Archive for the 'General' Category
According to the trusty GPS, I’m south of Joliet Illinois. The train is rolling at sixty mph right now, and seems to max out around eighty.
The ride is a lot rougher than I thought it would be – so much for “riding on rails” referring to a smooth ride. It’s so bumpy and turbulent I’m having trouble typing. Here’s a picture of my laptop setup in my little room.
Lunch at Giordano’s was excellent. The small pizza was too much for this man to tackle, I had to leave some behind. It was only a five minute walk from the train station, almost right across the street from the Sears Tower. The weather was not at all pleasant, I didn’t take many pictures.
I can’t get my phone to roam on the EVDO network, so I’m stuck at 1x speeds … better than nothing at least!
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I made this mistake of printing the schedule of stops for my train, the Texas Eagle. I’ve been reviewing the stops, seeing if there’s anything of interest that can be seen from the station. In Saint Louis, the gateway arch is very close – I hope the weather cooperates so I can snap a few photos.
However, I’ve developed the habit of looking at the track mileage between stops, and the time Amtrak claims it takes the train to travel that distance.
So far the worst stops I’ve found are between Dallas and Forth Worth. The train is scheduled to arrive at noon in Dallas, departing twenty minutes later for Forth Worth. The track distance between the two stops is thirty-one miles. However, the train is not scheduled to arrive at Forth Worth until 13:55. So that means Amtrak estimates the train to take roughly an hour and a a half to cover that thirty-one miles. The train then takes a leisurely fifty minute stop in Forth Worth before rumbling south-westerly for Central Texas. Luckily I’m not traveling all the way to Los Angeles on this train. After arriving in San Antonio at 22:25, the train does not depart until 5:40 the next morning!
I continue to remind myself, taking the train is not about getting someplace quickly.
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Wow, it seemed like the vacation was a long ways off, and it still feels that way, but I’m leaving Wednesday.
The train leaves at like 08:15 on Wednesday, so I’ll be leaving my house at about 05:00 so I can get there early and maybe have a quick breakfast. The Giordano’s a few blocks away on Jackson is still my plan for lunch during the ~3 hour layover in Chicago. According to my folks and the Amtrak website, people traveling with a room on the train have access to some sort of lounge with a concierge that will secure your baggage for you.
Once I’m on the train, I want to roll a lot of video of the view out the window. A little googling and I found some ideas for real-time transcoding of DV output from a firewire camera direct to mpeg4 xvid files. This setup will let me film for 100′s of hours using my little 160g portable usb drive. I’ll also shoot some footage of inside the train with my shooter – I imaging it’s pretty tight in there, and I don’t have a fisheye lens.
I got my ticket for the fair in the mail a few days ago – it’s not nearly as fancy as the passes to other technology conventions – just a plain paper ticket with multicolor printing on it, no holograms even!
If anyone going to the fair wants to contact me directly, shoot me a gmail @ gordonthree and I’ll give you my cell phone number. I plan to travel with two phones, one of which I’ve subscribed to EVDO internet service on. Maybe I can even blog during the train ride.
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I just noticed my blog looks awful in IE7 and even worse in IE8. Are there any html gurus in the readership that would be kind enough to tell me whats wrong?
Update: I switched to the “classic” theme and then back to the theme I like and the site is now rendering properly in IE7. There appear to be a few icon images missing, I’ll have to dig those up from somewhere.
Popularity: 8% [?]
My train tickets are confirmed and on their way. Finding a ride and a room in the area are proving to be more of a challenge then getting the transport. Amtrak is fairly simple compared to the airlines – there is only one train that goes there and it only has one schedule; take it or leave it!
From my research, the trains are on their schedule down to the minute – so when Amtrak says I arrive at 7pm, that’s when the train pulls into the station. I don’t know how long it’ll take to unload, or to claim my baggage. Right now I’m thinking I’ll take a rolling suitcase of mostly clothing, and a duffel bag with a few clothes for the train ride and most of my electronic gear. The duffel will stay with me in the roomette and the roller can get checked into the cargo area. I’m impressed at the luggage “restrictions” that Amtrak imposes – each passenger is limited to 5 bags, weighing not more than 50 pounds each. You get two carry-on bags and three pieces of checked luggage. Each piece of checked luggage is limited to 36 by 36 by 36 inches, which I think is a total of nine cubic feet, and I could take three of those! Of course the 50 pound limit kinda gets you there – any kind of crate that big would probably weight more than that.
The best deal on a rental car I’ve found is using a discount code from Amtrak with Hertz. However, the logistics of securing the ride are proving difficult. The auto rental places are all at the airport and the train station is on the other side of town. From what I can see on google, the station is very small – just a little building, a single rail platform and a small parking lot. I think I’ll end up with a cab ride to my motel for the first night, and then a cab or shuttle to the airport the next day.
I’m still on the hunt for rooms; downtown Austin is out of my ballpark, with most rooms costing $150+. I got a laugh that O’Rielly has a deal the the Austin Raddison for $147 a night using the coupon code MAKER – I guess working for a small time tech publication has its perks! The best prices seem to be in the North end of town, and the suburb Round Rock. There is a large shopping mall called the Arboretum that has a mix of high end and low end hotels around it.
Even though it’s more than a month away, I feel the need to start making a list of the things I want to take along.
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