I think I’ve finally figured out why I never seem to get around to reviewing the Doctor Who Christmas episodes - it’s because, Christmas is over and by this point it all seems hokey to dredge up stuff about Christmas. It’s like watching A Charlie Brown Christmas in July.
Therefore, I will make this short:
I’ll preface this with my comment that I’m a strong supporter of the light rail initiative for the Phoenix metro area. I’ve seen how urban trains and subways alter the cities (in generally good ways) that they pass through, and, while Phoenix is a ghastly urban sprawl with few “destination” areas, it could certainly use a bit of consolidation.
While a supporter of the light rail, and even though I only live one mile from the nearest station, I’m not likely a frequent rider. My work is not really near the line, I virtually never have any desire whatsoever to go into downtown Phoenix. We don’t have Cricket in this country and I don’t do the other sports. Once in a while I might want to go downtown for the Asian festival, or perhaps a show at the Arena (such as when the BBC’s Walking With Dinosaurs was here). I don’t attend classes at Arizona State and if I did they probably wouldn’t be at the Tempe campus anyway. There might be something going on (like Fourth of July celebrations) at Steele Indian School Park or Tempe Town Lake that would warrant not being able to drive there. Someday when they extend it into Mesa, I could see visiting the Arizona Museum of Natural History (Mesa Southwest Museum.)
For now, though, for me, it’s mostly a curiosity and something that I hope causes things to start sprouting up around the stations. The Time Lords know we could use some build up around 19th/Camelback.
For the remainder of the year, the rides are free, and the city has really pulled out the stops to get people to try the trains this weekend. Yesterday, the lines were outrageous at the end and west endpoint stations. Nearly two hours in line for the one hour ride, standing, falling-out-the-doors room only.
Today wasn’t so bad - or so I thought.
We caught the train at fourth station along the line from the west end. We chose to use the Park & Ride in the nicer area around Camelback and Central than either on 19th Avenue. The train was already at standing room only when we got on. Fortunately, somewhere not too far down the line two people vacated seats and I was able to thrust the kids into them.
The train itself runs nice and smoothly, the only hints of a rough ride occur as the train passes crossover points and even those are minor. The acceleration of the train is quick enough that you really do need to hang onto something if you’re standing.
The interiors are very reminiscent of the buses in town, which have the poorest seating arrangements I’ve ever seen. I’m sure it must have something to do with ADA requirements, but they make terrible use of space and there are a lot fewer seats than there could be. Other train systems handle disabled access with better seating arrangements, but the light rail here seems to have intentionally eschewed other tried and true arrangements to continue with the lousy city bus seating plan.
As for the ride across town itself - this left something to be desired. Of course, these were not typical days and, in retrospect, I think Valley Metro screwed up with these opening celebrations. People won’t be riding this thing end to end for the most part, but that’s what most everyone was doing this weekend, and,when the train is packed to standing room only, it’s miserable standing for an hour crowded together. In a real-world light rail scenario, people would be getting on and getting off regularly. This weekend people just kept getting on. With each stop the train just kept getting more and more unpleasantly crowded and you knew it wasn’t going to get any better until the very end of the line. (At one point I was dreaming that they’d all get off in the downtown area or at the Mill Ave shops, but it didn’t happen. I mean, why the hell would anybody want to go all the way to Sycamore and Main in Mesa? There’s nothing there, but to anticipate your question: We went that far because the Mekong Plaza is about 1/2 mile from the last stop, so we used this as an excuse to go back to Taiwan Food Express for lunch.)
There were lots of people this weekend riding the train - indeed any form of Phoenix metro public transit - for the first time, and it wasn’t the best first experience to cram them all in a sardine can for an hour, I should imagine.
So that’s not really a complaint about the train, more the nature of the startup. Perhaps people will be more understanding than I think, but people typically astound me with their lack of perception, so I doubt it. Just read the user comments at the Arizona Republic’s or ABC 15’s websites on most any news story (but especially about the light rail) if you want to see just how dumb people can get.
One other observation, and this one is a major flaw in the train system itself… although, perhaps they can right this one easily.
The train stops way too often at red lights.
