essays

Driving to Work Really Sucks

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Most days I take the bus downtown to work. Yet, yesterday I was running really late, so I decided instead to drive into work. The idea is would save me a little time — at least compared to waiting another 10 minutes for the next bus to come.

And I did get to work a little bit earlier. But I wasn’t happy. I had to fight traffic both in and out of the city, then find an on-street parking spot. While were I park is far enough from the state office buildings and with permit parking to be quite easy, but it still was not a pleasant experience.

Circle Stack Interchange

You have to drive around the block looking for a spot. Then once you find your spot, you have to get in it, and make sure your in compliance with all of the parking regulations. You check the signs to make sure your on the street the proper day, then look for driveways, crosswalks, and fire hydrants. After a while you get to memorize all of things, but you still want to check.

Alternatively, you can pay $3 and park in a city lot, where they feed the homeless people and winos. Who may spend the day sleeping under your car. Not exactly a great choice. Yes there are other lots, but either they are a lot more expensive, or they require you to pay for a month permit.

The Giant Refrigerator

Then you spend all day wonder if some drunk driver or stupid city person is going to crash into your truck, while your at work. You get back your truck at night, and then say, thank god, nobody has messed with my truck while at work. And then you drive home.

If your lucky, you get out of work after rush hour. Otherwise, you sit in traffic, while you try to find all of the residential side streets to sneak past the worst of the traffic. But you still sit in traffic. Eventually, you get home, usually just about the time the evening bus stops next to your house.

..You come to conclusion, that despite burning a gallon of gas, and worrying all day, you didn’t realization you didn’t really save much time at all.

Outside the 2%

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I live and work in an urbanized area. For most of week, I get on a bus or walk from place to place, go to work, go to the library, and otherwise interact with others in an urbanized fashion. People from Albany are pretty urban, by no means is Albany a farm town — although there are certainly many rural areas around Albany.


View Larger Map

Yet, despite all the time I spend in Albany, the city really is just a little dot on the map compared to vast lands around it. Drive less then 20 miles in any direction, and chances are you’ll be in a mountain town, a farm town, or some kind of national or state forest.

Untitled

Albany is a large enough of a metro-area to have a very urban feel to it. It’s cities have all of the regular urban problems, from drugs to gang violence. But your never very far from the rural hinderlands, and truly rural areas that are largely independent from the city’s regular activities.

Sun is Setting

With the cold weather of the past two months, I’ve spent much too much time in city. But getting back up to Vermont I’ve come to realize all I’ve missed, outside the 2%.

Yeah for the Snow

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Today marks the second day of the winter when we’ve had snow. That’s good, because until this point it’s been largely a snowless winter, and last year was pretty snowless.

Snowshoe Path

But snow is both essential to the economy, the environment, and way of life in New York State. It provides a surface for skiers, snowmobilers, and snowshoers to get back into the woods.

Climbing out of the Ravine

It refreshes the natural environment, by insulating the ground, while killing off excessive deer, mice, and ticks.

Snowmobile Tracks

… So yeah, to another snowy day!

Elm & Longwood

BASH Script for Switching Between HDMI and Laptop Screen

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Handy bash script I wrote, or actually adapted, for switching between your HDMI monitor and your laptop screen — you just run this when you log-in (also opens or closes gkrellm, which doesn’t fit on the tiny laptop screen) …

#!/bin/bash

# roughly based on:
# http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/4489/a-tool-for-automatically-applying-randr-configuration-when-external-display-is-p

# laptop screen is LVDS1
# 1080p large-screen is HDMI1

# default monitor is LVDS1
MONITOR=LVDS1

# functions to switch from LVDS1 to HDMI and vice versa,
# give 5 seconds to detect modelines for HDMI monitor or fails
# as it takes a little while for modelines to be auto detected
function ActivateHDMI {
echo "Switching to 1080p monitor, HDMI1 in 5 seconds ..."
sleep 5;
xrandr --output HDMI1 --auto --output HDMI1 --primary --output LVDS1 --off
gkrellm -g -0+25 &
MONITOR=HDMI1
}
function DeactivateHDMI {
echo "Switching to laptop screen, LVDS1 now ..."
killall gkrellm
xrandr --output LVDS1 --auto --output LVDS1 --primary --output HDMI1 --off
MONITOR=LVDS1
}

# functions to check if HDMI is connected and in use
function HDMIActive {
[ $MONITOR = "HDMI1" ]
}

function HDMIConnected {
! xrandr | grep "^HDMI1" | grep disconnected
}

# every one 1 second
# poll to see if HDMI1 is connected

while true
do
if ! HDMIActive && HDMIConnected
then
ActivateHDMI
fi

if HDMIActive && ! HDMIConnected
then
DeactivateHDMI
fi

sleep 1s
done

Stand Up Against the Exploitation of Tragedy

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Yesterday, when you opened Twitter and Facebook up, it seemed like one post or another was calling for people to “do something” about the “menace of guns” in our country, or improve the accessibility of mental health in our county.

I don’t oppose some of the those suggestions. Indeed, certainly we could probably do more ensure affordable and stigma free counseling was available to all. The President’s health law that passed in 2009, with Mental Health parity and a requirement for all to subscribe to a basic health care plan.

We could also consider some gun control restrictions — but the restrictions have to be reasonable in effort, and need to provide a very high standard against someone owning or possessing a firearm. It would have to require a judge, a jury, and a beyond reasonable doubt standard — as does any restriction of a constitutional right. We can’t just have government officials, on a whim, restricting people’s rights, because they don’t like their politics.

The Ledge

We also can’t just start stigmatizing or persecuting individuals just because we don’t like their views. We saw too much of that after September 11th. Rather then embracing conformity, we should embrace diversity, and encourage people of diverse backgrounds to be active and engaged members of our society. We have to stand up against political persecution. They may not be coming after you today, but your in line next.

What I fear, and already see is the worst coming out of people. People want to do something — regardless of what it means for our civil liberties. They want to stop violence, even if they really can not do anything. Even if it means hurting regular folks, they feel they must do something. This is plain scary.

Day is Done – Peter, Paul and Mary.

I think it’s time to step back, and put an end to this madness — the madness of saying we must do something now.

Those Five Hours of Darkness

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Every day nowadays seems to end with 5 hours of darkness. Here is how I use them when I am out camping.

5 PM. Build campfire, catch up on the news.

6 PM. Cook dinner and eat dinner.

Albany

7 PM. Sit back and enjoy the night by the campfire

8 PM. Listen to a podcast or read a book

9 PM. Head to bed early, as it’s best to get up early in the morning to maximize the daylight.