Monica

Tuesday we went to the aquarium in Eilat. One of the key exhibits is the underwater observatory; they've bult a sizable complex under water so instead of putting the fish in tanks, you effectively put the people in the tank. It was pretty nifty. I had mixed results photographically. (I experimented with both regular and "night" settings on the camera, of course disabling the flash for all of it.)

We had to check out of the hotel before going but we didn't leave for the airport until after 4:00, which posed a bit of a problem. Fortunately for us, one family in our group planned to stay an extra day in Eilat and then head to Petra, and they had had a difficulty wiht the hotel that resulted in them being given a suite, so they offered to store our luggage for those few hours. The tour organizers couldn't have anticipated that, of course, and I think this timing was the one bit of bad planning in this trip. The norm, I suppose, is to check bags at the hotel desk, but there are two problems there: first, our guide told us that just a few days earlier he'd heard from another guide that airport security was searching all such bags (that counting as a bag being "out of your control"), which would have been time-consuming, and second, it's not clear the hotel was prepared to store 22 peoples' worth of bags from a two-week trip.

The family with the suite also had a large balcony and they were willing hosts, so lots of us hung around there for the hour or two before it was time to go. Then it was time to load up a bus to drive approximately across the street to the Eilat airport. (It's tiny; I wouldn't have noticed its presence if we hadn't used it.)
( getting home was not so straightforward )

I really like Google Maps. It gives me clear images that help me understand complicated intersections before I get there, and unlike MapQuest, its trip planner has never steered me wrong. Its ability to show me stuff (hotels, synagogues, etc) near a particular location is very useful. It shows which streets are one-way, which is very helpful for navigating unfamiliar city areas. The hybrid view is nifty and even helpful.

I hope they're continuing to work on this. There are lots of features that would make it even better for me (and I hope others, but this post is all about me :-) ). Some that I've thought of in the last week:

• Traffic signals would be a helpful addition for city driving, if the data is available. I'd rather know that the left turn onto a busy street will be aided by a traffic light before I commit to it. Otherwise, I might choose a different route. I'm a cautious driver in poor-visibility situations.
• Speaking of traffic, it'd be really cool if it knew about normal congestion points. For instance, if I say I'm driving to Boston leaving Pittsburgh at such-and-such a time, an advisory saying "that has you driving through Hartford at their rush hour" would be nifty (and might be something that wouldn't occur to me as a factor). Even better if it can say "PA turnpike on Thanksgiving weekend; are you crazy?", but that's a different class of information.
• An overlay for known construction work along a planned route.
• The ability to give parameters to the trip planner, such as "via $road". The trip planner will give me the most direct route; I'd like a way to say "yeah I know, but I don't want to go on $road" or "I want to go by way of $road". The only way to do this now is to look at the map and figure out how to subdivide into multiple trips. (You might ask why I want the trip planner to tell me what I already know, in this case that I can take 70 to 68 to 79. I only wanted the trip length.) MapQuest used to have an "avoid highways" option that was sometimes useful for "regional" driving (e.g. Squirrel Hill to Monroeville not using the parkway), but that's still limited.
• For longer trips or trips through mountains, wouldn't it be cool if I could say "leave $city at $time on $day" and it showed me projected weather along the route, highlighting ice hazards and projected precipitation? ("Hey, are you sure you want to drive through the projected path of Hurricane Hugo?") Rarely helpful but nifty...

By posting this I'm not making a poorly-executed feature request; for that I'd chase down a "suggestions" address at Google, if one exists. I'm just noodling; I've already gotten more than I paid for. :-) (If I worked at Google I might noodle on some of these with code, but I don't.) If any of you have found ways to augment Google Maps (I wouldn't be surprised if there are relevant Firefox extensions), I'd love to hear about them. These days the information is usually out there; integration is the name of the game now.

I got home from Boston an hour or so ago. I haven't seen most of LJ since Tuesday night so, as they say, bankrupt my pants.

When the plane you are on is late, the plane you are transferring to is... early? I couldn't get a direct flight home so had to transfer at LaGuardia; the second flight left the gate ten minutes before the published departure time. I assume they verified that everyone they were expecting was there (so why wait?), but it surprised me. (I walked off one plane and straight onto the other across the hall.)

