Three-Letter Acronyms & Four-Letter Words

My trip earlier this week cost me two work days in total.

I could have flown out from Austin late after a full day of work (or almost full day) but then I would not have arrived into NYC until around 10 or 11 am. That would then put me into the hotel at around midnight. Needless to say, not a fun idea when the meeting was to start at 9:30 am.

Now, in an interesting twist of fate I caught an early flight out of NYC back home. I had originally booked my flight without knowing what time exactly the meeting was supposed to take place. However, given my previous experiences in trying to catch flights out of NYC, I figured it was better to book a later flight vs the stress of rushing (and worse yet, missing my flight, most likely due to traffic).

So the meeting wrapped up a little after 1pm, afterwards Jack and I went back to the Hotel to grab our bags and catch a cab to the airport. It was probably about a 20 minute walk back to the Hotel. I will say this, I love NYC, in regards to the fact that you can get just about anywhere you need to be by walking (or taking the subway). I am not a huge fan of taking Taxis, but some times you have to.

When we arrived, I decided to try and get an earlier flight out. The initial thought was to get on Jack's flight which would route through Dallas and then on to Austin. However, when I was given my ticket, I noticed the time was departure time was different than Jack's, I then also noticed that I only had one ticket and it said Austin on it.

SWEET!!!

I had landed a direct flight.

After arriving at the gate, I realized that the flight was going to be stopping in Raleigh, then continuing on to Austin.

No matter, the Raleigh-Austin flight would get in about 9:10 or so vs my original Chicago-Austin flight's arrival time at midnight.

It was a good flight. I got a lot of reading done. I had a chance to watch some Band of Brothers on my iPod, all in all a very good flight. The flight attendants were quite nice as well, particularly since I was one of only about 5 people who were continuing on beyond Raleigh.

Oh yeah, I forgot about the Hotel in NYC.

I had to find Jack and I a hotel near the meeting. There were a lot of hotels around the immediate area, however no available rooms. So while the meeting was up near 35th street on 7th. The best hotel I could find (for the price and the brand) was the Holiday Inn-Express on 29th street.

When I arrived the hotel was bristling with activity, lots of folks checking in and out, sitting in the cafe/breakfast area downstairs. When I checked in they handed me a white paper bag (think lunch sack) that contained a diet pepsi, a bottle of water, a rice krispie treat and finally a bag of bbq potato chips. I was genuinely surprised. I mean back when I was spending lots of time in Dallas, the Bradford Suites would leave a Nutri-Grain bar and some popcorn. The Holiday-Inn Express Madison Square Garden wins out in regards to snacks.

Then there was the follow-up call the front-desk gave me about 20 minutes after check-in. Another level of service that I haven't experienced before.

I made one stop on the way home to grab some flowers, ice cream and some Martini Asti.

(I had not brought Gina flowers in a while, so I figured I would be a good husband.)

So that delayed me getting home until just about 10 pm. Still better than the midnight airport arrival I had been expecting.

I was extremely busy this week. However, I did get the opportunity to play some golf.

The CEO of NetworkIP was in town and offered the Austin office a chance to play golf on Thursday afternoon.

To make a long story short, I drove past the golf course on the way there and in turning around and backtracking we hit some nasty traffic on southbound I-35, which made what would be a 20 minute drive take over an hour.

Jeremy was much better at golf than I was, he apparently played back in High School. That game of golf made my 3rd game ever. I have enjoyed playing golf, though towards the end of the round I am pretty tired though.

I had a few good shots and a few bad ones. I did manage to win a beer for being closest to the pin on one of the holes.

Jeremy and I headed over to Golfsmith after work on Friday. I have to say that if they let me I might spend a lunch hour up there once a week (or twice). They have this built in driving range. You get to test out all the cool clubs (for FREE).

I must say that the hybrid irons were very kind to me. I tried out a few of the modern drivers, the kind that make that 'crack' sound when you hit the sweet spot just right. I really want a new driver and a couple of those hybrid clubs.

