Glad to be Home

My wife and I have been traveling a lot over the past several months. We spent a week in Hawaii and then followed that up with five weeks on another island a month later. This past weekend we visited my youngest son in Ohio with his family. Last night we returned home and my wife let me know she is done traveling for awhile.

Even when travel goes perfectly, it can be rather arduous. Last night we experienced a number of small disruptions that all added up so that we didn't get home until 2 hours after our scheduled arrival. I'm sure that contributed to my wife's comment about not wanting to go anywhere. I admit it felt like a death by a thousand cuts. There wasn't any one issue that made for a big delay, just a lot of little ones.

We left Columbus, Ohio on time and arrived in Atlanta, Georgia early. Those that know the Atlanta airport know it is huge with 6 different terminals. Naturally we landed at terminal A and had to make our way to terminal F to catch our next flight. As I mentioned, we landed early and had plenty of time to take the train. It still required a lot of walking even with the train. We got to our new gate and found two seats where we patiently awaited for our next flight.

Our plane came in from Athens, Greece and required thorough cleaning. While we had a plane, we started boarding a little late. Then the flight only had 9 empty seats. An Airbus A-330 has a lot of seats and so it took a very long time to load all of those passengers. Our scheduled departure time came and went with people continuing to load the plane. Finally everyone boarded and we pushed back about fifteen minutes late. Soon the pilot came on and explained that the wind shifted and we had to reposition the plane to the opposite end of the runway with all of the other flights preparing to take off. Once in the air, the flight went relatively well but we landed 40 minutes late.

I am a firm believer in two types of luggage: carried on and lost. We carried on all our bags and made a straight line for long-term parking once we landed in Salt Lake City. A lot of flights were landing at the same time and the line to board the shuttle to get to our car was massive. It took about 15 minutes just to board the bus and another 10 minutes to get to our car. Fortunately SLC has an abundance of non-human cashiers at the parking exit and it did not require waiting in line to leave the airport.

By this point, we thought we had experienced all of the delays for the evening until we came across late-night road construction. We had five lanes of traffic merge down to one. That added another delay which compounded on the others as we tried to get home to go to sleep. Eventually we made it, albeit significantly later than we hoped.

Those that travel a lot have come to appreciate being at home. Those that don't travel much but then do a few trips in rapid succession discover how satisfying home can be. My wife falls into that later group. At least we can rest for a month or so before our next trip.

Mobile Phones Can Be Painful

It is too hot here in Utah this summer but I still got on my bike and headed out for a morning ride today. I started the ride in the heat and it only got hotter. I looked forward to completing my ride but towards the end I came across an auto/pedestrian accident that lengthened my time in the sun. Guess who wins an an auto vs. pedestrian accident? If you said, "Nobody," you are correct. Fortunately the pedestrian was not hurt severely but did get taken away in an ambulance.

I arrived just after the accident happened and took it upon myself to direct traffic around the poor woman lying in the street. She had the young driver of the car next to her on the phone with emergency medical services, also known as 911. The poor driver was crying and explaining how the accident happened. While directing traffic I tried to help the other two people that stopped and were performing first aid while we waited for the paramedics to arrive.

So what happened? Why did a young girl getting off the freeway run into another woman walking across a crosswalk? I did not witness the accident and can only share what I heard at the scene and can surmise based on where the car stopped and the victim lay. Having seen my fair share of bicycle accidents, the pedestrian was not hit very hard. The driver came off the freeway and was slowing down as she came to the intersection. She was distracted by her phone and didn't see the pedestrian in the crosswalk until it was too late. She immediately stopped and got out of her car to help the injured person. That was mistake number 1 and the biggie.

There was a second mistake made by the pedestrian crossing the street. She was also on her phone and missed noticing that a car was coming down the road. Her mistake was significantly less important when finding fault for the accident but one that could have saved her some significant pain. Had she been paying careful attention to the cars on the road she might have been able to jump out of the way.

Please understand that I don't fault the pedestrian for getting hit. She was in a crosswalk and had the right of way regardless of if she was on her phone or not. My only point is that paying more attention to her surroundings could have kept her from receiving a minor face laceration, a bruised hip, and a concussion this morning.

Mobile phones are one of the greatest inventions of our time. We are all instantly contactable and can use them to remain more productive than we would be without them. Unfortunately they require our attention and sometimes that can be unhealthy. Fortunately in this morning's accident, nobody was seriously injured and the only severe consequence is that someone's insurance will go up.

Is Working From Home Driving Us Crazy?

Friday evening last week I boarded a plane in Lihue, Hawaii and made the disappointing trip home. I spent 5 weeks working from the wonderful tropical island of Kauai and could easily have spent another 5 weeks there. Unfortunately there are a number of duties I have back at home and am back to my old-boring routine of working from home in Utah.