Thanks to the people who transcribed my phone posts. Looks like one phone post disappeared into the void; oh well. It'll get recapped later. I have lots of things to write about from this trip; we'll see how long it takes. :-) (I was at a program for lay people at Hebrew College. It was very cool.)

I'll be in Boston for a few days next week. The primary purpose of my visit will consume most of my time there, but chaiya and hakamadare have graciously offered to hold a dinner party on Sunday, November 5, and there's room for a few more people. If you would like to come hang out with us, please send email to both me and chaiya by Tuesday (October 30). Edit: All full now.

I also plan to stop in at the MASSFILC gathering that afternoon (hosted by tigerbright and the rest of her household). If that's something I might be able to see you at, please let me know. (Someone from MASSFILC should correct me if I'm wrong, but I gather that the afternoon is more social than anything else -- after all, I'm not a member and I was invited.)

If you want to give me a phone number so that, should I end up with unexpected free time elsewhen, I can give you a call, feel free. You should assume I won't have net access. Comments initially screened (I'll unscreen ones that don't contain contact info).

And lo, the network access is as advertised.

For places with "suite" in their names, this hotel is very low-end. Which is mostly fine; all I need from the kitchen is a fridge, though I suspect minimal utensils are normal. (I brought my own anyway.) My only complaint is not related to its suite-ness; I reserved a non-smoking room and they didn't have any left to give me. Yuck. It's not overwhelming, but it's certainly annoying.

The drive took about five hours. (Finding the hotel once I'd unknowingly missed the turn the first time took another 25 minutes.) I've realized why I dislike long drives: I start getting tired and sloppy after four hours. I think I'm a better-than-average defensive driver (that is, I'm not claiming driving skill in general, just the sub-skill of doing it defensively), but that requires work. Apparently I'm good for two hours at a stretch, repeat up to once. :-) (No, nothing bad happened, but I was feeling the effects.)

Random road notes:
( Read more... )

Tonight and tomorrow murmur311 will be taking me to her synagogue for services. I'm looking forward to seeing her again and exploring a new synagogue. (I think we're going somewhere different from where we went last year.)

I'm trying to optimize flights for a trip to Los Angeles (for the next session of the Sh'liach K'hilah program, in February). My goals are to not miss any of the program, miss as little time from work as possible, and keep the price down. So off to Expedia I went.

After choosing a departing flight, I got to the page for return flights. None of the options brought me joy, but then I wondered if I was seeing a subset of the option space that was limited by my departing flight. (That is, the departing flight had a price associated with it, so it makes sense that only certain return flights would be good for that price.) So, I said, I should be able to find out everything that's out there (and work backwards if need be) by instead querying one-way trips, right?

Bzzt. That got me a different set of options, but some of the ones I had previously seen were gone.

How do I find the list of all flights between two cities on a particular day? I just want information; I'll sort out the money and the purchase later. I just want to know if it's even possible for me to leave when I want to leave.

Do I really need to engage the services of a travel agent, in the internet age?

I'll be flying to a conference in a week and a half. I haven't flown in a while (though I did fly once not long after 9/11/01) and the rules probably aren't stable, so among things, I checked the airline's web site for the current baggage restrictions.

I guess it's nice that they've listed the items obviously banned in carryon baggage, like firearms and infectious materials, but where do I go to find out if nail clippers and the like are still banned? (That's just an example.) I'm hoping to avoid being slowed down by checked bags.

They have a section on "special baggage". I expected it to contain items like child car seats, which it does. I was kind of surprised by entries for antlers, christmas trees, and personal floatation devices. (I also see nothing about pets, which I suspect is a more common case than antlers.) But next time I want to fly with a christmas tree, I'll know where to look.

Trivia of the day: a musical instrument for which you buy a (full-fare!) seat must not exceed 165 pounds. Many passengers exceed 165 pounds; why is a musical instrument held to a different standard? Mind, I'm having trouble thinking of an instrument that weighs more than 165 pounds but (1) would fit in those little seats and (2) could be carried on in the first place, but that's not the point. (It appears that flights no longer come with meals, so the question of whether my hypothetical string bass is entitled to its own sandwich and Diet Coke is moot. Demanding its own bag of peanuts just doesn't have the same effect.)

The dates for the Sh'liach K'hilah program changed slightly; it now starts at noon on a Sunday. That makes travel more complicated.