However, improvement to my game is going to come from practice (and lessons) not from new hardware. Needless to say, new hardware will eventually be needed. My clubs are nice, but not great.

Oh yeah, they had this 1000cc Golfsmith driver. It is HUGE. I called it 'novelty', Jeremy said that it is probably not considered novelty.

However, all the rest of the drivers I looked at while we were wandering the store maxed out around 460cc.

Anyway, it was an eventful week.

Next week is likely to be eventful as well.

I will be in Dallas on Monday and Tuesday and then my calendar has me in Longview the rest of the week. From the looks of my meeting schedules I won't be able to come back to Austin, I wil need to head straight to Longview from Dallas.

Laterz

Apparently this area of NYC is known as Chelsea.

I woke up around 4am this morning in Austin. (Not including the times Basil and Emma woke us up in the middle of the night.)

Got ready and packed my bag between 4am and 5am.

I made it out of the house at about 6am.

Parked my car at about 6:40.

Made it to the "Self Check-in" at about 6:50.

Stood around for about 15 minutes in line waiting to give them my bag. (Oddly enough, the regular check-in line was almost empty, would almost have been quicker to do that instead of the Self Check-in.

Made it through security in a negligible amount of time. Which is surprising really, seeing as the American security check-point tends to be one of the busier of the three checkpoints.

I actually had a chance to eat breakfast (which is a good thing, as I am starving now that it is already after 4pm and no lunch yet). I had some breakfast pizza from Mangia's. (I have been dying to have this for the better part of a year, but my flight schedule never seems to allow it.)

The flight to Dallas was fine. During the flight I finished Smart and Get's Things Done. Very good book.

However, then we spent a good 15 minutes on the tarmac waiting for our gate.

I got to my next gate at 9:15, boarding started at 9:10 and scheduled to take-off at 9:40. I actually was worried about my bag not making the flight, the Flight Attendant reassured me that everything would be fine.

The flight to NYC was fine as well. During the flight I got within about 20 pages of finishing The Mouse Driver Chronicles. It is an intriguing book about two entrepreneurial Wharton Business School Graduates (MBA holders) who set out to market a PC-Mouse that was shaped like the head of a driver (golf club). It covers their adventures in manufacturing, marketing, sales and more. If not for my hunger I would be finishing it right now.

Speaking of which, I really need to step out and get some food. I have to do some network diagrams before Jack arrives.

Laterz

We made it to Austin last night around like 3:10 AM or so.

To be quite honest, I remember that it was after 3:00 AM but not by how much. And I didn't bring in the pad of paper we have been keeping notes on, so I have no idea of what the final mileage was. I will get the pad out and do a spreadsheet later today.

In terms of gas mileage, Jeremy did a little experiment and kept to speed of the car between 60 and 65 for one leg (ie between stops for gas) the gas mileage improved from having been like 25/mpg twice in a row back up to 27/mpg.

The difference was that the times when we were getting 25/mpg, our speed was about 70 mph. So that extra 5 mph, cost us 2/mpg which is like a 7.4% loss in gas mileage. I completely attribute this to the kayak on top of the car. I mean the thing is like a giant sail, it produced quite a bit of drag (in part because you can feel the semi-trucks pass the car more with the kayak, than you do without it).

Anyway, we made it to Austin, if we want to take a look at it in a 24-hour day perspective we made it in two days. We left at about 11:00 AM EST (10:00 AM central) on Friday and arrived in Austin at about 3:00 AM on Sunday morning, so a whole 7 hours to spare.

In calendar day terms, it took us three days, since we left on a Friday and didn't arrive until Sunday.

To keep from going insane on the trip we listened to some audio books. I have been searching for "Dealers of Lightning" the story about the Xerox PARC lab and their quest for the technologies that led to the modern office (personal computers, GUI based operating systems [read Windows and Macs), laser printers, Ethernet and scanners).

That was a good book, it was about 5 hours long. Jeremy also had iWoz on his iPod, that on the other hand was 9 hours long.