I recognize the fact that any train system that travels down the middle of the roadways must stop at red lights. That’s inevitable and necessary, sometimes they have to stop at green lights - for example, this weekend I witness an idiot in a truck creep into a U-turn across the tracks. He was running a red left arrow and completely in the wrong; however, he was was stopped on the tracks as a train came up on him. The train honked and honked, but could do little other than stop for him. It turns out the nimrod wasn’t just in a truck, he was towing a second truck.
But there were times when the train was stopping at least one extra time for every station. The Valley Metro website used to respond to that question by saying the lights would be synchronized with the train. They sure as hell weren’t synchronized yesterday. We stopped at streets that were literally T-junctions, that didn’t even have any through traffic. The streets themselves were barely more than alleyways and, to add insult to injury, they had no traffic at all waiting at the lights. We were stopping for nothing - no traffic, no pedestrians nothing!. I can understand this sort of thing at major intersections and at busy times of the day, but many of these stops were ridiculous.
They’ve got to improve that. The train speed was very good in most places, but going down Central, starting about Indian School was too slow because of the traffic. it’s that stretch alone that will prevent me from being able to take the train and get to work in a timely fashion. To use the train, I’d have to travel 4 superfluous miles north-south, which, if they were quick, might still be faster than just taking a bus along the east-west route I need to follow to get to work. (Working on the assumption that I’d make up a lot of speed on the east-west leg.)
When we got to the last stop, we could see a huge line of people waiting to board the trains. They were keeping the crown controlled in a parking lot, filtering them across to the platform in small groups to fit on the train. It looked to be about an hour’s wait, so instead of taking the train back, we grabbed one of the “special” buses the city had laid on that were running parallel to the trains for the weekend. It was mainly designed for people who didn’t want to wait in line, and it was free, so we travelled, in comfort, sitting down the whole way back. It took the same amount of time the train ride did.
This week is rather messed up for me, but I may try to take the train just to time the ride. If not then next weekend.
This morning before 7, the stations were mostly empty along Central and the trains were less than half the seats full.
I used to eat at Fuddruckers once or twice a month and in addition to giving you a pager, they’d ask your name to call out. (How does that make sense?)
Every trip was a new adventure in bad spelling. It was unbelievable how many ways they could misspell “Eugene.”
I actually started collecting the receipts with an eye towards blogging them because they were so outlandish.
Now, everytime they’d ask, I’d already handed them my credit card, turned conspicuously so they could read my name. This isn’t just Fuddrucker’s that fails to look at the obvious (and definitive) place to get the name, it’s pretty much everywhere.
Last weekend, we stopped into Venezio’s pizza and the girl at the counter took my card, looked at it and said, “Is the name on this order ‘Eugene’?”
I was so impressed I complimented the girl on the spot for being the first person ever to read my name off the credit card.
Today, after our Light Rail adventure, we stopped in Fuddrucker’s and, miracle of miracles, the guy took my name off my credit card! I couldn’t believe it. He didn’t even ask me if that was the right name.
Funnier still: He still misspelled my name as “Eugine”.
The trains are running today and it’s been a long time coming.
The cities along the light rail line are having celebrations at various stations and (gasp) light rail is free throughout all of 2008!!!! (Cheap bastards)
According to the radio, wait times are currently 2 hours to get on the trains, at least at the Christown Rectum (er… Spectrum) Mall station.
I swung by the station near my house and the central stargate station (pictured below) and it was busy but it didn’t look like there was a wait.
We’ll try to take the family out tomorrow and ride the rails…
It’s been quite the rainy day here in Phoenix for Christmas, which is fine, since we spent the day indoors anyway. Certainly, we can always use the rain.
A couple of amusing stories so far this year, starting with my gift to Irene. Recently, I was really, really stretching to think of a gift for Irene when I came across the weekly David Pogue technology video for the New York Times, talking about the Flip MinoHD, a flash memory-based HD camcorder. Pogue gave it quite a good review, which is what got me thinking about it. My wife really should be shooting more video of the kids, but our existing camcorder is totally inconvenient to carry around. This seemed like a perfect compromise.
This is not a high-end HD camcorder. The compression is noticeable, and the CCD is of the inferior type that can produce “bending” artifacts if you move too quickly. I reported on this same phenomena with my iPhone’s still camera. (It has to do with the speed of the data being read off the CCD, and the pattern that it reads the data in. If the objects moves before the CCD has dumped the data as it moved from top left to bottom right, the object appears to be bent.
