Ubiquitous WiFi

I'm not sure why, but Southwest changes its flight times about every other month. This week I am flying from Oakland to Salt Lake City at 4:00 pm while last month the flight was at 3:35 pm. You wouldn't think 25 minutes would make much of a difference, but I use public transportation to get from my office, near the San Francisco airport. As I have to go across the San Mateo bridge there is a single bus line I can use and it is mostly geared towards commuters. That means there is a bus at 11:00 am, one at 12:45 pm, and one at 2:30 pm. The 2:30 bus puts me at the airport way too late and so I take the 12:45 pm bus to catch my flight. I get to the airport at 2:00 pm if everything goes smoothly after taking a train and another bus. That gives me 2 full hours to waste at the airport. I liked it better when I was only wasting an hour and 35 minutes. Like I said, it may not sound like much, but week after week, it adds up.

This week I decided to maximize my time and came to the airport with a list of tasks to accomplish. Updating my blog was one such task. This wouldn't be possible without an Internet connection. Amazingly, I also had an Internet connection on the bus across the San Mateo bridge. Finally, chances are good that I will have an Internet connection on the flight as well.

Sometimes I want to be disconnected from the rest of the world and I loathe the ubiquitous availability of connections. However I really appreciate it when I can connect when I want to and get real work done. Besides, when I really want to get away from e-mail and the Internet, I just use the excuse that my battery died.

In Japan

This month starts a series of regular trips to Tokyo, Japan. I will probably be making the trip every couple of months. I have been to Japan before, but it has been at least fifteen years since I was last here. While I enjoyed my first trip to Japan, I was only here for two days. This time I get to spend an entire week and really get the chance to see the city.

There are several things that stand out relating to technology. First is the quality of the Internet service in the hotel. I have no problem using Skype to talk to my family back home. Yesterday we did a video conference for about 30 minutes and it didn't cost me a dime. While my iPhone has the ability to work all over the world, I have turned it off after hearing horror stories of people traveling internationally and getting phone bills worth about the same amount as a new compact car. Skype works great and so that is how I am communicating with my wife and kids.

The second thing that stands out is the quality of public transportation. I arrived into Haneda airport at 11pm on a Saturday evening. I got through customs, changed some money, and caught an express train to Shinagawa where I am staying. The train left exactly on time, was clean, and easy to figure out. This is a sharp contrast to the poor public transit system in the Bay Area. Last night I was with a group of coworkers and we missed our train by mere seconds. Not more than 5 minutes later, another train came along. In the Bay Area, we would have been stuck anywhere from 15 to 60 minutes waiting. Furthermore all the signs were in both Japanese and English, which made it easy to get around. The best part about the public transportation here is that it is affordable. It cost $5 to get from the airport to the hotel whereas the Bay Area would have cost over twice as much for the same distance.

Now that I am over my jet lag, I get to spend the next couple of days in the office. I will be interested to see what other technological differences I notice between here and back home. So far Japan has been fun and so I hope I am not disappointed.

To Bike or Not to Bike

Last weekend I drove my car back to Salt Lake from San Francisco. I only got pulled over once, when I stopped in a small Nevada town to get gas. The officer was nice enough when he realized I was just trying to get gas and use the restroom. He let me off with a warning. Otherwise the drive was mostly uneventful.

I drove my car back because it is time for the annual smog and emissions check. I could license the car in California, but I don't have a mailing address there nor do I want to pay the massively larger licensing fee. My plan was to drive the car back to California this weekend once the licensing is taken care of.

Now the question is if I want to bring the car back at all. I ride my bike to and from work so I really only need the car for two reasons: trips to the airport and trips to Scout meetings on Mondays. The airport problem can be solved with public transportation. It really cuts into my days, but it works. The only remaining issue is getting to Scouts.

In an effort to promote a "greener way of thinking", Google maps now has the additional options of getting directions using public transportation, walking, or riding your bike. I did a quick search to see how difficult it is to get from my office to the Elks Lodge in Redwood City, where we have our Scout meetings and it is only 10 miles. Amazingly, taking public transportation takes the same amount of time as riding my bike. I might as well ride my bike.

Several years ago I used to ride my bike 18 miles each way to work. That amounted to 36 miles of cycling every day. I loved it because I could eat as much food as I wanted. I never had to worry about being on a diet because I was constantly burning more calories than I could take in. The only problem was when we moved offices, I continued to eat as much as I wanted. In an effort to drop a few pounds, I'm thinking it is time to leave the car in Salt Lake and use the bike as my sole means of transportation in California. Maybe it is my starving stomach talking, but I think I could get used to eating more than I am right now.

Public Transportation

I was complaining to a good friend about how it is difficult to get around the San Francisco Bay Area without an automobile. I currently have my car here, but would like to drive it back to Salt Lake so my wife can use it to replace one of our dying vehicles. My friend only has one working car and suggested that he does quite well with the help of public transportation.

I have my bike that I can use to get to and from work, which is less than four miles away. Next to my office is a grocery store and so I can easily stock up on food (with the help of a backpack). The only problem I need to solve is how to get to and from the airport each week.

With the help of the Internet, I looked into taking a shuttle bus. While San Francisco airport is only a few miles from my office, Oakland is less expensive to fly in and out of. Unfortunately that means a round-trip $100 shuttle ride each week. It is only $25 to keep my car at the airport each weekend and so the shuttle bus is more expensive than just keeping my car here.

Thinking back to my good friend's comment about public transportation, there is the option of Bay Area Rapid Transit, or BART. BART runs between Oakland and San Francisco Airports at a cost of about $9. My office has a shuttle bus to the BART station and so it is just a matter of looking up times and figuring out schedules. Once again, it is the Internet to the rescue. Looking at the BART website, the ride takes about an hour. I think I may have solved the problem. Now if I could figure out how to keep it from raining when I am on my bike . . .