All I have to say is, "Your the man Woz, your the man!!!"

I mean, Steve Wozniak was quite obviously an engineer ahead of his time and was able to do some real pioneer engineering work at Apple in the creation of the Apple I and Apple II. He also invented the Universal Remote.

Now, iWoz is an auto-biography, so the book was written by him about him. I am glad that he didn't talk about himself in the 3rd person, though he definitely is very proud of his work, as he should be. But a good chunk of the book definitely sounds like he is patting himself on the back just a little too much. Jeremy and I joked around that Woz should be talking about himself in the 3rd person in certain parts of the book, just because while slightly more modest, it seemed like he was just short of being one of those really stereotypical athletes that talks about themselves, their accomplishments and what they like in the 3rd person.

"Woz likes it when Woz pulls off a great prank."

There were a couple of times when we thought Woz should have had a catchphrase like

"Cuz, I'm Woz mo-fo!"

or

"Because, I'm Woz biatch!"

Again to be fair, the book was good and Woz is an amazing engineer he did some truly breathtaking feats of engineering in his day. And much of his flair for reducing the number of chips and reworking a design to be more efficient is probably a trait that more engineers should have.

The Dealers of Lightning books was great, not sure I said that yet.

Well I am going to be leaving to take Gina to the airport soon. She is going to be in Vegas for a few days at a trade show.

If my schedule was a bit more flexible I would be going with her, but the rest of September is already going to be pretty jam packed. And, well after 28-30 hours in a car, I can't say that I would be looking forward to a 3 hour plane flight to Vegas.

Before I pack it in, let me just say this. Do not, whatever you do, do not drink the "Mt Dew: Game Fuel". I mean I don't think it is poisoned or anything, but it just doesn't taste good in my opinion. A couple of the web comics (CAD || PA) I read was making fun of the stuff, but from a marketing perspective, because of the fact that Halo3 is the main sponsor of this sugary noxious concoction, I mean the taste to me is sort of like orange drink that has a bit of extra carbonation and someone proceeded to blend up some skittles and nerds and then add that to the orange drink.

I mean, we bought it because we were still a good hour from the house at least and I needed a pick me up, but didn't want to drink an energy drink as this would probably prevent me from getting any sleep when I got home. So I figured I would try the Game Fuel and see what all the fuss was about.

Yeah, just don't bother. I mean drink the Code Red or LiveWire if your looking for a sugary Mt Dew alternative soda. Or you know what just drink some water or get a V8. God I sound old.

Oh well.

Laterz

I made it out here to Long Island yesterday, all by myself.

I make mention of the fact that I did it all by myself, because the last couple of times that I have come out to Jeremy's place he has met me in 'The City' (Manhattan) and he is my guide to which train to take and what not.

Well, this time while in The City, I have had to meet up with my boss who was staying down on Lafayette and Canal street, while I was up on 35th street near Broadway. Not too far mind you, probably like 2 miles (maybe). But by Subway (the N line) it was only about a 15 minute ride with about another 7-10 minutes of walking thrown in. I have to say that aside from the somewhat oppressively heat down in the subway, taking it around the city was kind of nice.

I took the train/subway in from JFK, I took the 'A' train, thinking that maybe I would see something new given that I had taken the one that goes through Queens before (on the way out to Long Island). Nothing excitingly new. I thought that maybe the train through Brooklyn was going to have some above ground spots, nope it did not. Rather I just saw some new underground stops along the way.

Fun, Fun.

Anyway, I took the train out to the Farmingdale stop. Jeremy met me that and we headed back to their apartment. Did a little work, then after work we headed over to the comic shop. It was kind of cool, the comic shop had a lot of good books. I especially enjoyed picking through the $0.25 comic bin, I bought probably about 10 or 11 of the quarter books.

Nicole and Jeremy made chicken fried rice for dinner. It was quite good.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot to mention.

It rained, it rained really hard while I was in The City yesterday. I didn't have an umbrella.