Train: you can't get there from here (except via DC or Chicago or something similarly stupid from a Pittsburgher's perspective).

Bus: best price $78 (advance purchase); departure options 12:30am (arriving 6am) or 3am (arriving 10am). Just how icky are buses (and city Greyhound terminals at night) these days? Dunno; haven't done that in a while. Drunk-dirty-old-man quotient was high last time.

Air: best price $249; departure approximately 6am. Nothing seems to leave at a more civilized hour like 9 or 10. Air travel is a PITA; it would have to be a lot cheaper for me to consider it in this case.

Drive: either drive half the night (Shabbat ends fairly late in July), arriving roughly 4am, or get up at the butt-crack of dawn, drive 6 hours arriving before noon, and be fresh and perky for a day of classes.

Hitch a ride from some other student who's passing through Pittsburgh (I don't know yet if any such exist; will ask).

Violate Shabbat. :-( (No, I'm not considering this; I just list it for the sake of completeness.)

Oh, here's an idea: arrive Friday. This is HUC; there ought to be people there to do Shabbat with! That might be my best option. Must call tomorrow and ask.

I forgot to mention this in the previous entry. There are now two Subways in Breezewood, one on each side of the road. I guess they wanted the extra business and realized that people won't make left turns in congestion, or something.

Oddly, however, I ordered exactly the same thing both times (Friday lunch and Sunday lunch), and the prices differed by 27 cents. I don't know whether the west-bound Subway is more expensive, someone screwed up, or they charged me a quarter for the crutons for the salad. (On Sunday they offered them to me and I said sure; on Friday they didn't offer and I didn't ask.)

Wednesday night I went to a seder hosted by friends from my congregation. Dani was too sick to go. I think I woke him up when I asked him to drive me over there; oops. (It was before sundown and I had food to contribute.) It was very pleasant, and it included several other people from my congregation who didn't have anywhere else to go, so I wasn't the odd person out at the family gathering. (The only family were the couple, her father, and their younger son, who is in college. The older son lives in California.) ( seder geeking )

Then Thursday it was off to Toronto. Fortunately, Dani was feeling much better. Crossing the border was innocuous in both directions, though the US guard looked at us funny when we said we were married. You would think that no one would be surprised by last names that don't match these days. (This was also the first time I had to show photo ID. Dani always has to show his green card, but they've never challenged me before.)

( Thursday's seder )

Talk of SARS is everywhere in Toronto, but it doesn't seem to be keeping people from going out. Friday we accompanied Debby and Tucker to a crafts show; it was smaller than last year's but well-attended. And Saturday night after Shabbat we went to see Second City (fun show), which was also well-attended. I thought our brief brush with the outskirts of Chinatown on Friday was a bad idea, but it wasn't prolonged and I think it was ok.

Saturday morning I went to Beth Tzedec (Conservative) for services. I was met at the door by a security guard who directed me to the SARS instruction sheet, which said, basically, "no kissing (not even the Torah), no handshakes, kiddush is cancelled, and don't enter this building if [list of conditions here]". We heard some horror stories from Debby (who works in a hospital) about entire congregations, workplaces, etc having to go into quarantine because of contact with one person, so I guess that makes sense, but it still surprised me a little. I mean, if I'm in the same room as someone and breathing the same air, does it really matter if I shake his hand?

( more about services )

We spent most of the time there being "on" with various family members. While visiting is preferable to being bored because everyone is off doing stuff and we can't really go anywhere, it's also wearing. I really wish there were a practical way to visit with Dani's family in smaller doses. We visit with my family several times a year, in 6-8 hour doses, which works well -- but they're local, so we can.

I also wish some of his family would come to Pittsburgh occasionally; the burden shouldn't always be on us to go there. Looking ahead, next year's seders are on Monday and Tuesday, which means there'll probably be pressure for us to come up the previous weekend. I think I'm going to lobby for driving up Monday, hitting the two seders, and leaving Wednesday. I probably won't get away with it, but I can try. (I won't give the effort four vacation days, so if we extend the trip it will be by going up Sunday.)

( random travel notes )

I learned two new euphemisms during this trip:

• "highway maintenance ahead"; yes, the sign was orange. That's putting a positive spin on construction, I'd say.
• "unprotected contact", which seems to mean being within 15 feet of someone without wearing a full-body condom. (Well, mask, gown, and gloves; they don't seem to be doing the hats and booties.)

