NOTE:  This entry I originally wrote and neglected to post a couple months ago.  Since I had written a substantial entry, I couldn't just leave it unpublished - so here it is available as a completely random post.

Round 1:  Destination Thief River Falls, Minnesota

I travelled to Thief River Falls, MN recently via a selection of transport modes.  I’m here on business, but that’s irrelevant to Transit Sleuth readers, but there are some other points that are relevant.

First I left the house via automobile, for the prime reason no buses run early enough to deposit me somewhere to ride the MAX Red Line to the airport.  Jo rode with me to return with the car to its parking spot where it shall sit for another dozen or more days.  We left at 4:35am heading east on Powell, turned onto I-205 north.  After a few minutes we exited the Interstate at Glisan to park at the Park & Ride at Gateway Transit Center.

After a few minutes, the next MAX Red Line arrived exactly on time, Jo and I boarded, and off we went toward the airport.  After the short 10 or so minute ride we detrained and headed into the concourse.  I picked up my flight tickets and we headed off for some grub in the main commercial area of the concourse.

We bid farewell for the trip and I struck into security with the blank stair of a downtrodden and beaten dog.  Every American should walk into the security lines of the TSA this way, because really, THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT WE ARE for allowing this $8 Billion a year travesty.  It isn’t security, it’s a “customer service organization”!  I’ve seen it on TSA memos so it MUST be true!  Anyway – I’m sure you can tell I am NOT a fan of the TSA.  It’s a waste of billions, and does NOTHING more than the security did that existed before that didn’t cost a single taxpayer penny.

After I made it through the deluge of security idiocy and dehumanization I went and camped out at the terminal the plane would depart from.  After a while we started boarding in preparation for departure.  I got onto the plane in my normal way, with precision and stowed my carry on luggage.  I immediately sat down and attempted to stay out of the way.  Of course, everyone else isn’t like me and could give a crap whether they slam EVERY bag they have into me.  So I sat there in my aisle seat attempting to not get smacked in the face.  In the end I was hit 6 times; 2 to the side of the head, 3 slammed into my arm as I blocked their clumsiness, 1 by a babies foot and the bag the individual carried as she turned to apologize, and 1 more time by some drudge of an idiot just plundering through and hitting everyone on their trip to the back of the plane.

Still in one piece, boarding completed, and off we went.

…or well, so that was the plan.  We pulled away from the terminal air-way and sat for 20 minutes because some luggage guy left some of the cargo netting hanging out of a bay area.  After waiting 19 minutes for someone to come back and fix it, someone appeared and stowed the cargo net in the cargo bay.  Now we finally, after this show of blundering, we where off.

The flight was ok, fortunately it was a big plane.  The 757-200 lumbered through the air with a Cadillac’s ride; smooth yet clumsy.  We started our approach after the few hours of transit, and landed at Minneapolis about 25-30 minutes late!  Weeehooo!  Late planes rock!

I deplaned and met up with my coworker Gary, which we then snagged a Quiznos in one of the airport restaurants.  After that short bite we went and waited for the arrival of our next plane, which would take us to Grand Forks, North Dakota.

We made the flight and headed to Grand Forks.  After the short flight we arrived, amazingly about 10 minutes early.  So overall, we arrived at this point early.  Gary got our car which he would drive to our final destination of Thief River Falls, Minnesota.  We piled into the Toyota Camry and smoothly rolled along the highway clearing mileage at around 65 mph.  We arrived, found our place of residence for the rest of the week and grabbed some food.

Round 2:  Destination Portland, Oregon

We departed Thief River Falls and travelled to Grand Forks to board the 8:10am departure to Minneapolis.  We arrived, Gary turned in the rental car, and we boarded the plane.  A quick flight, and as we landed I jarred awake.  I had fallen asleep for the entire flight and I wasn’t complaining.

After some quick flight research, my gate was F13 for the Minneapolis to Portland leg of the trip.  But before I continue the travelling narrative I really have to add some props for Portland.

