Tralfaz

Author: geoffand

  • Everytime I see a DSLR with a kit lens, the Baby Jesus cries

    Been on the road lately, and spent a couple days taking in the sights in London. Central London, tourist heaven, so much to see, so much to do. As a bit of a photographer, I take notice of what gear I see people shooting with. I can’t help it, I am a geek.

    And I am absolutely stunned how many people I see with decent DSLR cameras from Canon or Nikon with the standard “kit” lens.

    Most DSLR’s, until you get to the pro-sumer or professional grade, come with a lens. That lets people use them immediately, and get some results. Universally these lenses are inexpensive, fairly low quality, and often built with plastic elements. Yes, you can take pictures with them, but they are without a doubt the weakest link in the package.

    You are supposed to step up to better optics. The whole concept behind the DSLR is to allow you to switch lenses to match your style. Doing sports photography? a long telephoto is in order. Landscape photography? A wide angle zoom is in your future. Portraiture? A small telephoto lens with a wide aperture for rockin’ bokeh.

    You don’t have to jump to the ‘L’series from Canon to get great pictures, but you can.

    However a large number of people are schlepping around their DSLR with the gawdawful kit lens. If you are going to do that, you might as well be using a Canon G12.

  • Travel Notes

    As someone who travels extensively for work, I have a few habits that are “odd”.

    1. I never watch TV in my hotel. I can’t remember the last time I turned on a TV in the hotel room. Probably early 2002 or so. I don’t watch much live TV at home, so it is pretty easy to just leave the telly off. Additionally, since I am not a huge sports fan (except for MotoGP and WSBK), I don’t find that I miss it.
    2. I don’t watch movies in airplanes. Even with the advent of personal video/entertainment systems, I just read or sleep. Old habits are hard to kick, and I got out of the habit of watching the in-flight entertainment a long time ago.
    3. I try to not rent cars. Unless I need to go significant distance in a location, even in the US, I usually just cab it. Internationally? No brainer. Cab, train, subway is the way to go.
    4. I never read the newspapers that they hang on the door. I swear that USA Today pretty much exists to be tossed at hotel room doors. But even overseas I just leave the paper on the ground. What I want to read, I get from the web (I subscribe to The Economist and the NY Times, so I am not starved for content).
    5. If breakfast costs money in the hotel, I will go out. I find it astounding how much hotels charge for breakfast. $25 – $30 is not uncommon. Unless they are serving shaved truffles, and beluga caviar omelettes, there is no way I can eat that much worth of food. Just about anywhere in the world I have stayed will have a small coffee shop/bakery within walking distance. They get my custom. Of course, in the US at least, most business hotels include a small breakfast service. That is still catching on worldwide.
    6. Kitsh and gifts – long ago I stopped buying stuff on the road. I know my wife likes the trinkets, but really, how many “Hello Kitty” keychains does one need? I do still buy chocolate to bring back though. Yummy
    7. I rarely try to upgrade to business or first class. I just don’t care that much about the uplift. I have many peers who get visibly agitated when they can’t get an upgrade. I would rather keep the miles and use it to take the wife on a real vacation (and then I prefer to use the miles to upgrade to business class). Of course, upgrades are rarer than ever with airlines doing their best to overbook their seats.
    8. I hate airlines. All airlines. Yes, some are better than others (Singapore or Thai), but all of them are working towards treating their patrons as steerage. For small vacations, I far prefer to drive than to book rewards tickets. Besides the hassle of trying to get a seat with your rewards (and since all airlines are running near capacity, that becomes ever more difficult), I find that I just prefer driving.

    A lot of people hear that I travel a lot for work and instantly assume that it is all glamorous. It isn’t. Hotels aren’t ever as comfortable as your own bed. You can eat some great food, but equally often you are grabbing packaged sandwiches at gas stations. High cuisine indeed.

    I do drink too much on the road though. Spending long hours in hotel bars, or local watering holes that I have found over the years can erase some of the pain of traveling.

  • Travel Log – Europe

    This is going to be a tough expense report. We are supposed to use our corporate cards for everything. And some places that works well. In the US for example, it is getting rare to find a vendor that doesn’t take plastic. No problemo.

