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The Seattle Seahawks Made The Playoffs!!

I realize this news is at least 5 days old, but it still seems headline worthy. The NFL Playoffs start tomorrow, and I have some predictions:

I wish I wasn’t predicting the Seahawks to lose, but entering the playoffs with a 7-9 record, either a new QB or an injured QB, and the worst running game in the NFL, I can’t pick them to beat the Saints. But I still hope they do.

The Upside of Engineering

In what was one of the most incredible showings of humanity for the opening of a bicycle & pedestrian path anywhere in the U.S., hundreds of cyclists – and hundreds more walkers and elected officials – showed up on a Friday afternoon to cut the ribbon on the long-awaited Cal Park Tunnel in Marin County, California.
– streetfilms.org

Although I’m not sure that streetfilms’ hype is really accurate (is hype ever accurate?), it was exciting to go last Friday down to the Cal Park Tunnel for the opening of a project I’ve been working on since I “became” an engineer in 2007. (I think maybe I became an engineer when I was born, but I didn’t start doing it vocationally until recently.) This project’s colorful history during the design phase is probably not something I should really blog about, so I won’t. But I will embed this awesome video of the opening:

Other interesting articles are here and here.

As of a couple weeks ago, I’ve started working on another multi-year project to run trains through the tunnel!

The Great Epic Train Trip of 2010

For Thanksgiving this year we traveled to Southern California to be with family. But instead of doing the 1-hour flight (with the requisite 2-hrs early to the airport, naked-body-scanning/junk-touching rigamarole), or the 7-hour drive on I-5 (passing in the slow lane, slowing in the fast lane, miles and miles of driving boredom), we decided to take the train. Or, more accurately, I convinced my unwitting and innocent spouse to join me on what promised to be a relaxing, adventurous trip down the coast without the stress of driving or flying. Of course, the first thing we had to do on the day of departure was to leave the house by 5:45 am. Because, you know, it’s important to be on time so that you don’t miss your train.

The first train we caught was the Capitol Corridor out of the relatively new Oakland Coliseum station. This train was awesome, running pretty much exactly on time, and picked us up at 7:35 am for the 40 mile trip down to San Jose Diridon Station.

Our next train, the Amtrak Coast Starlight, was scheduled to arrive in San Jose around 10 am for a 5-hour trip down to San Luis Obispo. The previous two days, the train had been within 5 minutes of being on time. This day, however, it was anything but. A huge storm had just hit the northwest when our train was departing Seattle, and this storm, along with mechanical difficulties, made it such that our train was now scheduled to get to San Jose at 2:30 pm. A mere 4.5 hours late.

We had the option of taking a bus to SLO, but we elected to wait it out for a chance at the authentic train trip. We passed most of that wait time at Santana Row, and returned around 1:45. At 3 (the new arrival time), we and a couple dozen others went out toward the track to continue waiting. I checked the train status on my phone, and the arrival time had jumped from 3:08 pm to 4:01 pm. Weeping and gnashing of teeth commenced on all sides. Eventually, such stoicism prevailed that nobody minded when 4:01 pm came and went without a train. Finally, at 4:30, our train arrived and we, somehow, were very glad to see it, even though this meant no seeing the famous horseshoe bend (or much at all) in the daylight, no relaxing afternoon in SLO and Morro Bay, and, if the train got much later, not much rest that night for our 6:45 am train the next morning out of SLO.

Also, it meant that the heroic 6-hour battery life of the laptop had not been enough to last for the duration, and a recharge operation was necessary:

After an uneventful, even fast trip through Salinas and Paso Robles, we had made up about 30 minutes of time and by 9 pm we were coming down the hill into SLO when the train suddenly came to a stop. The conductor announced to us that, unfortunately, they had reached 12 hours of work and would have to hold the train until another crew could be sent up from the SLO station. Unbelievably, this process took about an hour. So just after 10 pm, our exhausted selves got off the train and grabbed a taxi to our hotel for a few hours of sleep before heading back to the station early the next morning.

