Adventures in mass transit

When I first started working at IBM Almaden, my commute was about 30 minutes each way, against traffic (thank goodness). It wasn’t bad, as commutes go in the Bay Area, but I was using about 1.3 gallons per day. That quickly adds up, especially the way gas prices are now.

Then I found out that there’s a VTA express bus that goes from Palo Alto and Cupertino to two of IBM’s sites, with a shuttle connection to Almaden. Thanks to the Eco Pass program, it’s free.

Now I’m riding the bus as often as possible. I burn at most half as much gas as before, so I’m now saving a ton of money. Sweeeeeet. I can also work on the bus if I want. And I don’t have to deal with the morons who inhabit our freeways. One of my colleagues says it’s like riding a grown-up version of a school bus — almost every passenger works for IBM (although mostly at two other IBM sites, not Almaden).

There are a few downsides. One, it now takes me an hour each way, 20 minutes of that spent transferring between the bus and the shuttle, and I have to wake up an hour earlier to catch the bus. Two, on the way home, the “bus stop” has no shelter and no bench. Once winter comes, it’ll be dark and wet, at which point I’ll switch back to driving. Finally, if the bus were to, say, break down on the way to picking me up, I would be caught sitting at the bus stop wondering what the *&#$#* was going on. Luckily, my bus stop is at a light rail station, so when that did happen to me yesterday, I was able to hop on the train to downtown San Jose, and then catch a ride with a colleague and her husband to Cupertino, saving myself from a 40-minute bus ride.

The Newest American Indians

Native Americans have been dealing with the loss of their culture through assimilation and interracial marriage for over 100 years. But those claiming to be Native American have jumped substantially in the last couple of decades, including those who don’t “look” Indian. How do Indians deal with such challenges? What does it mean to be Indian? It reminds me of another ethnic group facing similar challenges: Japanese-Americans.

Are ducks more important than people?

The recent killing of ducks near a car wash in Campbell has spawned outrage and a reward fund of over $17,000. Now, I’ve seen enough of the security video footage to know that it was a barbaric act. But I strongly agree with those who say that people seem to care more about animals than other people. How did this end up on the front page, and not the thousands of people starving in Niger?

Fun facts about sprawl

Via PLANetizen:

Cryovacking our way to the future

Sous vide, sometimes called “cryovacking,” is a method of food preparation where food is put into a bag and vacuum packed. The bag is sometimes cooked later at low temperatures, or the process itself is used to infuse the food with flavor or to change its texture. When I heard Alton Brown explain sous vide on Iron Chef America, I assumed it was a well-known, frequently-used process among chefs.

Well, it looks like I was wrong. The New York Times Magazine has an article on the far-reaching implications of cooking sous vide, and how it could lead to everything from completely new textures and flavors to edible airline food.

Shiny happy redevelopment

The malls in Cupertino and Sunnyvale have been in the dumps for a decade, with promises of redevelopment come and loseWeight Exercises Vallco – 2003″ href=”http://sanjose.bizjournals.com/sanjose/stories/2003/06/09/daily55.html”>gone, over and over. But things are finally moving. The owners of Vallco Fashion Park in Cupertino have recently started a major renovation and expansion project, including a new movie theater. (Maybe we can finally get a decent bookstore…) It will look a lot more like a traditional commercial district. There is also a new mixed-use development being built near the city hall and new library, and there are plans for a new downtown at the Crossroads, the old center of town.

Meanwhile, the owners of Sunnyvale Town Center will start demolition of the old parking garage next week, and of the mall itself next year. In fact, the mall, which replaced the old downtown, is being replaced with a new downtown, complete with a replica of the old city hall. (Take a look at the nifty video.) It will also include a new movie theater — how many more can this area take?

Now if only Santa Clara can finish a plan to replace the downtown that it tore down for a mall that never came… By the way, the only reason Mountain View still has its downtown along Castro Street is because it ran out of money to mess with it back in the 1970s.