I have long enjoyed riding the train. There is something soothing about the sound of the wheels on the track. The stops, people getting on and off. What is their purpose for traveling? Why did they choose the train? My first experience with Caltrain was when I was fairly young, probably 8 or 9. I had a step brother who lived in San Francisco, and I would visit occasionally on the weekend, so my...
Fleabag hotels and internet
In this day and age, pretty much every hotel has free wifi. Woo hoo. However, there is a nasty nasty trend. Shitty free wireless that sucks just enough to make you want to pay for the faster service. Yes, the standard wifi is free, but it is so often bandwidth capped, and metered, so that surfing the web is painful. There are long resets and time outs, that will drive you bonkers. And your...
Apartment Living – Maintenance
There is one benefit of leasing an apartment (or even a house) that I was looking forward to: Your landlord is responsible for all the routine maintenance. No longer if the plumbing springs a leak, or a drain clogs, or a hot water heater dies, do I need to call a repairman or roll up my sleeves and get it fixed. Woo hoo. Or is it? Alas, there are downsides. We have had a couple of minor issues...
Why I hate my Windows PC
At work, I am blessed with a HP Elitebook 8460p (15 inch wide screen, core i5) laptop. It has OK specs, and I pimped it out to 16 G of ram. But it is dog slow. We probably have 2 – 3 updates a week pushed to us that require a reboot. I have to save all my work, and reboot, and then wait. I have learned to open up the resource monitor and watch the disk get hammered. For about 15 minutes...