Travel Tuesday - Trains

Train travel in the USA can be a challenge, the trains tend to be slow, the equipment is often old. There are limited routes; away from the upper east coast and California, service is very limited.  

BUT! 

The people are nice and the price can be very attractive.  

I recently booked tickets to go to New York later this spring, made hotel reservations, went to email someone special that we had made plans and realized I had train tickets to go up on a Monday, and hotel reservations starting on Tuesday.  I didn't want to add a hotel night, so I endeavoured to change the train tickets. 

I should be able to do it online, but the reservations computer was running so slow that I kept getting kicked out.  I called, argued with the automated system that couldn't understand the difference between my saying "D" and "E", finally I was sent onto a human being.  

And She was SO NICE and HELPFUL.  She encountered the same slow reservations system, but she could stay on until she was able to make the change.  She kept coming on and saying I am making progress, please hang on, I am sorry the system is running slow for some reason.  In the end the Tuesday train was the same price as the Monday train, no charge for the change (try that with airlines.) And round trip was $88 per person. If I drove to New York, I couldn't park my car for four days for that, it might cost that much per day to park.*  On this end the train station is a mile from home.  In New York, you arrive in the heart of Manhattan.  The airports in NY are an hour from where you want to be.   

*The first time I was in San Francisco, I scored a deal on a nice hotel for like $99 for one night, and paid $60 to park a rental car three blocks away.  I have never driven in SF again. 

My Music Monday - Happy Valentines Day - Joe Cocker - You Are So Beautiful (LIVE in Berlin) HD

Happy Valentines Day

One of the keys to others loving you for who you are

is to like yourself.

There have been times in my life when I was hard to love,

because I didn't like myself. 

I know all of my flaws, they are all a part of what makes me, me. 

My flaws are a part of what makes be beautiful, just the way I am.

A part of what makes me loveable. 

When I am feeling down, or I meet someone who is dealing with self acceptance, I think of this song.  

You are so beautiful!    

Like yourself today

Love 

The Sunday Five - face-time

I recently needed to meet with a colleague, it could have been a simple hand off, I could have left a package with the front desk at the building she lives in, instead we met across the street for coffee, and cake. It was good to have face time - and not that app on some device, seeing someone face to face. 

1: Coffee - hot or cold?

2: Carrot cake or chocolate cake?

3: In person or virtual? 

4: New and local coffee shop, or big chain?

5: When was the last time you met someone face-to-face? 

My answers:

1: Coffee - hot or cold? Cold

2: Carrot cake or chocolate? Carrot 

3: In person or virtual? either, but in person was nice

4: New and local coffee shop, or big chain? New local 

5: When was the last time you met someone face-to-face? Last Tuesday 

Please share your answers in the comments.

The Saturday Morning Post - The Future

 Five or so decades ago, when I was a child, I heard (I read only duress as a child) that the future promised flying cars and personal jet packs.  Hmm, we are still working on those. If you have ever been in a major traffic jam, can you imagine all of those cars replaced by flying cars?  Sky jams.  Jetpacks still prove hard to control, though computer controlled vectored aircraft have become a reality. Think of the $100 rechargeable drone (I had an early one that ate a tree) there has been amazing progress in just the past five years.)

Above is a Bell (yes Bell Aircraft a real manufacturer of helicopters) vectored thrust vertical take off and landing aircraft. The next generation of helicopter? And this is not a mock up, it is the real thing, that has flown. It is more stable and more controllable than the helicopters of the past 70 years.  

A personal drone is being tested, it would fit into the light sport aircraft category.  

Let me think back, in third grade the science book said the world's oil reserves would be exhausted in 20 years.  It should have read the "known" oil reserves.  "Get Smart" led us to think that we would need to take our shoe off to make a phone call without a cable connected.  But here we are with phone in our pocket. Oh and it has about a million times the computing power that the lunar lander had in 1969 (likely an understatement - it might be a billion times more power.) 

