Getting2Work

It’s been over a month since I posted.  Why?  No more long commutes?  No, not really … but maybe some day and hopefully it’s will be by choice.

So the reason for not posted was because of a lot of overtime at work.  Instead of a 4/10 workweek, it was more like a 6/10.  So that was a bit tiring but at least for our team it was only for a short period.  Other teams had been working the same overtime hours for months and had just recently stopped.

Then I took a couple of weeks off and spent about a week up in San Francisco with friends and family.  We really took it easy partly because my Mom was with us and she really can’t do a lot of walking anymore.  After the first day I could really tell that she was too tired out.  So we did the San Francisco 49 Miles Scenic drive and stopped at various spots and walk a bit and took lots of pictures.

We didn’t stopped at all the places recommended.  But it was actually quite a nice and relaxing time.  Here’s the link to the map of the Sf 49 Miles Scenic Drive I downloaded (Scroll down to the bottom of the linked page and there is the download button for the pdf file.

We also spent time with friends at their place up in the wine country.

While we were there, my friend’s husband and her brother was making a market run and asked if anyone else wanted to go along.  We all figured it’s just to the super market and we all declined except for my Mom.  She went along just to hang out with them.  They were gone for a good long time and we were starting to wonder what happened to them.  We found out that they had taken a side trip of wine tasting.  My Mom who does not drink actually sampled a few.  From the way she was talking about her first wine tasting experience, I think she really enjoyed herself.  I am sure it helped because she had gone with 2 people who know and enjoy wine.  If she had gone with us who do not drink and know nothing about wine, she would not be that excited after she came back.

So right after my 2 weeks of vacation, I had to go on jury duty.  My first experience as a juror and I have to say it was quite interesting.  I know a lot of people really try hard to get out of it for whatever the reason.  I can see financial hardship or a true extremest being a couple good reasons to be excused.  But some of them you can really tell that they were making things up.  The one that I thought was unreasonable was the lady who had been here for 20 years and used English as her second language as the excuse.  I am not saying that the length of time being in this country automatically made it a bad excuse.  She was chatting just fine while we were waiting to get into the court room.  One good thing about working for a bigger corporations is that they do pay for the jury duty.  So I really did not have minded it so much.  After answering a standard list of questions which included occupation (engineer) and few of the other questions that the prosecutor posted regarding what I do (testing), I can tell that the prosecutor did not want me on the panel.  It’s one thing seeing it on TV how the lawyer “set the stage” to sway the jurors to see things their way but seeing it done in a real court is something else.  It made me feel that I should be more careful not to be bias.  I thought I could do a pretty good job.  Whatever the reasons and they don’t tell you that and sure enough, the prosecutor lady dismissed me right away.  The juror selection had dragged out to 2 days.

So this week’s commute was only 1 day.  Yippee … until next week.  But really should not complain with this economy, budget cuts everywhere and all the layoffs.  I am glad I still have a job to go to.  We’ve had layoffs in our area too.  Missed being cut last round but I hear there is more coming.  Yikes!!!!

I don’t usually write during the week because I am just too darn tired after I get home from the long commute.  But I caught a birdie today.

I didn’t leave work too late today (left before 4:30pm) and was doing my usual commute home.  Same old traffic … speed up … slow down at all the usual places.  I am not a crazy driver and I do follow the flow of traffic.  But apparently my way of following the flow was not acceptable to this young lady behind me.  My way was actually leaving enough room in case someone wanted to cut in between me and the car in front without me having to slam on my brakes.  But this young lady’s way of following was to be able to read every scratch mark on the car’s bumper in front.  At one point she was gesturing for me to move as if there was any place to go.  So I gestured back “Like where do you want me to go?”  Because seriously I was in line with a bunch of cars and there were cars going about the same speed on our right.  Finally she couldn’t take it anymore and had to move over to our right lane and then gave me the bird!  So I kindly returned the gesture!  And where did she wind up?  One car in front of me!  Riding up that guy’s you know what!!!  All that for what?  We all wind up crawling by the time we get to around the airport area.    Well, maybe she doesn’t drive this route every day and doesn’t know the 405 commuter rhythm.