There are people, and they seem to be a small number but have grown loud lately, that incessantly complain about Portland.  Most of these people don’t seem to do a real apples to apples comparison of Portland to other cities nor take the current issues here in Portland in context of other cities.  Among all those complaints though, Portland has some awesome amenities compared to…   well I’d say about every single city in the United States.

Where do I start?  I arrived in Minneapolis, and after two days of zero amenities I was glad to be back in civilization.  The first thing I did was get a cup of coffee, from Caribou Coffee.  I don’t want to complain, it was a good cup of coffee, but it by no means is a really good cup of coffee like one expects in Portland.  As I sat with my cappuccino pondering this wire-less the Minneapolis Airport has I was guessing on 5-10 bucks for the day.  Portland’s of course is free.  I got connected and sure enough, one hour is a bloody freaking $4.95!  So much for being business friendly.  I’m all for charging, but they ought to just put a surcharge on the airport fees or something.  It’s just too much mess to be required to dump out $4.95 AFTER I’ve already gone through a dozen different charges and other mess in an airport.

Anyway, a good flight home.  A short ride on the Red Line MAX back into downtown Portland and into the Office.  From there I did a few hours of catch up and then jumped back on the bus for the trip home.  After a short #9 run across the Ross Island Bridge I arrived home.  Overall a good trip, a rare trip, but one for the books.

One major thing, I'm very happy to be back in ole’ PDX.

Ok, for a few years I've been heavily involved in my sleuthing of the transit, transportation, and general logistics industry and the respective history.  Freight is fairly independent in its own right, and if it received zero subsidies tomorrow, it would still continue and probably grow right along with the market.

Passenger transportation; auto, airline, rail, bus, or whatever, would shrivel and die within a few months.  The simple fact is, nobody ever seems to actually want to pay for it.  Continually shoving off the cost to some other segment of people or some other bucket of money for something else.  In America now, it seems we've moved away from sustainable passenger business models and into the realm of unknown, non-market base, non-choice based, monopolistic transportation entities that aren't companies, but instead authorities.  Some of course, like TriMet, are much more responsive and act more like a business and work as though they truly have a vested interest in their riders.  Many, if not most, do not act like that.  Even TriMet, who I just bragged about, sinks into the bottomless pit of begging for funds and such as is needed.

Thus people don't really pay for their rides, whatever the mode.

Why Is This a Problem?

Besides the moral lapse of outright theft from one entity to another (auto people stealing from transit people or both of them stealing from general budgets) there are a ton of other less obvious issues.  Many people don't understand how the funding process works, and then they're confused when increased ridership doesn't equate to increased service.  Throughout the country ridership has soared to astonishing levels, seeing rises amounting to increases not seen since the auto took off in the 50s and 60s, then again in the 80s.  If this continues we'll be forced to come up with solutions to handle the increases.  For now though, we have massive failures.

We Can't Handle the Increases Because...

The root of this problem is there is zero market relation to actual service.  In other words, transit has not met an actual market demand for over 30 years.  The sole purpose of transit has been relegated to a strange stop gap measure against 100% auto dependency (We seem to have gotten to at least 96% auto dependency).  In turn of staving off transit's destruction we Americans nationwide have come up with really oddball funding scenarios.

Income Taxes Pay for Services Scenario

This is a common transit funding mechanism.  Income taxes cover some part of Amtrak & many transit agencies service or capitol expansion.  The same for roadways.  Income taxes, and I might repeat this a few times, income taxes have absolutely NO CORRELATION AT ALL to corridor demands!  If anything it is the reverse.  So how can we expect income taxes to pay for our demanded services?  How can we put the cart before the horse and expect it to pull the cart?

As Home Simpson would say, "Duh!" We can't...