I remember the first time I saw an HD television, something we take for granted, but 32 years ago it was a lab experiment.  The Smithsonian had one set up, next to a CRT television, playing the same video loop, the difference in quality brought tears to your eyes.  

What will the next 30 years bring?  I am optimistic.  

I know politics are weird right now, but so where they in the 1960's and 1970's, and we passed the Civil Rights Act, and Medicare, went to the Moon, and ran Tricky Dick out of the White House.  Innovation is happening at a pace I can only imagine. 

Fabulous Friday - Shoes #2

Okay, I have a thing for shoes.  I have owned and worn some spectacular shoes over the years.  In my midlife crisis, I spent a year working in a large department store, selling shoes in the ladies shoe department.  The experience left its mark on me, the second thing I notice about a person after their eyes, is the shoes they are wearing or not wearing. 

I have never worn womens shoes, they would look silly on my large feet and I have no idea how anyone walks on those heels, pressing your toes into that pointed end will do cripling damage. (My mother had a couple of toes amputated from damage from shoes she had worn for years.) 

Anymore I wear shoes for comfort, but that does not mean the shoes can't have style.  I like strong colors, bright colors, unique designs.  If I see a nice stable running shoe in a sparkly finish like the one above, I would probably buy it.     

Thursday Ramble - I work too much

 I have maxed out on the number of vacation and sick leave I can have with my employer, meaning I don't accrue any until I use some.  So I took last Friday off, except that I well I didn't.  My time sheet says I was out sick.  But I woke up very early, like 5 AM, and couldn't get back to sleep, so I spent an hour in bed checking blogs, then got up, turned on the coffee and sat at my desk. 

One of the reasons I couldn't get back to sleep was my brain was focused on a writing project.  Eight years ago I had written a chapter for a book.  The editor emailed recently and asked me if I would be willing to update the chapter for a second edition.  It is a short chapter, about 2,000 words, it was out of date, but within my scope to update without too much research.  I agreed.  My brain was engaged thinking about that commitment (that is not due for 12 weeks.) 

I logged onto my office computer and send the first email at 6:29 AM, then dove into the chapter.  I stuck with it, and it was finished in 5 hours.  Parts of it needed to be entirely rewritten, parts of it didn't.  I added two new paragraphs. It will be sent in 11 weeks early. (I am happy with the update, there was a monumental change in the law the year after it was published, that made about one-third of the 2,005 words out of date.)  

I recently put my office email back on my phone.  I found myself laying on the bed Friday afternoon, sorting out details with finance on a project extension and an invoice that took 12 months to finally arrive that we need to pay (After a year of others being polite, now that it is my responsibility I simply emailed someone and said, send us the paperwork in 10 days, or WE WON'T PAY YOU!) The paperwork was sorted out in two days.  

But there I am working on my "day off."  The office pays me a phone allowance of $40 a month, they can have it, I want my phone back to being my phone, I want my afternoon back on my day off.  What has waited 10 months, can wait until Monday.  A failure to act on behalf of others, should not be a crisis on my day off for me.  

I will be back to counting down the months until I can retire. 17 if I want to push it, 22 most likely. 

The Way We Were Wednesday - My First Cover Shoot

I have been taking photos since I was a child, I started to get serious about it in high school.  This was my first commissioned cover shoot, as I recall I was paid a whopping $15 for this.  I really needed a wide angle lens, something I didn't buy until the fall of 1976, after this had gone to print.  

Suncrest was a local skilled nursing home.  My grandmother was on the auxiliary, the volunteer group. She asked me to do this, she probably paid for it.  The cookbook was a fundraiser.  It was printed by a friend of - the village undertaker who ran a print shop as a sideline.  

My grandfather died in this nursing home late in the fall of 1976.  He had dementia, my grandmother and I cared for him at home until late summer of that year.  He had a health crisis, was in the hospital, then home for a day or two, then a couple of different nursing homes.  He died quietly of a heart attack while having lunch one day.  The nurse described it as "he went face down in the mashed potatoes."