    However, get outside the US, and it becomes more sketchy. In Europe (where I have been for the last 9 days) most places take cards, but they prefer the cards with chip’s and an associated PIN. But us in ‘Murika don’t get those cards. Often these vendors can’t or won’t fall back to mag stripe. Grrrr. So you have to use cash.

    Then in England, for the last three days, and several cab rides, not one of which took plastic. Gulp. Add to that the fact that in London, cabs are expensive, (hell, even riding the trains/subway is expensive), and the pounds sterling have been flying out of my wallet.

    Oh, and while I have in general found that internet is free in business hotels, that is NOT the case here in Europe. Every one of the hotels I have stayed in has required payment for internet (or, their “free” internet was SO bad that it was truly a travesty). Sigh. I have had better luck in public here.

    I know that our expense policy is tight, and I know that they will likely badger me (and my boss) with all the cash expenses. Not looking forward to that.

    I am here in Oxford, a bit to the north of the city and the campus, waiting for our seminar tomorrow.  I will be working on my slides, and preparing for the session.

  • So much to see – London

    If you have been following the saga, I have been in Europe for a week so far, and had a weekend to spend in London.  I have been to the UK many times, but usually I just fly in and then grab a {car|train|cab} to some city away from London (usually Cambridge or Oxford). This time I arrived at noon on Saturday, and will be here until Monday afternoon when I grab a train to Oxford.

    I am staying south of central London near the Thames. Great location. I did a major amount of walking today, and saw a lot of sights.

    St. James Park – Really cool place. About 10 minutes from my Hotel. Beautiful grounds, lots of waterfowl, and government buildings all around. Very scenic and fun.

    Buckingham Palace – Got to watch the changing of the guard. Very picturesque, and fun.

    War Memorials – Lots of these sprinkled around. Sobering, somber, and interesting.

    Hyde Park – Bigger park. There was a foot race, so lots of runners out. Cool statues, a nice waterway, and the Italian Gardens are cool.

    Prince Albert Hall. Really cool building. Great architecture. Which lead to …

    Royal College of Music – literally it was about 200 yards behind it.

    Lots of people in expensive cars – Saw a Maybach, a couple of Bentleys, at least three Ferrari’s (including an F40), and a McLaren. Clearly people here have a LOT of money. Certainly can’t get them out of 1st gear in the traffic, even on a Sunday.

    Natural History Museum – I went inside. Really cool exhibits, well laid out, and exhausting. The British Natural History museum is a good visit.

    Long walk back along the Thames. I probably should have grabbed a bus or the tube, but it was a gorgeous day, and I enjoyed the walk.  Altogether, I probably logged 12 – 13 miles today, and I am exhausted. Not sure what I will do for dinner yet, but I will find something.

    I did look at the cost of some flats here. I thought San Jose and the peninsula was expensive. Ha ha ha. Here you have to make investment banker money to buy a flat or an apartment. A nice one was 5,750,000 pounds sterling (about $9.4M at today’s exchange rate). All for about 2500 sqft. But you would get to live in Central London…

  • Travel Hell – Can’t Sleep edition

    There are a variety of reasons that I have trouble sleeping when I am on the road.

    Jetlag.

    Weird schedules

    Food that doesn’t agree with me

    But the one that really bugs me is:

    Neighbors who have hookers come to their room. For fuck’s sake, please, try to keep the screaming, grunting, bed slamming down. I am sure she is that great. I am sure she is worth whatever the FUCK you are paying her. I just DO NOT WANT TO HEAR IT.

    Sigh.

    That is all.

  • European Travel Log – London

    Quick Edit: I forgot how awesome it is to have yummy Ale served at the “proper” British temperature. ‘Muricans just don’t get proper ales.

    The Austria and Germany portions of this trip went well. Successful demos and sales training. Today I moved to London for a couple days before heading to Yarnton for a seminar on Tuesday.

    I am staying near Waterloo on Lambeth road at the Novotel. Pretty awesome location, near a shitload of great sights and things to do.

    The weather is a LOT warmer than I expected. 50F here this afternoon. I almost was too warm with my winter coat on. Traffic wasn’t too bad, it is a Saturday after all. I got to the hotel about 1:30 and headed out for a stroll.