So what is a solution?  How do we draw parity to funding and demand instead of demand to funding?  Right now agencies are pained, they need funds to increase service, but fares are but a mere pittance, and the more service the more funding is needed.  We can't continue to rely on income taxes and general budget monies for this.  At the same time somehow, and in some way real prices have to be levied (not in a tax sense) against all modes; auto, transit, Segway, bicycle or any other mode that uses the primary arterials.  Somehow we all have to put in a more reasonable fare or fee related to the demand in service.

One Solution Idea

I however, as always, have some random ideas.  I know tomorrow, I can't expect a truly open, fair, and free market to be available for transportation.  It would be, as currently is, impossible to get the Government out of it all.  Their rules and fingers are stuck so deeply into the pie it is disgraceful.  So what can we do?

Remove infrastructure from the cost picture.

Remove infrastructure funding from the picture for freight & passenger services across the board and make it a public funding process.  The freight railroads pay for their own infrastructure, but they're the only entity in transportation that does this in the current climate.  Mind you, it isn't easy for them to do this either, especially with all the hateful and absurd calls for re-regulation and all that mess.  They barely are paying for expansion as needed under the current burden of taxes, regulatory nightmares of the FRA, and struggling to deal with each state and various structures that exist (just look up New York State's regulations and taxes versus the other states, and you'll see why I say it is so unbelievably complicated).  Now mind you, think of the prices of things if we could get publicly supported and democratically voted in infrastructure?  Imagine the price reductions on freight rail shipping!  Imagine the price reduction on passenger rail and airlines!  Imagine the price reduction on automobiles - oh wait, that wouldn't happen.  But anyway, back on track here.

Remove the infrastructure costs; roads, rail, air, and other pieces and setup a democratically voted for and supported infrastructure fund.  Keep in mind, we wouldn't stop entities, such as freight rail or buses or passenger rail from funding their own infrastructure if they wanted to expand ahead of demand.  What would be setup is a general infrastructure fund that citizens, not a representative, but citizens would vote on in national elections every 2-4 years.  Just like the President, Congress, and the whole lot.  But this would give us our choices back to us to some degree, and put the cost picture back on us as a society.  We'd have to vote in whatever actually gave us the most bang for our buck.  Urban areas would most likely vote heavily toward rail and transit infrastructure while urban areas would want their roads.  This of course, makes sense.

Democratic infrastructure voting.

This should be a two phase process.  First, we should have representatives of industry and citizen representatives get together and figure out some large scale proposals for urban, suburban, and rural areas.  Once the primary projects are laid out, with choices between modes and corridors, people should vote on these proposals.  Similarly to how it is done in Portland, except this should happen on a large scale at a national level.

Once this is done, a secondary vote on the three choices should be brought up.  The vote should be on order of priorities; quality, time to completion, and cost.  The order would dictate what would be most important.

The Secondary Vote on Quality, Time to Completion, and Cost

If quality was the highest, the focus would be on amenities, speed, frequency, and the overall ideal of high level luxury service infrastructure.  This would include grand stations (think Grand Central in New York, Penn Central, or other massive and grand stations), with space for amenities, high throughput access, secure style access to facilities.  Of course with rail this would also mean 200+ mph high speed service.  For roadways it would mean rest stops with more secure and beautiful accommodations of service, safer roads that are built to last longer and be smoother, and allow for higher speed traffic in the 120-180mph range.  This however would also mean that certain people would obviously have to maintain a higher level of licensing, attain a higher skill for operation or probably pay a larger cost for luxury high speed service.

If time to completion was the highest rating, the infrastructure would probably be simpler stations with basic amenities, simpler roadways probably made of basic black top, and things like airports that where not much more than simple concourses.  Shops and rest stops would be limited to either private funding or outright eliminated from infrastructure designs.  However the extensiveness, in destination to destination, would be much greater.  More point to point and available connections and travel points would be available.  Think along the lines of our current road system, get anywhere, but you'll hit a few speed bumps along the way.