In Hawaii, one of my nightly rituals included spending an hour at the pool and hot tub. Most of the people staying at the condo complex were vacationing and so I got to meet quite a few people. On one evening towards the end of my stay, I met a medical doctor who was in Hawaii for 3 weeks. His wife is also in the medical field and they only get one long break every year that they can use to take a vacation. This year they spent it in Kauai. It surprised him that I was there for 5 weeks. I explained that I didn't need to burn any of my vacation time as I was still working every day. That sparked a conversation about the negative impact of working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic.

While I have thrived working from home over the past 16 months, I am actually an anomaly. I don't have any kids at home that like to spend time on conference calls with me nor am I using my bedroom as my office. I have a dedicated office with all of the tools I need to keep working from home. My home office actually rivals my work office, which might explain one of the reasons I am thriving.

While sitting in the hot tub, the doctor and I discussed the various ailments that people are exhibiting because of working from home. He personally has noticed a lot of anxiety disorders. Part of that comes from using one's bedroom as their office. One of the work-from-home seminars I was asked to attend mentioned the problem with that. You start to associate your sleeping area as your work area and when it comes time to go to sleep at night, your mind reverts back to work and it can be difficult to fall asleep as well as stay asleep. Anxiety also arises from concern over dealing with younger children and keeping them entertained. Having a parent dedicated to watching the kids helps but a lot of families require that second income and so parents are juggling kids while trying to work.

Looking at the title of this post, I would say that the answer is definitely, "Yes," for a number of people. Working from home is definitely driving those people crazy. But with most broad statements like that, there are exceptions to the rule. The trick is to do everything you can to minimize the downsides of working from home until you are welcome back at the office. Then be prepared as some of your coworkers only show up at work when necessary.

Changing the Weather

As companies that have allowed everyone to work from home start implementing plans to return to office, they are preparing workers for changes. My own company has started recommending online training about how to prepare for the upcoming adjustments in our work environment. I watched a video this morning about we shouldn't be anxious about things that are out of our control and one of the examples was the weather. Interestingly enough, the weather is one of the things you can change and there are many examples of this around us.

I love winters in Utah because I love to ski. Unfortunately summers are just too hot for my taste. Instead of surviving this summer at home, I opted to get on a plane and spend the last 5 weeks in Hawaii. The average daily high is around 83 degrees Fahrenheit with the low around 72. I also get to see the rain daily, something that doesn't happen very often during the summer in Utah. So while I have not technically changed the weather in Utah, I have changed the weather for me by simply changing my location.

There are other examples of changing the weather. If it is raining, you can always seek shelter to where it is dry. If it is not raining and your lawn or plants need rain, you can water them with sprinklers or other types of irrigation.

How about the cold or the heat? How can you change that? Easy with modern heating and air conditioning systems. I doubt very many people would visit Florida in the summer if it wasn't for air conditioning. I also doubt may people would call Alaska home in the winter without heating systems. Sure you may not be able to change the weather for an entire outdoor area, but you can change it for where you are currently standing or sitting.

Often times you will hear an absolute that isn't really an absolute. Someone may say you can't change the weather when now you know you really can. Don't be afraid to challenge all absolutes as you may discover new ways of doing the impossible.

Internet in Hawaii

We have a unique opportunity in time right now. Those of us that can work from home can actually work from anywhere. Rather than stay in Utah and endure a blistering heatwave, my wife and I rented a place in Hawaii for 5 weeks this summer. We have been here almost 2 weeks and have enjoyed every minute of it. Don't worry, we have someone staying in our home back in Utah. We have to keep the lawn mowed and make sure the place doesn't burn to the ground on the 4th of July because of negligent neighbors.

In order for me to be able to work from Hawaii, I need a good Internet connection. So far I have not been disappointed. One of the first things I did when I got here was set up a PS4 and use it to remote into my PS5 at home. The PS4 is much easier to travel with and I actually did have a spare one that I could bring with me. The two consoles connected easily and I could play games easily.

A decade or so ago, the State of Hawaii wanted to reduce its economic reliance on tourism and so they helped build out their digital infrastructure. My Internet connection on the island of Kauai is significantly better than mine back in Utah. I don't have nearly the number of slow-downs that I do back home nor do I have the same latency issues. Basically things are working very well.

If you decide you also want to work from the Islands, rest assured that the Internet works very well over here.

More Monitors or More Screen Real Estate

This morning as I rode my bicycle, I thought back to an experience I had with one of my Electrical Engineering professors. A group of us were talking about the rapid advancements of computers and a new interface had just been announced that allowed you to watch television in a window on your computer. I thought it was great as you could work on your computer and watch TV at the same time. My professor remarked, "Why? Just get a TV and put it next to your computer."