    The London EyeI thought I might enjoy doing the London Eye. Um, holy cow, the line for that makes Disneyland seem barren. Even the “Fast Pass” line is oppressively long. I didn’t even look up how much it costs. Took a few pics and walked by.

    The Parliment building is cool, and recognizable, and listening to Big Ben chime the hours was fun. I expected there to be more boating traffic on the Thames.

    Lots to see and do. Of course, it isn’t all unicorns and chocolate.

    Novotel hotels used to be nice. This one is not cheap ($250 a night US) and you get almost no amenities. Yes, there is free internet, but it must be a 128K fram relay line for all the free users to share. I lasted about 10 minutes before I caved in and bought the upgraded internet. BReakfast isn’t included (a rarity in Europe), and for $32US I will walk down to a bakery for a pastry and a coffee, thankyouverymuch. But, it is in a great, convenient location.

    Cabs – I love the charming “black” cabs, and I got a chatty driver. Took about 15 minutes to drive to the hotel from Paddington station. Yes, I could have done it via tube, but I would have made a lot of mistakes and it would have taken me an hour or more to figure it out. So I cabbed it. Cash only (which will make it tough to expense), and 17 pounds. Yikes. I have to remember that it is ~ $1.80 to 1 pound.

    Heathrow Express. An absolute joy. Certainly cheaper than a car, but I couldn’t figure out how to get it to take my credit card. So another 21 pounds flew out of my limited stash. At this rate, I will be eating McDonalds for all three meals by Monday. (I think I was just using a bad ticket kiosk)

    Tomorrow I will walk the royal gardens, go to the natural history museum, stroll the riverfront, drink a few pints at a public house, and explore the tubes.

    Mind the gap!

    Monday I head up to Oxford for a day, then back to London (for a much cheaper hotel), and day trips for the rest of the week.

  • Irrefutable evidence of getting older

    I have been denying that I have been getting older for some time. I have been able to wave off a lot of symptoms.

    Heart attack, plantar fasciitis, difficulty losing weight, osteoarthritis in my thumb. No problem. There is a fair amount of grey in my hair, but the red hair is good at hiding it.

    But now I can no longer deny that I am getting old. Today I found some grey eyebrows. Evidence staring me in the face when I look in the mirror. No doubt about it, I am getting old. It is down hill from here.

  • News from the Road

    I am in Europe for a few days (almost 2 weeks, really), and as usual, there are some petite observations.

    In Austria, a lot of people smoke. You almost forget how it used to be, but a trip here has reminded me of smoking in restaurants and bars. Oh joy. I guess I will not wear this Sweater again on this trip.

    There are two types of trips:

    1. Those that over schedule you: every minute of every day is planned. Of course, reality settles in, and some appointments will shift or be missed. These trips are hectic, often 5 countries in 4 days, no more than one night in a hotel, and guaranteed chaos.
    2. Those that spread it out too much: Plans change, schedules don’t align, and you find yourself with some downtime. I honestly don’t mind this, because I often can be super productive in these times. Often without internet access, being time shifted so that there is little overlap with the home country. It can be a good thing.

    Of course, regardless of the type of trip scheduled, the local team will feel like they failed you if they don’t keep every minute packed.

    In all my years of travel I have yet to find a sure fire way to quash jet lag. This time, I was up for 36 hours, and slept great my first night. I felt great the first day. Then last night I was tossing and turning until well past 2:00AM.  GRRRRRRR. Alcohol, melatonin, sleeping aids. All tried over the years, and all failed.

    Good food though. I usually push to eat local specialties and (usually) am surprised. Here in Austria and Germany, I will eat much meat.

    I rarely get to do any real sightseeing. I try to enjoy the weekends, but often I am so frazzled that I collapse in my hotel and just do work. This weekend will be an exception. I will be in London, and I will do some walking around. I have never spent any real time here, just flown in, and then headed north or west depending on the trip.

    Shopping. I am not a big shopper. Not much into the kitsch, and souvenirs. I don;t have kids, so no demand to carry stuff back.

    Well, it is almost Bier time, and I believe tonight we will be eating schnitzel. Yummy

  • “Silly”con Valley Neighborhoods

    More on the saga so far.