If cost was the main criteria, minimal infrastructure extensiveness would be available, lower speeds would be required, but we'd maintain a higher percentage of our budget for other things like schools, military, or whatever else might come up.  Speeds would have to decline, probably similar to what we experience now on roads and rails.  Airlines would have to limit even further their small puddle jumper type routes.  Only the routes that really covered most of their costs would be viable under this priority.

Solved

With infrastructure costs removed from the picture, such as they are with auto usage, modes could grow and expand much easier based off of demand.  With fares and other operational costs growing in relation to actual usage it would be vastly easier to expand services to meet demands, growth, and desires of various communities.  In addition other fare business models could be utilized to offer express, luxury, or streetcar like services in many cities.  In rural areas long distance rail, short hopper bus services, or other types of services could easily spring up to offer other mobility options.

It really could be just that simple.

Why This Solution?

First off, if infrastructure is removed from the picture, entities like Amtrak, BNSF, Greyhound, auto users, transit users, and others can go about their preferred method based primarily on fares, the cost of the automobile by itself, fuel costs, and other above road expenditures.  This is in essence, exactly how auto usage currently is, except now by voting, the auto mode would have to become responsible and its patrons would become aware of the costs.  The same goes for all modes, and the playing field would be drastically evened out.  Under this mechanism almost all modes become independent and sustainable, with service purchased were service is demanded by the people, versus Governmental Politics.

In addition to what I've just mentioned, it seems like the most reasonable scenario that might be put into place, especially under a Democrat controlled Federal Government.  We might not gain the democratically held elections to vote for our infrastructure, but it would be great to force the representatives to actually make an objective decision and show what we're paying for in an even and distributed sense.

So anyone else rolling in some ideas out there?  Post a comment, I'd love to read some other opinions on other solutions.

But not always.  I've been studying China, India, and other up and coming country's economies.  The one thing, of all the threats from these countries, is the sprawl.  These countries have sought American life styles in so many ways, they have sought our wealth and other such notions that they are mimicking our sprawl just as we're trying to remedy the situation.

All I can think is that America spewed the sprawl during the American party and now countries have seen the fun of the party, but aren't realizing the spew festival that awaits.  Fortunately China and India are spending tons on infrastructure at the same time, something the US has failed to do over the last 40-50 years.

The US barely has functional Interstate and Airport facilities anymore, the primary ones being overrun with needs that should not be met by the respective services.  i.e. - Commuting should not be a car based function in big cities and airplanes shouldn't be used for short hop corridor trips under 300 miles.  Even trips under 500 miles could be reduced with a decent rail system to handle high speeds.  All of these things the US has wastefully pushed and encouraged through massive subsidies over the last 50 years while neglecting the modes that would best handle daily city commuting and short hop corridor trips.  Trains in the US, the railroad industry in general, has been forced by monopolistic action of the Government, subsidized competition, and often mandates by cities and states so strict that our system is almost gone or completely destroyed.

Now we begin our rebuilding, slowly but surely, but China, India, and other countries now have a massive head start on this much needed infrastructure.  As our unions keep wages at a modicum that cannot be maintained while keeping the US even remotely competitive with China, India, and others we maintain one of the most expensive forms of transportation in the world as our primary mode; automobiles.

While these other countries emulate us, hopefully they'll learn from our miserable failings with Suburbia, our plummeting standard of living in many areas of the country, and realize that they should stick to the tried and true.

...here's to hoping we Americans and the Chinese, Indians, Pakistanis, and others can work together and get ourselves aligned so we can live well, keep and increase high standards of life, and above all - not destroy our planet.

...and this is why you won't feel like a nasty sardine on a train!

Acela vs. Airline Shuttle
Seat width (maximum)    23"    19"
Seat pitch (maximum)    42"    34"
AC electrical outlets    Adjacent to each seat    No
Available conference tables    Yes    No

Wow, that is just no competition whatsoever!  Why would someone want 19" width vs. 23"!!!  You can't even lean to the side in 19"!  With 23", even overweight one could lean angled a bit of angle for more relaxation, and of course it is absolutely feasible to work on a laptop with the Acela measurements vs. the shuttle!