Happily, the 6:45 am Pacific Surfliner out of SLO was right on time, and the weather was outstanding. We spent the next 3 hours on tracks hugging the coastline, watching farmland, birds, seals, porpoises, waves, and general awesomeness pass by outside the window:

We arrived in LA Union Station pretty much on time, around 12:15 pm, and enjoyed about an hour there before jumping on the Metrolink for the 90 minute trip to San Bernardino and our final destination.

The second half of the trip was definitely better than the first, and I recommend that anyone wishing to take the Coast Starlight (or Starlate as a friend refers to it) stay away from winter travel and/or check the train status before you leave home.

Just for fun, I made a map of our trip also.


View 2010 Train Trip in a larger map

Plants, Cars, and the Irish

Today’s top three interesting articles:

1) A doctor who advocates for whole-plant treatment.
2) GM goes public, with a stunning turnaround in 18 months.
3) Ireland crisis: Banks’ fault, China’s benefit?

the anti-drudge

I remember the day Obama was sworn in, the drudge report headlined with a photo of the latest dow jones industrial average chart, with the line “Cold Start On Wall Street”. This annoys me mostly because it’s not an accurate assessment of the association between politics and wall street. It also annoys me because it attempts to place blame for a serious global recession triggered by a housing and stock bubble on Obama on his first day in office.

So now it’s time for my revenge. Below are two charts, a 3-month and a 2-year view of the Dow. I sort of enjoy pointing out that stocks have started a downward slide almost to the day since the Republicans were elected. As of today, Obama and the Democrats have presided over a 42% increase in the Dow Jones Industrial Average since taking office. Beat that, Republicans. (I sincerely hope they can, but I’m not holding my breath)

Health Insurance 101

It’s open season for health insurance selection at my job, and I got this awesome blurb in an e-mail today:

Although you may be taking a prescription that prevents a condition (e.g., heart attack), the drug is not considered a “Preventive Drug” unless it is on the Preventive Drug List.

That is just awesome that you could be taking a drug to prevent a heart attack and it would not be considered a “Preventive Drug”, and therefore would not be covered until you met your (astronomically high) deductible! Good job Health Insurance Company X!

C. S. A.

CSA involves prepaying a local farmer to get weekly deliveries of fresh produce, and we just started with a local farm, Riverdog Farm. Each week, we get a full box of whatever is in season delivered to a location near us. In the last two weeks, we have gotten turnips, kale, chard, tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, squash, bok choi, broccoli, onions, green bean, chives, & eggplant, which has been converted to soups, salads, pasta toppings, spreads, and more!

The food seems to taste richer, and better, than other produce (yes, it may be the placebo effect, but it still works), and, at $20/week, the cost is essentially the same as buying each of those ingredients at the grocery store. The bonus is that we’ve tried many more vegetables than we would normally buy at a grocery store, just because we feel obligated to use whatever comes in the box.

If you have one of these farms near you, you should give it a try!

Fall, Rain

As if on cue, fall has arrived with rain in tow. Important things are happening, nonetheless:

  • the Seahawks are winning
  • Bill Clinton is in town
  • someone important is almost walking
  • and our dog has finally found a comfortable pillow
  • a photo essay

    real real estate

    Having just moved, I’ve been reading the local paper to try to get to know the place. Today, these are the first entries listed in the real estate section:

    Exhibit A
    Exquisite and elegant Napa Valley view estate designed by renowned architect Cliff May for Robert Mondavi. The design invites lush Napa Valley gardens into all its light filled spaces. Perfect for entertaining! $25,000,000

    I thought maybe this one was overpriced, until I started looking through the photos. I think I would pay a lot for this view:

    Exhibit B
    Sophisticated elegance describes this fabulous property located on desirable Spring Mountain. Custom home w/ travertine flooring, 80 ft pool, full gym, stone gardens & world class vineyard. $22,500,000

    Looking at this house, I can see that it would be big enough to house me. And everyone I know. So maybe it’s not such a high price after all. $22.5m divided over a few hundred people would be very affordable. Plus, did you see the two lions guarding the front door?