Traffic congestion is not really a big problem in a mid size town like Rochester NY where I live. However, I do listen to the traffic report on the radio to see what is in front of me as I get onto the highway. Unless the highway is totally blocked off, I usually do not make any adjustments to my route. Most of the time I do not have any idea of how bad the congestions are and do not know how the situations of the other roads.

Last week, I saw a recording of a talk from the PARC Forum “Mobile millennium: using smartphones to monitor traffic in privacy aware environments” by Alexandre Bayen. You might have seen reports of the Mobile Millennium project on CBS, NBC, ABC, CNET, NPR, KGO or BBC. This presentation gave a more in depth discussion about the details and the description of experiments that were performed. For the techies, this gives us a better understanding of the thoughts and the algorithms being used. It also addresses some of the security concerns and how the mobiles devices enables “crowd-sourcing” to provide a “give and take” fair sharing of information. Since the concept relies on mobile devices, this technology can potentially be applied to third world countries where there are not a lot of build-in traffic monitoring infrastructure while mobile devices are the prevalent communication device. It turned out that to get enough information, only a small percentage of mobile users have to sign up to the Mobile Millennium project.

I can’t wait for the day when one can get constant bird’s eye view of the traffic conditions on all the possible routes that one can take. Currently, the pilot is being conducted in northern California only. Details can be found on the Mobile Millennium website. It appears that there are still some limitations. For example, one cannot differentiate the traffic on the HOV lanes and regular traffic. Also, the traffic lights can provide misleading information. But, even with these limitations, I would be willing to try it out. Too bad I do not live in the northern CA area and the SW does not work on the iPhone yet.

A description of the presentation and the recording of the presentation can be found at: http://www.parc.com/event/896/mobile-millennium.html.

It’s been quite a while since the last entry.  I was able to work 4/10 for a while but then I got on loan to another team and had been working 6/10 instead.  I am back to my own team now for a couple of weeks and was able to go back to my 4/10 for one week.  Then I was at work last Friday and Saturday (yesterday).  The drive to work at 6:00am yesterday was great but paid for it when I left at 4:00pm.  Once at Lakewood where there was suppose to be a brush fire.  But then that was on the blvd what does that had to do with the freeway clogging up I have no idea.  Then the East bound 710 was closed and another clog!  Of course there was the usual airport area clog!!!!!  Drive home SUCKED!!!!!!  But I remind myself that I am lucky to still have a job.  I know time are tough and we are going through a layoff period.  If I don’t get notice this month, I am safe till the next round.  Not sure when that will be …

I save the link to this article, Left-lane slowpokes drive you cracy? that I read a couple of days ago because I was wondering how slow a slowpoke are we talking about!  Is driving at the speed limit slow enough to get a ticket or at yelled at?  Obviously so, at least right here is So CA. Well, I have yet to see tickets but definitely getting yelled at!!!!

I was going down on the 405 South during one of my morning commutes.   It was early and traffic was moving and we were a couple of exits before the 10 freeway interchange.  We’ve all done this … we all slowed down to or close to speed limit when there is a police car within sight.  So this one car was no different even though he was on the fast (or the 1st) lane.  This cop car was riding right up behind it and of course it just seemed to make thing worse because this guy started to slow down just below the speed limit.  But it wasn’t like he was driving 10, 20 mph below.  He was hovering about the speed limit.  The cop behind him finally couldn’t stand it anymore and got to his bull horn and yelled at the guy to MOVE!!!!!  It was obvious that the cop wasn’t in a hurry or anything because if not he would have had his sirens on and everyone would have moved out of his way.  I felt bad for the poor guy.

So how slow is too slow … in the cop’s eyes vs the fellow drivers’ eyes?

I know from experience that even if you are on the 2nd lane and is driving 5 mph above the speed limit, it can be considered too slow for the fellow drivers.  But it seemed to be acceptable to the cops.  But if you are driving in the 1st lane, you can be going 80mph and is not be fast enough for some of your fellow drivers.  Now I am not sure if it’s acceptable to the cops (at least in practice and not on the books) because no one was stupid enough that I have seen to stay at that speed if there are cops around.  Of course this is what I have seen mostly during the early commute when traffic is light enough for drivers to be going at that speed.

