Extemporaneous Ramblings

On the side of things that just make you shake your head was a discovery I made in the main cafeteria at work yesterday. When I told other inmates of the place about it they were either incredulous or thought that I was joking. Unfortunately, it is true, and it says so very much about the whole senario…

I was in the cafeteria to buy a cup of tea - really a tea bag in a cheap styroform cup, covered with not-hot-enough-for-decent-tea water. I and a fellow employee were looking at the expensive new mural that had been added to the wall for ambience, when the manager of the place strolled up to extoll the virtues of his new decor.

We then noticed that water - not bottled water mind you, but plain tap water, was not longer free. It seems that too many people had the audacity to come in for a refill of hot (but not hot enough) water in their cup, and that this represented a diversion from ‘revenue from everything’ bottom line views. So hot water is now 10 cents a cup!! Now, just to be clear, in case you are confused, that doesn’t include the cup.

The explanation from the manager and perpertrator was “Nothing is free, you know”.

What can I say about this that you aren’t already shaking your head at. They had, of course, raised most other prices as well, but the water said it all - and a lot more by implication.

You will have to draw your own conclusions, but one might speculate that it is a good thing that they aren’t handling Ontario ground water resources, or you would be either mighty thirsty or mighty poor in short order…

Well, I didn’t say it, but I thought about it in jest…

Again we are back to considering Canadian perceptions of the US…

From TV (particularly), news, and the like, one often sees the US with gun (and liquor) shops on every corner, dispensing 9mm hand guns to all and sundry. One of my thoughts on visiting the US this time was, just out of curiousity, to visit a gun shop and see one of these places .

Well, perceptions lie again! No such luck to my astonishment…

In all the driving in cities and country, on small and large thoroughfairs, I did not see a sinlge ‘gun’ or even sports shop - nor a liquor store for that matter. Amazing, actually.

Granted, I didn’t look in the yellow pages to see if they were sequestored in some out of the way place - didn’t want to see them THAT badly.

But it did put to rest yet another stereotypical thought of the US and its people.

Since stereotypes go both ways, no wonder they marvel that there are no igloos in Ottawa when they come up here…

Okay, so I work at a place where collecting parking fees from employees is a cash cow. Ya pay about $500 a year for the privilege of ‘maybe’ getting a spot (incredibly, the contract small print states that you are not guaranteed a spot!). You would think that would be the end of it. Not!

I discover, having been on leave for a while, that buying the above pass for parking for the academic ‘year’ is not really for the year. The return to work date is Aug 14, but the pass isn’t good until Aug 21. Go figure.

Surely this is just an oversight, you say. Any reasonable person would think that, and in a reasonably administered world it would be. But not so here.

A quick call to the College parking police constabulary reveals that this is deliberate. To park the extra week is an additional $37 thank you very much. Or pay by the hour at $2.50 per hour.

Clearly, gentle reader, the claw-back of every last dime from any person possible is far more important and kept clearly in view than any good will or reasonable thinking…

Gilding the lilly, so to spaek, is all the talk about improving employee post-strike moral. So, if you were are new employee and had just recovered from paying your ‘yearly’ parking fee, how would your ’start the job’ moral be after they said “By the way, hand over another fee” for the first week?

Leaves one scratching their head…

Those readers who are old enough will recall Andy Rooney’s commentaries at the end of many episodes of the 60 Minutes show. You may remember chuckling at (as well as often likely agreeing with) his complains and comments on many of the strange aspects and occurances of life as he marvelled at them. In remembering this, you will have some idea where I am headed in this Topic.

We will see where this leads. The actual threads, comments and discussion will unfold as life does…

So what has been learned from the travel part? Quite a number of things about hotel and equipment requirements to allow you to be flexible as you go, and yet relaxed - concentrating on the trip and not the arrangements.

In order to travel flexibly and change arrangements efficiently (without stress and a huge phone bill) you must be able to access planning resources and advice easily. Many venues require net access to make efficient tour-time reservations and/or buy tickets at a discount (eg. Hearst Castle and Warner Brothers Studio). You get less service and it is more time consuming without net access.