This same effect occurs on the MinoHD. Still, for the price, about $200, you get a tiny camcorder, solid-state, with 1 hour recording capacity. It plugs right into your Mac (or PCs, I’m told) and you pull the clips right off. It’s charged via the USB connection that “flips” out (hence the name).
I got the camera a couple weeks ago, and, thinking about it, decided that my wife would want to use it on Christmas morning, so I unboxed it, and I charged it, set the date and time, made a few test videos (Deciding if I should send it back, which, ultimately, I did not) and then carefully repackaged the box and wrapped it for Christmas. When we got our tree, it was the first present under it.
Then I got to thinking, “The kids are going to want to open their presents first, indeed, it will be difficult to hold them back. Then, there’s the excitement of seeing all those presents under the tree. Surely, we want to guarantee that the camcorder is open and ready before the kids wake up.”
Come last evening, after the kids were in bed, I insisted that Irene open her present on Christmas Eve. She balked at the idea, but I insisted, so she say down, carefully unwrapped the present. Inside was the MinoHD box, which is noticeably similar to an iPod box. She opened the box and there, inside was…
…an empty box!!!!!
I was flabbergasted. I ran to my office and started searching frantically. Sure enough, I had forgotten to put the camera back in the box when I packed it up. At least Irene had a good sense of humor about it, and it was funny. I am glad the kids weren’t there, though.
And then there’s my sneaky daughter.
My dad had gathered from Michelle that she’d like some Ultraman/Godzilla stuff. My dad searched online and found a store that had some imported Japanese toys. He asked me which ones they had and which ones I thought they’d like. She’d already got most of the Ultramen figures that she knows, except for Ultraseven X, which I suggested. I also suggested Godzilla and Mothra figures in the same scale as the Ultramen. So my dad ordered them.
I poked around the website and found some other Godzilla toys in plush figures, so I decided to pick up one each for the kids, a Godzilla and a Rodan.
When the toys my dad ordered arrived, he decided that he wanted to split them up and give one to James, so I suggested Mothra for him. (Michelle has some plastic insects which she already pretend are Mothra, and James feels left out.) I figured that I’d give James the plush Godzilla, since Michelle was getting the other Godzilla, and give her Rodan, since James was getting a different flying monster.
Instead of wrapping them, Irene wanted to use them as stocking stuffers, so, as we went to bed last night, I carefully placed Rodan in Michelle’s stocking, peaking out, and Godzilla in James’, peaking out.
This morning, to Michelle’s credit, she woke up well before Irene or I, and she didn’t open her presents (she’d been warned) and she didn’t wake us up - but the second any noise came from our bedroom, she was in next to our bed like a shot.
“Santa’s been here! Santa’s been here! he put a Godzilla in my stocking and he put a Rodan in James’ stocking!!!”
Bleary eyed and still asleep, I was thinking, “What? That’s backwards.”
Sure enough, when I came out, someone (I wonder who?) had swapped them in the stockings.
I thought long and hard about that, because it was obviously dishonest of her, and she didn’t know she was getting a Godzilla when my dad arrived. Finally, I tried this gambit: “You know, Michelle, the Godzilla and Rodan weren’t from Santa. Actually, I got those for you and I put Rodan in your stocking and Godzilla in James’. I don’t know what happened, maybe Santa accidentally knocked them out and didn’t know which one to put each one back in and they got swapped.”
Michelle thought for a moment - you could really see the gears turning - and said, “I’ll put them back.” And she swapped them back.
Perhaps she learned from that one.
Homemade Prime Rib and Yorkshire Pudding for Christmas dinner, plus the Next Doctor. Review coming soon.
Holiday cheer is one thing: Peace, goodwill towards all men - all those non-Christian ideals that somehow got associated with Christmas. It’s at this time of year that people who normally wouldn’t say word one to strangers will chip with some platitude, and, let’s face it, you can’t not respond.