One other thing about my fellow drivers is that even after you had passed the car on your right, you really have to be very careful about moving over.  I have seen it too often that the guy riding up your behind has no patience to wait till you have safely moved over before speeding up.  And I am not talking about passing someone at speed limit either.

I know some people love the Adrenalin rush with the speed and the zipping around but I just want to get to my destination in one piece … thank you very much!

I am not sure if I am ready to buy the new Insight yet.

Honda Insight - Source: http://automobiles.honda.com

My Hybrid Civic is still running just fine.  Definitely reading good stuff about the Insight thought.  But I would like to see how it really does before I switch.  Maybe wait and read some owners reviews.  I know that Honda supposedly based the Insight’s design on other hybrid and electric cars’ body features, but I wish the Insight’s body looks a bit different.  It reminds me too much of the Prius.  Or … I could wait till this slick little sporty, Honda CR-Z

Honda CR-Z - Source: http://www.hybridcars.com

or … the FC Sport!!!

Honda FC Sport - Source http://www.hybridcars.com

I was doing my Friday morning reading when I came across an article titled, “10 Cars That Get More Than 40 mpg“. This was an interesting list of cars.  The first 2 listed were hybrids.  The first named (of course) was the Toyota Prius and the second (my kind of car) was the Honda Civic Hybrid and they were the only two that are available in the US.  The rest of them are not available for sale in the US.  Three of them are not diesel while the rest of the five are not sold in the US because they are diesels.  Guess who is the maker of two of these fuel efficient cars … FORD!!!!  One is the Ford Fiesta ECOnetic that I mentioned in one of my articles and the other is the Ford Ka.

So it seems to me that Ford could save itself without all this bail out.  Maybe we are putting some of these bail out money in the wrong place.    Are we really too stupid to learn about the new cleaner diesel fuel?  Don’t you think that we will buy one of them if they show the same product quality, fuel efficiency and greener.  I am driving a Honda Civic Hybrid.  I am driving it because it’s reliable, more fuel efficient and greener.  Not just because it’s a Honda!

It’s been a while since the last entry.  So a quick word about why the absence.

The 3rd week of January (week of the 18th) was spent in New York.  It was a cold greeting from New York.  I arrived at NY and as soon as I settled into the cab, my phone beeped telling me that I had voice mail.  It was from my brother telling me to head over to my parents’ apartment to meet up with my Mom then head over to the hospital.  Dad was admitted into ICU the night before.  That trip to NY was meant to help out taking care of my Dad who just got out of the hospital the week before.

Machines beeping and IVs dripping but he was stable.  My Mom and I stayed till 7:30pm when visiting hours was over.  It snowed that first night!

Home from Downtown Hospital.

My brother went back at 8:30pm to stay with Dad over night.  So that was the schedule every day.  My Mom and I were there during the day and my brother the night.  The hospital was just around the corner, so we just had at walk to get there.  So it was a very short daily commute.

Second trip to New York on the 24th of Jan.  I took 2 weeks off from work so I don’t have to keep flying back every week.  Similar kind of schedule as the first trip was planned even after Dad was transferred back to Mt. Sinai Hospital where he was discharged from the first time.  It was a longer commute and in the subway.  I had mixed feelings whether I could handle this kind of daily commute.  Private or public commute?  Which is better?  Both have it’s pro’s and con’s.  A couple of the ICU nurses had told me that they would never pick CA over NY.  Surprised me a bit since so many people seemed to be migrating to CA all the time.  But then maybe it was just that CA superior feeling because we have better weather.  Hard not to feel that way … it was freezing in NY.

View from Mt. Sinai Waiting Room

Dad’s condition did not seem to be getting better and he was eating less.  We were all very concerned.  My brother called around 3:00am Feb 3rd.  My Mom and I got ready ASAP and took a cab to the hospital.  By morning, we called my other brother to come.  We were all there with him.  Dad passed away last afternoon.

Leaving Mt. Sinai

It was snowing on the way to the subway when we left the hospital.  The snow … strange conincidence … Leaving the hospital that night was hard … felt like I was abandoning him.  I have always understood why people needed religion.  I think I understand.

Note:  Just noticed that I had started this post last week.  Finally finished it.