I was waiting last night for my brother's Continental Flight #553 from Houston and knew it was late.  I went digging around on the Continental Site to figure out where their time tracking for arrivals is, and thought, I gotta do a quick collection of various transit time tracking mechanisms.  When I pulled up Continental's I was rather impressed, very awesome stuff.

A couple pointers on using this.

1. The Update Flight Status button doesn't seem to always work.  Better just to hit the refresh button on the browser.
2. The Estimated Time for arrival is actually pretty accurate.  Then of course, flight times are pretty accurate, it's just those blasted departure times that leave us guessing sometimes.

After I checked this one out I decided I'd check out some of the other available arrival time indicators for different services.

This is TriMet's Transit Tracker, one that I believe I use more than any other.  TriMet's site is hands down, from all the transit sites I've seen (and I think I've checked out about everyone in the US at least), the BEST online transit site available.  The transit tracker times are fairly accurate, down to about +-1 to 3 minutes.  Also the ability to click on the "Display countdown in pop-up window" is awesome when one wants to surf while checking the time till arrival.

The Portland Streetcar Nextbus Arrival map based on GPS location is the next one that I use a ton.  It is a Java app, but also available via a maps.google.com interface.  Basically hover over the stop, as shown here and you will see the next two or three arrival times for the next streetcar.  Of course one can also see each of the streetcars that are active in the system also.  In the picture one is cresting the corner off of 23rd, one is north bound on 10th, one is about the enter the higher speed segment for the south waterfront and one is about the begin its wait at the south waterfront for the arrival of the south bound car.

This map is very useful and one of the things that actually makes the Streetcar, with its morbidly slow self, worthwhile regardless of the slowness.

The last map I've pulled up is Amtrak's arrival time indicator.  With the ability to use the train number, start, or ending destination point to get a tab on the train this is a life saver.  Especially when the train is 30+ minutes late and you really don't want to sit around at the station.  This saves that time from the clutches of one's insanity and returns it back to you in a useful and easily accessible manner.

Clear.

flyclear.com has come into business working off of the faux security of the TSA, the artificially induced demand by an incompetent TSA, a falsely induced fear by the Government, and an inability for a Federal Regulation on airports, airlines, and port authorities to maintain an efficient supply for the demand in high service airports.

This service is created, and I can't wrong the company for doing it as there is a newly create market demand, but the existence is created out of an entirely unneeded, cost increasing, artificially induced demand.  The moral and ethical wrong is definitely square on the shoulders of the Federal Government, TSA, and the people who have allowed this to occur.  Those that have encouraged it share a special discredit among people that would want an honest and direct correlation to the market demand of services that are wanted, needed, desired, and healthy for the citizenry of this country.

These are the regulations I hate, the stupid operations of agencies that the Federal Government SHOULD be able to operate (TSA), and in any natural market would not even exist.  It is disgusting that the politicians and certain people have allowed this to occur.  Somehow, even though I doubt it can be done now, this blight (TSA, faux security, ineffective services and unneeded services) needs to be removed.

I generally don't write about the airports and airlines because they operate with a much higher level of efficiency and market based interest and demand than our rail or road services in this country.  However, with the manipulation and artificially induced demand creating industries that the people don't need, would have never wanted, and technically increases costs to individuals who are for a security service that is functionally irrelevant (as much as the privately operated, vastly cheaper services that existed before) and are already paying artificially increased costs - I figured it was a good rant.

The whole situation is funny, in one of those "hahaa, oh wait, oh dear!" kind of ways.

So it looks like I'll be heading to New Jersey for some consulting business.  Very interesting, haven't been there in ... well I don't know when the last time I was there.  It is probably somewhere to the tune of more than a decade since I've treaded around over in that area.

