What old-fashioned suburban town was I in today?
Look after the jump!
Category Archives: Travel
Beyond Comment
From my trip into the Jersey swamp earlier this week, a photo I took during the two-mile hike to the nearest train station:
In case you can’t quite make out that street sign, here’s a close-up:
You can’t tell from this photo, but the cross-street is “Flaming Asshole Way.”
Where I Am
The flight from Indy to Charlotte was delayed to the point I’d miss my connection. All of US Air was fucked up. So I’m at Union Station in DC waiting for my 3:15AM train home.
Passing The Buck
I’m (probably) going to lay off bridges for a bit. You can get your fix here.
The first-leg flight home today, College Station to Houston, had 33 people on the plane and 7 boarding groups. Bias confirmation is a serious issue in experimentation, but it’s nice to get a reminder that the airlines are managed by morons.
Brazos County
I’m at a conference at Texas A&M. College Station, excluding the very large campus, is basically a wide spot on a wide-open prairie.
All HABS could offer me was a 1914 warren pony truss, which is the structural engineering equivalent of lukewarm porridge. As for the notes, “gracile” my ass.
The abutment on the left side of the picture is vaguely amusing.
Open Letter To A Man In An Airport
Buddy, you don’t know me and you never will. But here’s some free advice:
- If you’re in an extended phone conversation about the fact that you think she lied to you and is cheating on you and she thinks you lied to her and is cheating on her, it’s over. Muster up some dignity and end the conversation; give some serious thought to ending the relationship…because it’s now a zombie relationship, wandering around mindlessly eating things.
- If you’re sensitive to eavesdroppers, don’t yell into your cell in a public place. I managed to only look when you wandered directly in front of me, but it was just stupid of you to give dirty looks to the other people who were looking to see what the yelling was about.
- People hate the process of flying (some like flying itself and/or travel, but no one likes airport waiting) and are to some degree on edge. Having someone yelling threats, even into a phone, does not make them less on edge. Think about it.
In addition to the advice, an observation: if, as you said, you’ve known for months that she’s cheating and saved up this fact to throw in her face when it was convenient for you, you’re a douchebag.
8 Years Before
The Lusitania docking in New York after winning the Blue Riband in 1907 (click to engorge):
A few things to note:
- The Lucy was an even nearer twin to her sister, the Mauritania, than the Olympic and Titanic were to each other. Not perfectly identical, but very close. The Maury was just a wee bit faster.
- Up until 1915, the Lucy was famous solely for being one of the premiere liners in the world.
- An interesting moment in the nautical arts: there’s a working three-master schooner tied up next to the most technologically advanced liner in the world; Cunard still dumped its passengers on a more or less open pier.
Interesting and Useless; Pretty and Gone
Somebody at the NYC Economic Development Corporation had their heart in the right place with this map of pizzeria frequency in various neighborhoods. The map is, however, useless in terms of finding a damned slice of pizza.
Meanwhile, today’s my last class in the program and therefore my last trip to Pittsfield. I finally got a north-facing hotel room with a nice view of the Berkshires. They may be little mountains, but they’re awfully cute.
Peaceful
One last picture from Paris: a small park right behind all the crowded touristy parts of Ile de la Cite. A friend was in Paris for six months on a fellowship and says this park is always peaceful.
Somehow it has been unimproved by commercialism or urban planners or well-meaning neighbors. It is what it’s apparently always been, a small oasis in the center of the city.
Frou Frou
With a few exceptions, American bridges tend to show their structure. From what I’ve seen, so do most bridges in Britain and Germany, although they may have some ornament tacked on.
The structure of bridges in Paris is mostly hidden behind stuff. This is pretty but just a facade:
When you get underneath you can see the structure, which in this case is heavy cast-iron arches and spandrel panels.
I prefer my bridges not so covered up.
I’m in a pod
CdG airport is a strange, strange place.
The World Seen Properly
John Updike once said that “The true New Yorker secretly believes that people living anywhere else have to be, in some sense, kidding.” Good news for all of you kidders out there: you can now have a Manhattan address.
Chez__B is at South 42nd Street and East 11th Avenue.
McMurdo Station is at South 80,313th Street and East 74,277th Avenue:
13 Hours
My scheduled flight time was 2:10 minutes from MSP to PHI and 55 minutes from PHI to LGA, with an hour layover. I left the hotel at 4:40AM and got home at 7:45PM.
The only bright spot in the entire day was that Auntie Anne’s has outposts in PHI, where I was stuck 2 to 5, and I got some pretzel dogs.
Airline Hell
I’m flying to Minneapolis tomorrow – spent the whole day getting my slides ready for the talk, which is why no post until now – and the only early flight that wasn’t exorbitant is LaGuardia to Philly to MN. I hate flying, I hate changing planes, and I particularly hate LGA.
Local Flavor
Engineering, like every other design profession, develops styles. I’ve been noticing – on the interminable bus rides to Pittsfield- that Massachusetts seems to have a lot of bowstring pony truss bridges. Local roads tend to have a lot of short-span bridges which today are almost always built as concrete girders, but during the road-building frenzy between 1900 and 1930, that was not yet a realistic option.
A bowstring truss is a truss with an arched top chord and a straight lower chord; a pony truss bridge is one where the road deck is aligned with the bottom chords but the trusses are too short to allow the top chords to be connected above the roadway. In modern design, trusses aren’t used for short spans because they’re more expensive than girders; pony trusses aren’t used because the unbraced top chords have to be heavier than through truss top chords, where the tops are connected above the road.
But they’re kind of purty.
The Joy of Travel
I’m in Pittsfield again for the third class of eight in the course. Cast iron today, which is a lecture I enjoy.
The hotel HVAC system is…interesting. I had a dream last night I was arguing with a mechanical engineer. I was saying that there must be a quiet and accurate thermostat/ventilator combination; he was saying “no, this is as good as it gets.” I’m not sure exactly where that dream lies on the scale of the Comfortably Numb child’s dream to the nightmares in Max Payne, but I did not wake fresh as a summer breeze.
Who knew?
I’m at the Rochester train station.
Apparently the famous New York 371 are buried here.
A Few Thoughts On Rochester
Either the cops were driving on laps around my hotel or there is a lot of overnight crime.
The physical environment of the center city is in better shape than a lot of other small cities.
There is nothing more destructive to the pedestrian experience than right turn on red.
Either everything damned thing in this city – including the building I’m working on – is named after some guy named Strong or there is some serious overcompensation going on.
Two words
I’m off to Pittsfield in a driving rain, so…
BUS PLUNGE.
.
Juice box and crayons
My first class of the new semester starts in two hours. There is, in my experience, nothing like giving a three-hour* lecture to make me feel like shit. And of course, I have the bus ride home afterwards. BUT, I actually like the material, which is basically my professional work in academic drag, and maybe some if the students will, too.
Also, it’s foggy this morning. Pittsfield in the fog = Silent Hill. Just saying.
* I always keep my eyes open for a redhead named Ginger and a brunette named Mary Ann.
