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Jul. 18th, 2019 11:51 amHalf a gallon of imperial stout is kinda a lot of beer for one person. Every time I've tried, I've been told that they don't do growlers of that one. I feel like the cat who killed a Rhinoceros. What do I do with all of this beer? Okay, now that I write this out, the obvious answer is corner some people and whip it out but the reality is, after being offline for several days, of staring at vi and drinking it. McMenamins' Death is a fine imperial stout (I think it's an imperial stout... at this point, I'm afraid to ask). The result of this of course is that it's 100 degrees in-land in California and I'm drinking warm imperial stout. Incidentally, when I finally die, I'd like my urn to read, "Scott did not think this through".
Sat on the Amtrak down next to an older gentleman (I use this word only playfully and ironically) dressed entirely in white including soiled pants who at first opportunity declared that he was going to (some city I forgot) in CA "to become a priest! I'm going to a seminary!". He bubbled excited at me a bit. I offered little or nothing and mostly wifi camped in the lounge car. If WiFi campers weren't so afraid that people were going to try to tell them their fucking life story while they're trying to save their fucking bacon by cranking out shit for neigh impossible requirements, we might be less bad at communal seating. Sorry. But before that, he asked me if you can smoke on Amtrak. I said no, they will through you off, but there are stops, and if there's time to smoke, they'll announce, but you really want the gum or something while riding this beast. I was interrupted by an announcement for a stop with a three minute smoke break. I suffer from retrospect and think this is something people turn off (we all have a limited annoyance load and retrospect is often an annoyance) but the poor bastard didn't leave his seat and I don't think he ate once and I recognize that from Greyhound and I've been there. Amtrak, if you can hear me, please take a page from Southwest and pass out cookies. It won't hurt sales and it can make a big difference for a lot of people.
Somewhat related, but I've decided that coach seating in Amtrak is all wrong. They've basically decided that your legs and elbows and hands are going to be all over someone all night who you probably don't know or like. The Lear Jet-derived Canadair regional jets kinda accidentally improve this with their 2 seats on one side, 1 on the other topology but we can do better. So, I've decided that a solid seating arrangement for Amtrak would be staggered, window facing seating, like the individual seats in the lounge car, with a few modifications. Putting seats at an angle to the window allows them to recline further including fully reclining. It means you aren't directly next to anyone, and lowerable partitioning can help keep gropey mcgropersons at bay. It's about 33% less dense than the existing seating -- but that's okay because seated passengers are currently far more starved for horizontal space than vertical space, so stack them, cubby style. Every seat being a window seat more than compensates for each of the two floors of the Superliner having seating two high. Yes it's a bit like sitting in a Lamborghini but you can actually sleep at night! Dare I say... luxurious? That topology would even allow curtains to separate the seats from the isle. And this retains the best part of the current design, in that if you want to clutter your foot area with bags, knock yourself out.
Pedalled in to Isleton proper yesterday. On the train at breakfast (eggs and potatoes, thank you very much Washington Imperial Executive Advisory Potato Authority) with delightful sparklings of rosemary, I overhead someone recounting their experience as the bikeshop owner of an unspecified bikeshop who claimed that each year, about 60 bikes were shipped to his shop after the ride, and every year, there was always one person who didn't pick up their bike for six months despite repeated phone calls. Didn't get the chance, but wanted to chime in with the PBP story where the lot of us from Tempe who did it caught up for breakfast two months later and discovered that none of us had re-assembled our PBP bikes yet. We were all riding our cruisers or fat bikes or unicycles or tandems or taxis or *anything* except the PBP bike. So I guess don't forget that STP is PBP for a lot of people. But haha really I haven't been riding and my legs have not returned to the bargaining table from their strike yet so that ride in to Isleton was a slow ride. But indications this morning are that relations are improving.