So with that in mind, I of course immediately though, "What trains can I ride on during non-work hours?".  So I'm taking a gander on the Internet and I hope to capture all sorts of groovy pictures!  As for the flight, I'm guessing I'll be taking Alaska Airlines, but will find out for sure in the next couple of days.

So if anyone has some suggestions, shoot em' this direction.

If you haven't seen it, go look.  Suitable for children 3 and older.  Make sure to read the comments below the item.

I guess preparing kids for submission before the system and that warm feeling over REAL security is better than that "freedom" stuff we're supposed to understand, enjoy, and know in this country.

I commonly wonder why people use certain modes of travel.  Is it the control, the fear factor, the time savings, or the monetary savings.  The later big is always the least involved choice really, which is deplorably sad.  But I'm going to go ahead and toss that out of the discussion because the amount we pay really skews that decision point.  Besides that, it is much too long for my current thought.

The second to last point I made is the decision factor I want to bring up.  Often times it is said if you're going to take transit it'll take twice as long as driving, or more possibly.  Flying of course is 2-40x faster than driving or taking the train, and in areas that have real passenger rail infrastructure passenger rail can often be much faster than airline or auto travel.  The actual time from point A to point B is the main point that is brought up over and over again.  However, even though this is the main discussion point of time in travel, it is NOT the true weight.  The weight of this topic in deciding how to travel from point A to point B is what I'm about to rant on about.

Let us take a look at time traveled, and time wasted in traveling from point A to point B of various modes of transportation.

Mode 1 :  The automobile.

Time from point A to point B:  7 hour.

The ability of one to take a trip from point A to point B in a car is easy.  Own a car, pump some gas, take off whenever one desires.  Super easy, super convenient.  The time always tacks up fast for auto based travel for medium sized trips though.  Often people look at what is a 7 hour trip and think, it'll be about 6 hours.  Then they get on the road and realize that they need to fill up at some point.  Every time someone needs a potty break that requires a stop.  There is other traffic that will delay and prevent forward movement, and if there are any possible traffic points, a timely trip from point A to point B is usually a vain attempt.

While in the car, especially if the law is followed, rare that it is, trips become exponentially more time wasting.  You can't use the time in a car constructively except for the most inane, mindless things.  Listening to the radio is about the only legal and safe thing to do.  When with friends or coworkers the usefulness of things one can do is greatly increased, but often hard to do.  In all but the largest of SUVs trying to do any constructive work is impossible.  The vibrations, bumpy conditions, swerving, and often distracting maneuvers going on roadside by other automobiles make it a place that work just doesn't happen.  With all that said, time driving is time wasted doing something useful.

If one is a passenger and wants to read, an automobile trip is ok.  One can make good use of the time, but that still means one individual is completely consumed and wasting the minutes of their life away.

The only reason to take such a long trip in a car (or SUV or whatever) is for a group of people to do so.  The bonds, conversation, and activities of a similar nature make it time well spent.  Also a caravan of similar minded auto hobbyists can also make great use of this time to learn about their vehicles, roadway systems, and other such things.

Generally speaking though, if you aren't in a group or a hobbyist (i.e. a "driver"/racer), you are wasting valuable moments of your time in a high energy waste of time!  If we're talking about commuting, we're talking about an even larger abrogation of intelligent time usage.  If anyone has other thoughts on positives or negatives of time wasted in auto based travel, let me know.

Mode 2:  The bus.

Time from point A to point B:  6 hours.

I don't even want to talk about this mode much.  It takes all the positives of group and hobbyist based auto travel and throws it out the door.  In addition to that busses for some reason stay filthy and attract some of the filthiest of all human elements.  Why, I don't functionally or legitimately know.  The time spent on busses for mid range trips is generally more than a waste, it is also stressful, annoying, and nasty.  Maybe I'm biased, if anyone likes mid range trips on busses, let me know and I'll add some content to this point and continue a discussion.  Otherwise... I'm done talking about mid range trips on busses.

ugh.

Mode 3:  Passenger Rail - Regular American Rail.