An online device (with both wired and wireless connectivity) is an ABSOLUTE necessity. Some nay-sayers will suggest that this is just to avoid tech withdrawal? Wrong! To easily check out, arrange and especially change places to stay and attractions to visit you need net access. It can be a laptop, or possibly even better, a palm with a portable keyboard. I don’t care if you have to leave your underwear behind to fit it in - TAKE THE LAPTOP!

With wireless access the actual hotel equipment set-up isn’t a big deal, since as often as not there are open networks visible with better signals than the hotel router. Also, don’t forget a patch cable for when the room has a router but no cable! That way you can also have solid access if the wireless is overloaded.

In Ottawa we often hear that we are so much better wired that most other places in North America. Believe it! I was amazed how even the big hotels were full of legacy equipment, with little or no apparent support. I never came across even a single LCD display in any hotel, even at the front desk. They were legacy, legacy, legacy.

Many hotels advertise net access with a big flourish, but in reality we found they were mostly only wireless (supply your own machine), and often spotty at that (poor access point planning). If they did have lobby equipment it was expensive to access (only in three hotels were guest access machines). With your own access device you can dynamically re-plan and be flexible - and much more relaxed. The majority of people I saw using lobby access devices were try to get tickets, tour slots or hotels info.

So no matter what anyone says to encourage you to leave it at home, INGORE THEM and TAKE YOUR ACCESS DEVICE!

Lastly, and it should go without saying, is Cel access with a roaming plan. We saved both hassle and time being able to call attractions and hotels for confirmations and quick directions. Not to mention checking back home. A very inexpensive one month block of LDX time covered it all easily. And signal strength, even on the most remote coastal beach, was better than it is in Ottawa!

It has been a great adventure. We have seen wonderful things and had a good time together.

California was all that was hoped and even a few surprises!

Now to adjust to Eastern time…

Despite earlier delays, we landed in Ottawa only about 15 minutes after the scheduled time.

And, by the way, “don’t touch your cel phone!” - the customs officer barked in an unfriendly manner as we approached. Only in Canada…

At Ottawa Customs we observed a similar staffing contrast to the US. US border (including the US Immigration clearance in Ottawa by US officials) services were well staffed, friendly and quick. Here in Ottawa, at our newly built airport terminal, Customs and Immigration was badly understaffed and only marginally polite. We had heard the same from other travellers earlier in the summer, and it was confirmed. How was it different from the US? You were welcomed politely into the US, but treated as a returning peasant to Canada, one who should be grateful to be allowed in when returning to their own country. Just an example that we, as Canadians, will put up with just about anything from ‘officials’ - guff that many other nationals would not tolerate in their countries.

However, we were home.

It was a wonderful trip, and we saw and did great things, but our own beds looked mighty good! And our beloved Moxy was as glad to see us as we were to see him…

If you are going to have immigration problems in todays post 9/11 environment, it is going to be in getting into the US, right? Coming back home should be a breeze, right? Think again…the reality is the opposite.

As documented may posts ago, clearing US immigration to enter the US was painless and fast. The immigration officer even gave us great advice for touring the San Diego Zoo that turned out to be perfect. He also advised us on things to avoid. He was great!
To leave SF, first we had to find the airport in one-way street and unmarked highway SF. Contrary to what you might think, driving in LA was the easiest of all. San Diego had been no big deal either. SF was another story. Unlike my wife, I have no hesitation in driving anywhere, under any conditions, but SF was particularly ‘challenging’. The entire downtown is one way streets that make Ottawa’s one way streets seem infrequent. Virtually EVERY street is one way. For a native SF driver this is likely no big deal, but for the tourist it is a challenge. Combine that with less than great road makings on the freeways, and it took a while to find the Budget Rental Car drop-off at the airport.

Figuring that we were home free now, we innocently proceeded to the United Airlines check in with plenty of time to spare before our 11.30pm departure time. We were getting pretty tired though after a long day touring the city.

Then, at check-in, came the surprise. The automated check-in for Linda and I was trivial, but it rejected Lynette as requiring ‘individual checkin’. Off to the manual check-in line.