Twice today I was accosted by holiday “cheer”. The first was at Jack-in-the-Box, as I was leaving. A man had driven up to the front door and parked his truck in a no-parking zone. He’d opened his door but hadn’t gotten out, nor had he turned off his engine. He looked for all the world like someone who’d just been through the drive-through, and they’d asked him to pull out of the way because his food was going to take a while. It’s not uncommon, especially at around 10:00AM. People are starting to order lunch items, but they’re still geared up for breakfast, sometimes things like chicken take 5 minutes to prepare. It really bogs down the drive-through window if they don’t ask the people to pull up to let other cards through.
So, as I walk out of the store, the man in the truck says, “Merry Christmas!”, to which I respond, rather imaginatively, “Merry Christmas”.
And then the attack, “Hey, could you do me a favor? Come take a look at my leg.”
My reaction: (!!!!!!) The man’s “leg” was still blocked from my view by his car door, and I made sure it stayed that way.
“This happened to me earlier today on my motorcycle. We don’t have money for bandages or stitches or antibiotics or anything, but I’m not asking for money for that, I just need some money for gas. I’ve got my Marine Corps ID card right here, if you want to see it.”
How the hell do you respond to that? That’s got to be the creepiest, least plausible, money come on I’ve ever heard. He’s driving a great big new gas-guzzling truck, trying to show off his wounded leg and asking for gas money - and he can’t be bothered to turn his engine off. If he was after medical attention, he was about 2-3 miles from a VA hospital which, if he had his Marine Corps ID, they’d have taken care of. Somehow, I just think he was trying to get me closer to his truck, for what nefarious purpose I cannot imagine. Stranger Danger on that one!
This evening, we stopped in Taco Bell for a quick snack. It wasn’t very busy. A man of African American descent, wearing a hoodie came into the restaurant and went up to the counter, where he started talking with people - by name - working in the back, things like, “Hey Marion, Merry Christmas!” Obviously, they knew who he was. I didn’t give it another thought, until I went up to refill my drink at the soda fountain.
That puts me about 6 feet away from the guy. He turns and looks at me, steps forward, holding out his hand to shake saying, “Merry Christmas!”
Rather unimaginatively, I respond with, “Merry Christmas”. I hesitate on the hand shaking thing, but, it’s almost like a trained response. Someone offers a hand, you shake. He noticed the hesitation and altered to the knuckle-bump thing, which, I’ve never done in my life. So I end up doing this absurd knuckle-bump and handshake.
“So, you all ready for Christmas?” he asks.
“That remains to be seen,” I say.
“Hey, you and I are about the same age.” He points out.
I’m thinking, “OK, that’s a weird line of conversation. What does that matter?” Instead I respond, “Maybe thereabouts.”
“Are you 40?”
I don’t know why I responded to that, probably because this was just too bizarre, “Older”
“50?”
“Nah, not that old.”
“You got your Christmas shopping done? ‘Cause, I know what you need for Christmas. It’s great for guys our age.”
I am completely, %$&#ing baffled by what this guy is going on about. By this point, I’ve decided he’s one of those insane, homeless people who talk to cardboard boxes. Instead, he goes on, putting his hand to his ear, which is obscured by the hoodie. “I know what’s a great Christmas present. Weed, man. It’s the best Christmas present.” He presented a small plastic bag up by his ear.
In all my life, no one has ever tried to sell me drugs. From what you see on TV, I thought you had to go downtown somewhere, and meet behind garbage cans to meet the drug-dealer scumbags, but no, they deliver to fine eating establishments like Taco Bell. Clearly, the guy was a regular, too, since he knew the names of the crew.
The best thing I can say for this guys is that he backed away immediately when I said, “no.” However, he was hanging out outside when we left and was making with the Christmas cheer chatter, talking at my wife as we went to the car.
Damn, that’s hitting way too close to my children. It’s time to have a talk with them.
Ok, so I’ve come to my last geocache for the day, I’ve wandered about 6 km today.
So, what was purpose for blogging this? This time I’m equipped with new technology. I’m still using my trusty Garmin GPS but these days the support for Mac OSX is much better.
More significantly, I’ve got the iPhone. At least inside the city I’ve got google earth imagery, direct software to connect to geocaching.com, a camera and I can blog my finds while I’m on the spot.
As a first experiment, it worked pretty well.
The picture below is the area I found my last cache for the day.
The park we’re at is quite large, but eventually the park runs out and then you’re nowhere.
This geocache has no doubt caused a lot of bloodshed.