Time from point A to point B:  6 hours.

Let me start the list of what one can do on passenger rail that is impossible on other modes.  Drink beer, drink wine, drink and eat at a table, meet other people, discuss things with complete strangers in a comfortable environment, not worry about being run into, not worry about plummeting from the sky, and the list could continue I'd bet.  As for time spent on a train, most of the minutes are priceless.  Especially in corridors between Portland and Seattle, down in California, or the north east corridor.  These areas are grand places to meet strangers and do business.  To travel with coworkers and discuss business, complete additional work, finish up those last minute tasks, and just about do anything you could in the office.

on some mid range trips one might even be tempted to grab a roomette, which would allow one to legitimately get additional sleep!  Do that in a car or on a plane!  Some might say, "but I can sleep on a plane"  Well you try to do that, then take a trip in the roomette and tell me there isn't a world of difference between a freaking bed and the tin can of a seat you get on a plane!

To take an extreme, I recently took a 2 hr trip to Orange Country.  I had to get first class to actually work on my laptop.  I admit, it is a big one, all 17 inches.  In that 2 hr trip I was able to work and it was great.  On the return though, in the regular seats, I couldn't do crap.  Don't get me wrong, I tried, but as soon as that seat in front of me came back there was no way this, or even a 13-15" laptop was going to have the screen at a proper angle!  So out of the total of 4 hours of time, I had barely 2 that was usable to do something constructive.  Meanwhile, I will have a total of 20 hrs of train time going to and from San Francisco from Portland.  I will have 20 hrs of time that can be constructively used.  In addition there are all the other activities that I will partake upon that makes the time multitudes more useful and constructive.

Mode 4:  Passenger Rail - Acela or better rail.

Time from point A to point B:  2 hours to 3 hours.

Take the above example, and shave off a huge chunk of time.  The only thing you might find yourself wanting is to spend MORE time on the train.

Mode 5:  Air Travel.

Time from point A to point B:  1 hour to 2 hours.

Air travel is the major time saver of this century (oops, and the last!).  Super fast.  The problem is, the time on a plane is even less constructive and less useful than the time in an auto.  There is barely any way to have conversation or do business except with some of your closest cohorts.  An upgrade to business/first class however changes all of that.  Much easier to talk and do business.  Still there are no tables or areas to spread out and really do business as on a train, but it is a drastic improvement over using the bus or automobile to get anywhere.

The point of all these mode comparisons is that time isn't just point A to point B, and people need to seriously realize this.  Americans consume massive amounts of time living in inconvenient locations, taking trips in the worse possible mode because they don't learn where they are going, and the reason go on and on.  The excuses however are all irrelevant.  Learn to use the time you are going to have in transit wisely and all of a sudden, it is time well spent.  Sometimes that means getting out of the car, or stepping off a plane to spend a longer period of time, to make sure all of that time is better time.

Next time, just think it through, know where your going, and think.  Do I really want to just look at the street before me or the seat in front of me?  Do I possibly want to make the trip worthwhile?  Do I possibly want to look back at this and think, "I lived a good life because I didn't just run along a lemming in the race to the cliff?"

Basically, next trip, just think.

This weekend I'm on my way to Orange County to hang out with a friend and get some crazy hard core coding done.  For my logistical arrangements, and since I actually didn't want to throw down a few days and wanted maximum coding time in the OC, I decided I was going to jump an Alaska Airlines flight.

I purchased a ticket on their web site with ease.  I must admit, being a code monkey that I am, and knowing the ins and outs of the software they use to develop their site, it is a really great site.  Usability is great, pages flow well, and it is easy to use.  They where even respondent when I thought that Opera support wasn't available.  Their support quickly pointed out where I needed to click.  It was an ID10T error on my part.  I got a direct flight from PDX to the OC for about $348 bucks, taxes and other crap included.  I was set.