    This week we spent three days crawling around neighborhoods looking for places that fit the criteria:

    • They are livable – as in, we can walk our dogs in the evening without fear for our lives.
    • We can afford it – We do have an upper limit to what is affordable, after all. I don’t have early Facebook equity.
    • The commute doesn’t completely suck – Probably the hardest of all. The further away you get, the more affordable it is, but this is inversely proportional to the suck factor of the commute.

    On Monday we ruled out a few neighborhoods in San Jose. The fear factor and the feel of some of the neighborhoods was pretty bleak. We also ruled out Gilroy and Morgan Hill. Yes, some affordable options there, but my commute would be tied to Caltrain, and it is a LONG drive for when that wouldn’t work.

    But we did find some downtown areas that were well within the “livable” and “affordable” category. And it would be possible to commute by bicycle if I wanted, a bonus!

    Tuesday we went up the east bay. Started in Milpitas. Very little inventory, (but lots, and I do mean lots of foreclosures) but every neighborhood we looked at was ratty and run down. Likely due to the reduced tax receipts caused by all the foreclosures (people in foreclosure are not paying their property taxes either). A real turn off.

    Further up the east bay, we checked a few places in Fremont. The problem here is the neighborhoods were squiffy. Some really gnarly neighborhoods that made me want to drive through quickly, and some that were in the process of gentrification. But that process was not far enough along to make them attractive. Plus the commute from here is getting egregious.

    Last place on the east bay was to check out the Hayward/Castro Valley area. A colleague lives up there, and recommended it. Claimed it took him 45 minutes to get to the office. cough He must never do it in the commute hours. It takes 45 minutes with no traffic and being at the speed limit on the freeways. Big negative.

    We also went up the peninsula. Some people urged us to look at Redwood City. The few (very few) affordable places were east of El Camino Real. Very rough neighborhoods. Of course, west of El Camino Real are nice, but it starts at $1M and goes up. Apparently that part of Redwood City is the slums of Woodside.

    Lastly, there was one house in “Menlo Park” that met our price target. But this finger of Menlo Park is just east of East Palo Alto. EPA often fights for the “Murder Capitol of America” with DC. Yes, EPA is changing, but it is still not a neighborhood to covet.

    The Net Results

    The trip was a success. We accomplished:

    • We will be able to buy something that is affordable (if we hold our nose and not think about the price).
    • There are some neighborhoods that are suitable and should be in our price range (yay!)
    • We now know what we don’t want. The fact that we were able to cross a lot off our list will help tremendously when we are actually shopping.
    • The move, while scary, is not terrifying. Yes, it will be tough, and yes, we will give up a lot to move back, but it is going to be do-able.

    Now to the next phase. Getting ready to sell our house. We will likely need to downsize a lot of the detritus of our lives. It’s as good a time as any to streamline, so they say.

  • Moving Travails

    Moving from Phoenix to San Jose is going to be an eye opener. We currently have almost 2,400 sqft of house, not counting the garage. We will be lucky to have half that here (for 2.5x the price).

    I am already thinking about what will have to go. A lot of what I have packed in my garage is going to get nuked. It has mostly sat in a box, so I am not going to miss it.

    • My CD’s might get sold. Not a huge collection, but apart from some special ones, that I want to save (signed etc) they have been digitized and archived long ago. Bookman’s will get a bounty.
    • My textbooks. I will look long and hard at my physics and math texts. Most will get pitched. A few I still refer to, but the truth be told, they have been collecting dust for a long time.
    • My old computer gear. I have fond memories of my 8-bit days, and a couple old Atari’s and Apples. I fear they need to go adios. There are emulators, and I still have all the software, so apart from nostalgia, there is little value there anymore.
    • My paperback and Sci Fi collection. This is going to hurt. I have a lot of sci fi that I have bought over the years. Some collectors editions, a lot of old books long out of print. I will sort through the 8 or so moving boxes, and pick one to keep. The rest will go to Bookman’s. I have been using the reader for 6 years now, and I find that most of what I want to read is available electronically.
    • My second computer desk/workstation. I will likely not have room for both. One will go, and I will probably sell/use my second 24″ monitor at the office. It will make it inconvenient to work at home, but that is OK.

    This should help immensely if we get into 1,200 sqft. If we go much smaller than that, or only a one car garage, a lot more will get sacrificed. Probably some guitars and amplification. gulp