Break was great!  I had one of those best ones where we just stayed home and relaxed.  We ate and caught up with a lot of movies that were interesting but really didn’t want to pay to watch in the movie theater.

So last week was back to the normal commuting routine.  Traffic wasn’t bad over all but man … what’s up with the high beams?  Three days in a roll I was followed by some driver who thought that the LA freeway was not bright enough with just his/her normal lights.  Okay I was only attacted by 5 high beams because one of the cars only had the high beam on for one side.   I flipped (snapped) my rear view mirror up and turned my right side mirror out so the high beam wouldn’t be in my eyes.  I am sure my snapping my rear view mirror did not sent any message to the driver behind me.  I am sure he/she was not even paying attention to what the person in front was doing.  I am a conservative driver and certainly don’t want to the cause of any accidents but I really wish I was able to angle the side mirror just so that his/her high beam would reflect right back to blind him/her.  Maybe then it will be like a slap on the forehead and dawn on him/her to check their lights.  Although I highly doubt it.  Or maybe a big neon sign on the rear window where you can send a message to the driver behind would work too.  TURN OFF YOUR HIGH BEAMS!!!!!!!!!!!!

Turned in my finals yesterday and I have time off work till next year so no reason not to write something.  But there won’t be any commuting stories to write because I won’t be doing any daily commuting for the rest of the year.  Yipee!!!!

Well, I got my car back for a week.  Got back into the hang of my own car.  I do like my Civi Hybrid and the auto place really did a good job on my bumper and the trunk.  Looks brand new again!  With daily commutes especially on the freeway, you can’t help but get hit with flying rocks (small ones thank goodness) and your wind shield get some little dings (that is if you are lucky).  The first week of my long commute, I got a pretty big pop on my wind shield.  Let me tell you it was loud.  Scared the crap out of me.  Thought I was shot at.  Driving on the LA freeway, it could happen!  That was when I was driving my stick shift Honda CRV.  I heard that if a rock hit low on the wind shield (i.e. close to the hood), the crack is more likely to spead.  Sure enough that first hit was low and it did spread fast.  Well, I was also pretty paranoid when I first started commuting.  I was freaked out that my whole wind shield would shattered while I am flying down the freeway one morning.  I know I sounded like a pretty uneducated person.  Anyway, I had my wind shield replaced right away.  Not cheap!

My hybrid’s wind shield was not spared of course and I have accummulated 3 chips as of last week.  The weather took a big dive last week.  I know it’s nothing compared to east coast winter but it was pretty cold for sunny So CA!  A couple of mornings when I got out to go to work, there was frost on the wind shield.  The first morning when there was frost, I didn’t notice anything different on the wind shield.  But when I got out from the office to head home, I saw one of the chips had started to spread.  It was of course the one that’s lowest or closest to the hood.  The next morning with the frost again, I noticed the crack had spread a bit more.  Well, this time I think I will wait till it’s really bad before I replace it.  It’s not cheat to replace the wind shield.

Anyway … no work … no commute … time for some serious R-and-R!

So I’ve been driving this rental that the insurance company is paying for a week now.  The car is ok but like any rental, it has this strange smell that is really bothersome.  The interior was not the cleanest either.  Strange how we are ok with our own filth but when it’s someone else’s, it just seems so much more yicky!  Also I swear I got the car with 3/4 tank full.  But I drove one day and the tank was less than 1/4 left.  Also the tires air pressure light was on.  I didn’t even noticed it, but thought I better check.  My hubby checked and filled all the tires up and the light did go off.  If not, I would have taken it back to them and have a different car.

At first I thought it was no big deal and was really thinking of not bringing it in.  Believe it or not for a small thing that I thought it was, it would cost a grant total of $2000.  Beside the bumper, the inner lining of the trunk was bent so that needed replacing as well.

In a way I am glad I did even though it was a pain with the stream of calls back and forth with the insurance companies both mine and the other party’s.  Hate to say that their insurance company was a lot easier to deal with and seemed to be more competent!  I thought it was just a scratch on the bumper and didn’t even noticed that the trunk was actually misaligned.  It is a relieved to know that the car will be in good shape again.

I am suppose to get my car back this coming Friday.  Can’t wait!!!!