When this Friday rolled around I was 100% ready for my trip.  I had packed a second backpack with cloths and had my main backpack stashed with my computer gear.  I arrived at work, put in a solid day of coding, cube building, and other geeky awesome work. As the day rolled to an end I pulled up TriMet's Transit Tracker in preparation for heading down from my 7th floor perch to Pioneer Square.  With 10 minutes to go on Transit Tracker I headed for Pioneer Square.  I arrived easily in a mere 2-3 minutes.  I'm not sure why I left so early.  I suppose I was just chomping at the bit to get going.  The Red Line train arrived in a precise 10 minutes from my departure from the office, I boarded, and off we went.

Aboard there was the normal crowd plus a bunch of ruffians blabbering about the horrid mess the homeless are in.  I almost entered the conversation but instead pulled the laptop out and put in a half hour of coding.  In the proper scheduled time allotted we arrived at the airport.  I headed up to the check in counter, but turned and used the "no baggage check in machines".  I was printed up and headed for the TSA bull shit (excuse my French, but the TSA is a bureaucratic, useless, and expensive organization of people that don't effectively do anything to secure our transportation networks).  I got through the TSA BS quickly (I'm not calling it security, because it IS NOT, by functional definition security) and headed to concourse C.

I arrived, scoped the concourse, and began wondering about.  I was going to enjoy some Gustav's, but decided at the list minute to try a Good Dog Bad Dog.  It was "meh", and life continued.  After grubbing on my Good Dog Bad Dog Sausage Dog I headed back to my gate.

The plane arrived, but our south band staff had not.  We departed late by about 20-30 minutes, but not to fear, it is a privatized entity, they can operate their business.  After a short time the staff arrived and got the airplane boarded.  I had purchased for $50 bucks extra a first class ticket upgrade, first that I have ever purchased.  So I was able to plunk my butt down real quick.

After take off I whipped out the laptop and began working.  I had space to work!  First class ROCKS on Alaska Airlines!  After about 10 minutes of work I was served a wonderful mixed Shiraz (? I'm not sure the mix) and a yummy warm cookie.  One thing that is awesome was that the wine came from a bottle, not some prepackaged box wine crap.  If I had seen a box, I would not have ordered it.  I kept typing away, checking out the scenery here and there (I think I caught Sacramento, I'll have to check Google later).  The extra space actually made flying rather comfortable.

Meanwhile, Joleen had just enjoyed an upgraded flight to Denver from PDX, and from Denver to Rapid City, South Dakota.  She had reported to me that the upgrades were well worth it!  I was happy to know that, as I was assuming and hoping that the money spent would be worth it.  I'm amazed at how many people always choose the "cheap route" when the "comfortable and choice route" isn't all that much more.  But heck, I'm an American, I don't mind living well.

The host and hostesses on the flight where also superb!  Very friendly, offering polite greetings and general conversation while boarding and while en route.  I must say, I'd still rather have been able to spend the time just chilling on the Coast Starlight enjoying the time and lounging about in the Parlor Car.  But even still, I gotta say this is NOT a bad way to travel.  Sometimes, one just has to get the job done, or simply put "get'r done!"

A short story to partake.  While en route the host accidentally over filled my wine glass.  No worries form me, I'm easily entertained and we enjoyed a good laugh along with my fellow row person.  We hated to see the wine spilled, but it was all good.  On the way down I got a solid 3 refills from the bottle, definitely rocking at this point.  Feeling a little alcohol, a little lack of sleep, and the tastiness of the wine.  All the while coding away like mad, getin'r done.

Without a moment to spare, my fellow row person zonked out and began snoring.  It was really rather hilarious.  He would flutter his hands every few minutes and twitch his head back and forth.  Relaxed after his coke on the rocks.  He finally relaxed and fell fast asleep.

The flight went on well and within no time we landed Orange Country/Santa Ana/John Wayne Airport.  It has been well over a year, I'm sure longer since I flew anywhere, and I'm definitely glad I chose first class on Alaska Airlines.  Hopefully north bound will have upgrades available.