In other news, all of my lithium polymer batteries are popping like popcorn, including one I left here (in case you're wondering where Internet went this time... the Sierra Wireless access point stops even when plugged in when it has a battery and the battery goes blowfish so I arrived to a message on the screen essentially reading "I'm literally dying here unplug me you fucking monster" which sadly I've seen before... so now that situation is that the battery is necessary to hold the SIM card in place but on the other hand it's likely to burst and create a nasty lithium fire).
Sat on the Amtrak down next to an older gentleman (I use this word only playfully and ironically) dressed entirely in white including soiled pants who at first opportunity declared that he was going to (some city I forgot) in CA "to become a priest! I'm going to a seminary!". He bubbled excited at me a bit. I offered little or nothing and mostly wifi camped in the lounge car. If WiFi campers weren't so afraid that people were going to try to tell them their fucking life story while they're trying to save their fucking bacon by cranking out shit for neigh impossible requirements, we might be less bad at communal seating. Sorry. But before that, he asked me if you can smoke on Amtrak. I said no, they will through you off, but there are stops, and if there's time to smoke, they'll announce, but you really want the gum or something while riding this beast. I was interrupted by an announcement for a stop with a three minute smoke break. I suffer from retrospect and think this is something people turn off (we all have a limited annoyance load and retrospect is often an annoyance) but the poor bastard didn't leave his seat and I don't think he ate once and I recognize that from Greyhound and I've been there. Amtrak, if you can hear me, please take a page from Southwest and pass out cookies. It won't hurt sales and it can make a big difference for a lot of people.
Somewhat related, but I've decided that coach seating in Amtrak is all wrong. They've basically decided that your legs and elbows and hands are going to be all over someone all night who you probably don't know or like. The Lear Jet-derived Canadair regional jets kinda accidentally improve this with their 2 seats on one side, 1 on the other topology but we can do better. So, I've decided that a solid seating arrangement for Amtrak would be staggered, window facing seating, like the individual seats in the lounge car, with a few modifications. Putting seats at an angle to the window allows them to recline further including fully reclining. It means you aren't directly next to anyone, and lowerable partitioning can help keep gropey mcgropersons at bay. It's about 33% less dense than the existing seating -- but that's okay because seated passengers are currently far more starved for horizontal space than vertical space, so stack them, cubby style. Every seat being a window seat more than compensates for each of the two floors of the Superliner having seating two high. Yes it's a bit like sitting in a Lamborghini but you can actually sleep at night! Dare I say... luxurious? That topology would even allow curtains to separate the seats from the isle. And this retains the best part of the current design, in that if you want to clutter your foot area with bags, knock yourself out.
Pedalled in to Isleton proper yesterday. On the train at breakfast (eggs and potatoes, thank you very much Washington Imperial Executive Advisory Potato Authority) with delightful sparklings of rosemary, I overhead someone recounting their experience as the bikeshop owner of an unspecified bikeshop who claimed that each year, about 60 bikes were shipped to his shop after the ride, and every year, there was always one person who didn't pick up their bike for six months despite repeated phone calls. Didn't get the chance, but wanted to chime in with the PBP story where the lot of us from Tempe who did it caught up for breakfast two months later and discovered that none of us had re-assembled our PBP bikes yet. We were all riding our cruisers or fat bikes or unicycles or tandems or taxis or *anything* except the PBP bike. So I guess don't forget that STP is PBP for a lot of people. But haha really I haven't been riding and my legs have not returned to the bargaining table from their strike yet so that ride in to Isleton was a slow ride. But indications this morning are that relations are improving.
In other news, all of my lithium polymer batteries are popping like popcorn, including one I left here (in case you're wondering where Internet went this time... the Sierra Wireless access point stops even when plugged in when it has a battery and the battery goes blowfish so I arrived to a message on the screen essentially reading "I'm literally dying here unplug me you fucking monster" which sadly I've seen before... so now that situation is that the battery is necessary to hold the SIM card in place but on the other hand it's likely to burst and create a nasty lithium fire).
