It says my flight is only 45 minutes delayed. So what is the correct answer? This reminds me of an old saying: "A man with one clock knows what time it is, a man with two isn't quite sure." In my case, I have 3 and none of them agree.

One of the problems with keeping travelers up-to-date with the latest information is that it is often wrong. An airline may see a delay about to happen and so they notify passengers. Then a pilot will work a miracle and arrive sooner than expected. The seemingly 2-hour delay gets shortened to 45 minutes.

A quick check of my e-mail between paragraphs and I have received a message indicating that my flight is now only 45-minutes delayed. I have 2 sources of information that agree. It will probably change again before I actually board the flight and so I don't put much stock into my departure time until it actually happens. Fortunately I have a really good book to read and don't mind hanging out at the airport too much. I would like to get in at a reasonable hour but a delay is not heartbreaking.

True Civilization

This past weekend I had the opportunity to drive from Salt Lake to Gooding, Idaho. Ever hear of Gooding, Idaho? No, I didn't think so. The only reason I know it is there is because my wife's sister lives there with her family. There was a family event up there and so we made the relatively short drive to get together. During the quick trip I was surprised at how I found myself comparing life in small-town Idaho with life in Salt Lake and life in the Bay Area.

One may be tempted to believe that cities are much more civilized than small towns. After this trip, I believe the opposite is true. The first indication was the traffic and speed limits. While the distance I traveled was around 250 miles, the trip only took around 3 hours each way. That same trip in California would have taken over 4 hours. Why? Because the speed limit in Utah and Idaho is 80 miles per hour. It is only 65 in the Golden State. Furthermore there was no need to fight any sort of traffic as there were relatively few cars on the road. The last time I left the Bay Area headed to Salt Lake, I spent an hour or so fighting traffic just to get out of the Bay Area. I thought that was ridiculous given that I left at 9:30 pm.

My next observation came when we stopped for dinner. We pulled off the Interstate and found a relatively popular family dinning restaurant chain. There is an identical restaurant found near my home in Salt Lake as well as one near my office in the Bay Area. The menu is the same at each of the 3 places and one would think the food and service would be as well. Nope, not even close. This small-town restaurant in the middle of Idaho had significantly better service and the food actually matched what I saw on the menu. When does that ever happen? The menu always looks awesome and then the food gets to you and one would think it was run over by a truck before arriving at the table.

I thought about the joys of civilization as I drove to the motel to check in for the night. While I could find a much higher quality place to stay in both Salt Lake and the Bay Area, there wasn't a chance I would find the same quality for the price I was paying. The motel had clean rooms and a very nice swimming pool with attached hot tub. Again, a point for small-town America.

My final check was to pull out my smartphone and check the Internet connection. It was LTE speeds with a stronger signal than I get at my office in San Mateo, California. I did a quick check to see if there were any Uber drivers in the area. That is the one short-fall of a small town: no Uber. Of course the town was so small you could walk from one end to the other in a few minutes and so a taxi or Uber would be pointless, but I had to check.

With all of the technology we have available to us, why do small towns continue to shrink while large cities continue to get bigger? Can't we have more telecommuters? What is wrong with us? Small-town America is much more civilized than our overcrowded cities. Maybe we might want to start taking advantage of that.

It is Good to be Home

Friday night I made it from Tokyo back to Salt Lake without too much difficulty. It is good to be home again. Unfortunately it is a short weekend as I have to head to California for the week ahead. Two days in my own house is not enough and so I am looking forward to being able to return again Thursday evening.

While in Tokyo I used a number of technologies to keep in touch with my wife. Normally I use Skype but my wife's schedule didn't allow it this time. At least not computer to computer. I did use Skype on my iPhone while in my hotel and called my wife directly on her mobile phone number. It cost me only a few cents per minute but was well worth it.

My wife wasn't always available to talk and so I sent her a number of text messages. I kept my iPhone in airplane mode and just turned on the WiFi. As my wife and I both have iPhones, we were able to exchange text messages over WiFi and without me having to connect to the local network in Japan. I have written about this before and my son informs me that you can do the same thing with Android phones, but I have yet to give it a shot.

Next week my wife and my schedules should sync up a bit more nicely and that will make talking much easier. I love that technology has made it easier to call home as I will be missing it a lot this week.

Yet Another New Job

I have just changed jobs (again) and am now working in the San Francisco area. While I have spent the last decade of my career working for small startup companies, I now work for one of the largest consumer electronic companies in the world. I have to say that it is a refreshing change. At the last place I was working, I started at 7:30 am and worked until 8:00pm every day. They also expected me to work weekends. My new company has much more reasonable hours.

I work in the research and development group of the company's video game division. My two boys think I have the coolest job ever. I would have to agree. Yesterday my boss told me it was OK to play video games while I am at work. He told me it was kind of expected and so I should not be shy about sitting down with a Playstation 3, checking out a few games from our extensive library, and playing them during the week. When I told that to my sons, they got jealous.

While my job seems awesome, it does come with one downside: I live in Salt Lake but work in San Francisco. That means I fly out on Monday mornings, live on my sailboat during the week, and fly home on Friday nights. Everyone asks how that works with my family. My wife hates it, but my kids that are still at home don't want to move. My oldest daughter is in college and so she doesn't care. My oldest son will be in college this fall and so it doesn't matter to him either. The two youngest ski for the Snowbird Ski Team and so they don't want to leave Utah. I have given them the choice of skiing every day after school or being with Dad and they would rather ski.

I guess that means I will have to rely on technology to help me continue to spend time with my wife and kids. Hopefully that translates into some interesting BLOG entries. Until then, I'm just glad to be away from the dog.