They looked at our ID, etc., but the system still wouldn’t co-operate. Wierd, they puzzled. After the clerk made a couple of calls it turns out that it is the CANADIAN system that is the problem. You can enter the US with ID and birth certificate no sweat (in fact even a baptismal certificate is good enough for US immigration). Try to get back into your own country, however, and the Canadian system wants a passport to clear you for a boarding pass at the US departure point. They don’t advertise this, they just do it summarily. I could say impolite things about our government, but you get the idea. I could also complain to External Affairs, but that would be as useful as banging my head on the wall - as you, my faithful reader, likely already understand.
After some hassling by a wonderfully helpful United Airline clerk, the boarding passes were issued manually. She had at least assured us that we would be going despite this silliness.
So our family joke is that our daughter is the suspected security risk

The incoming flight was delayed in Denver and arrived late, but we finally got in the air just after midnight (3am after we dutifully changed out watches to Eastern time). I am beginning to think that today no flight leaves on time.

We were a little worried about our short connection in Washington, but when that flight was also late we had lots of time.

After a very leisurely start at the Courtyard Marriott (it was nice for the last day, even it we got a surprise when parking was$47US a day). We checked out to park near the SF Cable Car line terminal until it was time to go to the SF Airport in the evening.

We visited a great Music store where Lynette picked up hard-to-get sheet music. The Cable Car ride through older SF, up and down the steep streets, and ending at the harbour area was great. It really gave you the feel of classic SF. At the harbour we went to a Teddy Bear factory for a tour and made two bears. Then wandered the piers and harbour shops, picking up an SF shirt for our house/Moxy sitter Andrew. We had a great lunch at a bakery and saw many great shops, busters (sadly, though, no jugglers) on Pier 39, plus a fine view of Alcatraz Island . It was a very full day to finish the trip.

We took the other cable car route back to the car, seeing more of classic SF, and staggered into the municipal parking garage (where I noted that they charge $375US for monthly parking).

We picked up some dinner and headed to the Airport, figuring to drop the car and relax there for a timely checking at United.

Little did we know…

So we were sitting in the hotel room (on the 15th floor I should add, since I became momentarily more aware of that), eating the food that we had picked up, and enjoying the view, when the floor starts to tremble. Then everything started to shake a bit in a deep, rumbly way. Very wierd.

We were in the largest SF earthquake in quite a few years, magnitude 4.4.

It wasn’t reall scary, just strange, and was over quite quickly but it was surely another event for the trip. It made the TV news that evening in California.

As we enter SF, there is a big mist hanging over the Coastal side of the city. We had a great look at the Golden Gate Bridge but it was cold and blustery - apparently normal for SF. The most interesting part was the change across the city. They do two weather reports and forcasts - one for the coastal side, the other for the inland side about 10 miles away. There is a consistent 15 or more degree F different. Also, one cloudy, the other sunny, consistently.

For example, on our last day the forcast for the coastal side was 63-65F and cloudy, while the inland forcast (only a couple of miles across town remember) was for 82-85F and sunny.

It was really amazing and I wouldn’t have believed such a consistent difference.

After a lesiurely start and breakfast (gotta love the Travel Lodge), we were off to SF and into the last 2 days in California. Hard to believe but we are running down and it will also be good to go home in a day or two.

On the way up the coast above monterey there had been a slide that took out the road, so we had to detour inland a bit to the main highway. Once in SF we did a bit of touring before heading to the Courtyard Marriott.

We found Lombard Street and drove through all the flower filled switch-back. The actual incline of the street is VERY streep. It was fun. Then I went over block and down Filbert Street, the steepest street in SF. It is so steep a drop that then you come to the stop at the top you can’t see the road. It drops away under you front end at about 45 degrees down. Driving down it is quite and experience and you better have perfect brakes and transmission. The girl ahead of us choked at the top. She backed up (the one way street) and won’t go down. It was lots of fun.

We then went over to the Coitt Tower on Telegraph Hill, a neat high point for viewing.

After that, off to find the hotel in the horror story of one way streets in downtown SF, and to find some simple food to eat.

After dinner we visited the main downtown mall, built in a smallish square block but with circular escallator to allow five stories of shops. Lynette has wanted to shop there.

Another exciting tour (and tiring) day. More sights of SF tomorrow.