He was right as this was back in the days when most computer monitors could only display 640x480 pixels, which is about the size of a regular NTSC television picture. While I had a more advanced computer that could display 1024x768, it could only do so with 16 colors per pixel. To get more colors, I would have to reduce the screen resolution. Furthermore the price of card for the computer came in at around $500 while a new television only cost around $300.

Fast forward a few years and I remember attending one of the last COMDEX shows in Las Vegas. I stopped by one of the Linux booths and they had 3 monitors built into a single unit. Of course it required that you have 3 VGA outputs on your computer to run all of the monitors but I thought it was spectacular and wanted one badly. Unfortunately it was cheaper just to get 3 monitors and I could not justify the extra cost. Consequently I never added the necessary hardware to my computer and continued running with a single monitor. By this time, resolution had increased to 1280x800.

At around this time, my primary computer became a laptop as I spent a lot of time traveling. The standard laptop resolutions seemed to be fine and I didn't really worry about needing more screen real estate as there is only so much space on an airplane. During this time you can guess that I traveled a lot.

Eventually I moved into more of a development role and worked on a project that needed a second monitor. Rather than fall back to the default monitor size of the day, I splurged and picked up two 1920x1080 monitors and put them side-by-side on my desk. I really had to clean a lot off so they would both fit. I also had to get a new computer with dual monitor outputs to drive both displays. I enjoyed having all the extra space.

My dual monitors lasted for quite a few years. They worked well and I discovered that I could keep them both filled with information to help me in my work. Of course technology continued to progress and so when the price of 4K (3840x2160 pixels) monitors dropped to where everyone could afford them, I jumped at the chance to get one. They are the equivalent of having four 1920x1080 monitors grouped together. It is the monitor I am using right now and guess what? I have the entire screen filled with 10 different windows. I also have a second computer with the laptop screen and a third 1920x1080 monitor. Both of those screens are also filled.

I guess the whole point of this post is that the answer to the question posed in the title is, "Yes," for both. You can always use more monitors and more screen real estate. At least I can.

Plan A is Usually Not Enough

I read a very interesting article this weekend in one of my sailing magazines. The story could be summarized in a couple of paragraphs but the author lengthened it by talking about the problem-solving process while on an extended sailing trip. The article talked about 3 boats sailing together and one lost its rudder in about 15 feet of water. Now a rudder for a large sailboat is not something you can just swim down and pluck off the bottom. The crews of the 3 boats gathered together and developed a plan A, a plan B, and a plan C. Why? Because plan A rarely works on its own. In the story, the crews ended up using a combination of plans A and B.

Last week I had my own sailing problem to solve and also came up with multiple solutions in case my first choice didn't work. The Great Salt Lake is shrinking due to years of drought in the American southwest. It is now too shallow for sailboats and so I need to pull mine out. Fortunately I have a trailer to put the boat on but I needed to prepare the trailer to receive it. The last time I used the trailer, I put the boat on it and the tires all went flat. We pumped them up and they held air long enough until the boat went back in the water. With the tires being 20 years old, I figured they needed to be replaced.

So how do you replace the tires for a boat trailer? My first thought was to just bring the trailer down to the local tire store and have them do all of the work. An alternative is to pull the wheels off the trailer and bring them to the tire store. Finally I had the option of just inflating the tires to the proper pressure and hope they would continue to hold air. So like the story I started with, I had 3 plans that I could use.

My preference, or plan A, was to just take the trailer to the tire store. My justification for this is that I have submerged the trailer in the Great Salt Lake and I convinced myself that the lug bolts had welded themselves to the hub and would require serious work to remove them. The downside to this plan was that I would have to do the necessary work to make the trailer safe on the road. That means making sure all of the lights work (questionable because of trailer dunking) and that the hitch lock worked correctly.

The night before getting new tires, I couldn't sleep. Ultimately I prepared to execute all 3 plans before heading to the marina where I keep the trailer. The simplest solution was to just pull the wheels off and so I started with that. The trailer surprised me and the lug bolts came off without too much difficulty. It only took 30 minutes to jack up the trailer, remove the wheels, and put them in the back of my truck.

I easily got the wheels to the tire shop and they thanked me for not bringing the entire trailer. They installed the new tires in just a few hours and I had them back on the trailer that evening. Now my trailer is prepared to receive the sailboat. Once the boat is on the trailer, we will store it at the marina until the lake level comes back up enough to put it back in the water. There is no need to take the trailer on public roads.

So why is it that I always come up with multiple solutions for sailing but only one for computer issues. Part of that may be that when you have a sailing problem, failure is very expensive and sometimes lethal. With a computer, you can always turn it off and think about other solutions. If you find yourself constantly frustrated by your computer problems then it might make sense to come up with multiple solutions before starting any work. While it may seem like an inefficient use of time, it will force you to think more about the issue and your plan B or plan C may actually be more efficient in actually solving of the problem.