When I headed over from Jack's hotel to my 11 AM meeting, it was just sort of a light sprinkle, nothing too bad.

I decided to try to take a short-cut back from the client's building back to Jack's hotel. I apparently took a street that must have been at a completely different angle than I thought, as I ended up in Little Italy. Luckily, I knew my way back from there, because Jack and I had grabbed dinner in Little Italy the night before.

Well, it was about the time that I hit Little Italy, that it started to really rain. By the time I was back to Canal street and still about two and a half blocks away form Jack's hotel is when I would say it was pouring rain.

Jack and I stayed at the hotel for a little bit longer and then headed outside. The rain was doing whatever you might call a step or two beyond 'pouring'. I like to say it is sheeting, as the rain when it was hitting the street you could see that there was a distinct pattern to the rain as it hit.

We made a mad dash for the subway and got drenched. We made it back to my hotel (which was where I had left my bag, because it is closer to Penn Station, which is where I had to catch the Long Island bound train). Then we headed over to Penn Station. About the same time that we made it to Penn Station the rain had more or less stopped.

Once inside, it was a bit confusing.

The first floor reminded me of an airport terminal ticketing area. Amtrak, New Jersey train, you know trains that take you to other states and Continental Airlines was there. The LIRR trains are one level down. Jack was going to take the subway over to JFK, but well honestly. The Subway isn't well marked at all at Penn Station.

Apparently, the subway is on the 2nd level down. So Jack head back up to the street to take a taxi to the airport.

I talked to him later, he spent about an hour and a half in a cab, luckily though his flight was delayed. Well I guess you can say, lucky. I mean flight delays suck, but missing your flight sucks worse.

The train ride probably would have taken about an hour at least. However, he wouldn't have been sitting in traffic.

Anyway, it was a crazy day yesterday. I was grateful not to be hoofing it around The City anymore and slept like a log I am sure.

Well, time to start working from Casa de Arntz.

Laterz.

PS. I am going back into The City tomorrow for some afternoon meetings.

The LIRR trains are the next one down, I think there is a Jersey train or two

I took the train in from the JFK airport to Penn Station. It was cheap, only $7. It took longer than a taxi ride might normally take. Except there seemed to be some serious traffic backup when it came to the taxis, hence why I ultimately took the train.

My hotel (Wingate Inn, 235 West 35th street) was a short two block walk from the station.

I didn't get lunch, so thankfully Gina and I had breakfast at the Waffle House this morning.

I need to call my sister and wish her a happy birthday, since it is today.

I need to go and get something to eat soon.

My boss gets in around 8pm, not sure if he is going to want to try to grab a late dinner. But that is going to be several hours away, so I think a slice of pizza or what not at the cafe across the street will be good.

Then again, I did see a White Castle on my way here. Don't have any of those down in Texas.

Laterz

I have made it home.

Not a lot of time to post an update.

But NY was a lot of fun.

Laterz.

... and just up over the hill and through the woods to Jeremy's house we go.

I came into New York this past week, with my boss Jack and colleague Trevor, to meet with the folks at Oddcast, they built the JadukaTV site for us.

We flew in on Wednesday night and met with Oddcast on Thursday.

Jeremy came into town and we all hung out for a bit. Then it was time to take the train to Long Island. The ride seemed to go on forever, course the beer might have been effecting my judgment of time.

Then it came time to walk from the train station to his house. Which he had told me was "Just two blocks away." I didn't think that would be too bad.

Then came the actual walking, he pointed down the road and said "That second green light, down there, that is it, basically."

So we walked and walked. The jury is still out on how far the distance actually was, but it was much longer than two blocks. I am saying 1.5 - 2 miles. He is saying 1 - 1.5 miles.

Either way, I am sure that I am better off for having walked, given the steak for dinner and what not.

Well, I am going to be up here hanging out with Jeremy working on some Jaduka stuff and some uRevoo. I think we might try to get a few games of Gears of War or Call of Duty 3 in as well.

I had an excellent bagel this morning.

Laterz