Sunday, January 29, 2006

My Cities in 2005

Hannah and Jason Kotke have each started a "My Cities in 2005" meme... seems like fun. The rules are - you had to spend at least one night there. Here's my list:

New York
Lisbon
Paris
Boston
San Fransisco
Los Angeles
Las Vegas
Birmingham, AL
Atlanta, GA
Sarasota, FL
Miami
Philadelphia
Dallas
Houston
New Orleans
Washington

And - we've started the year right with Las Vegas, Birmingham and Dallas on the list already (in addition to Washington and Boston, where I split most of my "down time.")

Monday, January 23, 2006

Broadcast Flag

It's after 5 and I have a flight to catch, so this will be short - but it seems like this latest attack on the limitation of the reach of government is a blatant attempt by an industry that has no clue to subvert the powers of the governement for purposes they are not intended for.

Having the FCC regulate portable media devices? Are you kidding??? The purpose of the FCC is to make sure that we have a reliable communications system in this country so that, in the case of emergency, we can communicate with each other without interference. Anything else goes way beyond the powers that we should be giving this body.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has an item on this that you should read. And, then, write your congressperson!

Sunday, January 15, 2006

More on the Amtrak Regional "Express"

Now it's getting ridiculous. It is so cold in this car that we have to put on our winter coats to stay warm. I wonder if we can sue Amtrak for getting sick?

At least there's power for the computer. And - through the kind auspices of T-Mobile, a cell-phone based internet connection (which I pay for, of course, and it's really slow, but it's better than nothing!).

Stuck on Amtrak

Normally, I am pretty happy with Amtrak. But, tonight is a BIG exception. We left Boston on the Acela, bound for Baltimore. About a mile before 128 station, the train started having problems. Seemed like a breaker was repeatedly resetting or something. Anyway, this continued over and over, all the way to Providence, RI (about 45-50 miles). When we got to Providence, they decided to move us all off the Acela and on to an Amtrak Regional train, which is where we are now. We are stopping at every podunk stop along the Amtrak route to NY - and I suppose we will do the same thing from NY to Baltimore!

Now, I called Amtrak at 800-USA-RAIL and the operators had no idea there was a problem. She was nice enough, but had no clue. At least she checked and found out that the customer service department will be open on Monday (why wouldn't they be???).

It will be interesting to see how Amtrak deals with this when I call them tomorrow. I will hold off my flame until then - maybe I'll be surprised. But, I am pretty pissed off now.

By the way, we are now literally travelling backwards!!! Got to Bridgeport, loaded those people on, and now we are going backwards, away from NY and our final destination!!

Our rail system sucks.