Classes are over, final projects are coming in, and I've just wrapped up another year of my high-flying, jet-setting lifestyle. Which is just a sexier way of saying I commute. Which is just shorthand for: every Tuesday I wake up at 5am, drive 30 miles to Charlotte Douglas International Airport, fly at dawn to Washington… Continue reading Time: The High Cost of Commuting
Tag: Travel
My carbon footprint has got to be ridiculous
In a recent conversation between Thom Yorke and David Byrne in Wired, Yorke describes how Radiohead conducted a study to assess its carbon footprint, in the hopes of then being able to reduce it. But their biggest impact upon the environment turned out to be something out of their control: all their fans driving to… Continue reading My carbon footprint has got to be ridiculous
Art and Terror in the Arctic
It's a good thing that August had record temperatures---seemingly endless days over 100 degrees---because I spent a better part of the month reading Dan Simmons' leviathan of a novel The Terror, a semi-historical account of a failed bid in the 1840s to chart the legendary "northwest passage" through the frozen arctic. Simmons accomplishes much in… Continue reading Art and Terror in the Arctic
Between here and Philadelphia
The train. Unapologetically steel. Irresistible momentum. And the joy of discovering the red brake handle, knowing I can pull, and the train becomes my limb, my extension, which I control. Overriding engineers, coffee splashed on laptops throughout, the sudden stop. A hundred people stalled on tracks, the train a bullet bludgeoned to a blunt standstill,… Continue reading Between here and Philadelphia
Goodbye 2006, Goodbye US Airways
It's been one long fall. And it's finally come to a close. Late December is when everyone comes out with their "best of" or "worst of" lists, so I thought I'd throw together a few lists. There's no best and no worst, simply a snapshot of some of the things that made life as a… Continue reading Goodbye 2006, Goodbye US Airways
Fly the Fiendly Skies
This is the scariest freaking business I've read in a long time: Christopher Soghoian, a computer science student who had created an online generator for fake boarding passes--solely to point out how ludicrously ineffective airport security is--has been visited several times by the FBI, most recently, with a 2am warrant that allowed the Bureau to… Continue reading Fly the Fiendly Skies
Fast Food, Homeland Security Style
Here's a placard (larger image) on a parking shuttle bus at Dulles International Airport, outside of Washington, D.C. I'm very appreciative that they let me know, well before I enter the terminal, what I can eat, and whether it's "pre-security" or "post-security" dining. So I can plan in advance such critical traveling strategery as, do… Continue reading Fast Food, Homeland Security Style
Google Mapping Spain
I've been experimenting with a good way to incorporate a dynamic Google Map into this blog, specifically one that plots key points in our travels in Spain. Don't ask me why. I really don't expect anybody to ever look at this thing, but I've been inspired by the possibilities of geomapping memories (see the Center… Continue reading Google Mapping Spain
Puzzling over the flight home
How many passengers on a transatlantic flight play Sudoku? Apparently all of them. Another observation from the flight...One of the in-flight movies was The Dukes of Hazzard. I assume this movie was supposed to appeal somehow to the retro-seeking, nostalgia-desperate Gen Xers like myself, who spent many Friday nights in the eighties watching The Dukes… Continue reading Puzzling over the flight home
One Year Later…
Back from Spain, where, toward the end of our trip, our son celebrated his first birthday. What a difference a year makes! On the left is a picture we took in the hospital, two days after our son was born. On the right is our son, "calling" on the in-flight phone on our transatlantic journey… Continue reading One Year Later…
In Madrid…
Sorry, but it's going to be hard to blog for a while. I'm in Madrid. Plenty of internet cafes around, but it's not so easy to bring a 1-year old toddler along with me as I spend hours composing deep, reflective posts (yeah, right, that's what my posts are). Plus, I don't have any easy… Continue reading In Madrid…