Automotive abomination

As I was walking down the street here in Sunnyvale, I saw a giant one-and-a-half-decker RV, towing behind it a trailer with two jet skis. And then it pulled into the gas station where gas is $4.20
a gallon. I can imagine the many-hundred-dollar fuel bill this guy had, and I can't imagine that this sort of fuel-guzzling wastefulness can keep going for much longer, with gas prices as they are.

Riding the VTA

Now that I'm in Silicon Valley, and temporarily bikeless, my main form of transportation is the VTA. While the buses and light rail are nice, and there's at least some service in most of the area, the system as a whole is just too slow, infrequent, and doesn't go where you want it to. For example, there is no bus that goes from downtown Mountain View to Google. Likewise, there's no bus that goes from where I am to downtown Sunnyvale: I have to take the light rail two stops and then transfer, waiting another 10 minutes in the process, and making a 3.5 mile trip take over half an hour in the best case. Another example: my friend wanted to go to a rollerskating rink in southern San Jose from Mountain View. This rink is conveniently not far from a light rail station, and Mountain View has light rail too, so one might naively think that this is one of those rare trips that is well served by transit. But no, it takes 1h40 from station to station, versus about 40 minutes by car. Taking Caltrain from Mountain View to Tamien and transferring there is generally much better, taking 53 minutes station to station, but that means you have to catch one of the few Caltrains that actually stop at both Mountain View and Tamien, and on the way back, Caltrain is no longer an option, as the last one leaves Tamien at 9:23, and the last train from San Jose is at 10:30 pm. It's just not practical: you can do it, but you'll feel like you're fighting the system the whole way. But I think there's some hope for the VTA, and maybe one day I'll explain what I think needs to be done.

Where I am and what I'm up to

Right now, I'm in Providence, having finished one semester of the Comp Sci masters program at Brown, meaning that I started in January. For the observant of you, that means I had several months between finishing work last summer and starting at Brown in January. In that time, I rode Amtrak across the country from San Francisco to Schenectady via Portland, Seattle, and Chicago. I also took a trip to Europe, visiting the UK, Switzerland, and France, where I also rode on many trains, including the TGV, Eurostar, and Virgin Pendolino, as well as the legendary Swiss rail network.

In a week, I'm leaving for Sunnyvale, CA, for a summer internship, and then heading back to Providence to finish school, hopefully in December. After that, who knows. I might stay in Boston, I might move to Silicon Valley, because much as I hate it, that's where the jobs are. And high gas prices will hopefully make it increasingly tolerable to live in.

New Blog

I've found myself in need of a public forum in which to vent my opinions, rather than posting them in the comments of other blogs. And it would be nice to have a place where I can announce where I am and what I'm up to, so I don't have to tell it to everyone over and over. As for where I actually am, and what I'm actually up to, well, you'll just have to wait until the next post.