The con was fun in many ways, but kind of different from what I expected. It seemed to me that there was kind of a mismatch between our music and what the people attending the con are into; our audience was much smaller than we expected, though I gather that we were being heard out in the lobby and stuff because we got compliments later from people we never saw there. It was kind of frustrating during the show, but nice to hear after the fact that people did like us. This seemed to be much more of a rock-and-roll crowd, though; the dances with the DJs both nights were much more popular.

This was a Trek con, and mainly a Klingon con. Yes, there is Klingon fandom that is only loosely tied to Trek fandom. I've never seen so many Klingons in one place. They were pretty cool, though.

The folks down there were very hospitable. They also like to flirt. I assume that it was meant to be harmless flirting, rather than that we were dashing anyone's expectations. This was the first time I felt compelled to work "my husband" into casual conversation, though.

Sometimes it seemed like everyone in Chattanooga smokes. The con did have non-smoking space, but I still reeked of smoke each night. I actually double-bagged the dirty clothes in plastic bags so the smoke wouldn't contaminate my backpack.

Another cultural difference: I heard, for the first time, Cajun jokes. It makes sense; Canada has Newfie jokes, the south has Cajun jokes. They're the same jokes, for the most part. :-)

Speaking of culture shock: upon entering the Chattanooga airport, the first sign you see (other than the "airport" sign, I mean) says, in large letters, "no guns". The second, much smaller, sign says "no smoking". I don't think I've ever seen a "no guns" sign on a public building before.

The Chattanooga airport is small, comfortable, very clean, and well-maintained. Best I've seen anywhere.

One leg of the flight down (Comair) had a kick-ass flight attendant. I must find out where at Comair to direct an appropriate letter.

The Cincinnati airport is in two buildings, with a shuttle bus between them. On the way out, our plane was 20 minutes late taking off, which made a serious dent in my 59-minute layover. And, of course, the connecting flight was in the other building, on the other side of the not-very-fast shuttle bus. If I'd known where to go, I might have done an OJ and run for it. As it turned out, though, I got to the gate just as they started boardnig, so all was fine. Other than that, all flights were on time and the last leg coming back actually landed 20 minutes early. I don't know how they did that, given that we took off on time. Favorable winds? But that's still something like a 25% gain, so that can't be all from wind. Shrug; I don't fly nearly enough to have instincts for things like this.

Soon I ought to actually buy my plane ticket for Galacticon in late March, now that some other travel details have sorted themselves out. A while back, when I was doing the feasiblity study, I found prices in the $220 range, as I recall. When I repeated the search today, the lowest offers were $272. Oops.

So I checked out Priceline and HotWire. I've never used either before, but both were recommended by coworkers. They both offer to sell you cheap tickets but won't tell you the travel times until after you buy. Cheap, in this case, is around $170, a $100 savings. But their parameters for travel times are "depart sometime between 6am and 10pm". As I'm going down on a Friday, this is clearly unacceptable. And I'm not exactly the only Shabbat-observant person who ever takes weekend trips, so I figured it was worth investigating the options.

I sent both of them email asking if it is possible to restrict the range further (for a higher price, of course). I don't need to name my times, really; I just need to name reasonable boundaries. There are an awful lot of departures between 6am and, say, 1pm, and maybe that's still an improvement over sticker price and precise times.

To their credit, both responded to the email within 15 minutes. Unfortunately, they don't have this option.

I guess I'll wait another few days and see which direction prices seem to be going.

On the way up to Canada the line at the border was short, and I suspect the guards were bored. Here is, approximately, how our conversation went with a perky young guard:

Guard: Citizenship?
Dani: I'm Canadian, they're US.
Guard: Where are you going?
Dani: Toronto.
Guard: Why?
Dani: We're going up for my parents' anniversary party. [This is way more info than I would have given, BTW.]
Guard: Do you have reservations somewhere? [This is new...]
Dani: No, we're staying with family.
Guard: What, it's their anniversary and you're staying with them??
Dani: No, with my sister.
Guard: Ok. Bringing a gift?
Dani: No.
Guard: What, you're coming up for their anniversary party and you didn't even bring a gift???
Dani: My sister's taking care of it.
Guard: Ok, you can go.