Cafe Bucky

This is the last part of grabbing thoughts from the Trip for now. The title is plucked from a quote of Jack Kerouac (I picked up Hip: The History at the Warhol Museum). I say that some cities, states, or other entities (such as a hotel chain) can be Hip in their own fashion, when it comes to Tech (specifically WiFi).

Free WiFi – If you’re a city/state offering free WiFi, you’re well on the way to “getting it”. It’s a way of saying “get some stuff done, or just have fun, but do it in our space – stay a bit”. I say Iowa gets it. The rest stops have free access, with freeway signs touting “wireless internet” from Davenport to Council Bluffs. You go, Iowa!

A tangent to this is how older towns and cities handle urban growth. Some put a fair bit of effort into creating a nice old / historic district, and it flourishes. Maybe they offer free WiFi as an incentive to get people to hang out and generate some economic activity. Other towns (yes, Grand Island comes to mind once again) don’t get it, let their downtowns wither, and let the developers trip over each other on the way out the planning department door on the way to the bulldozers positioned on virgin ground outside downtown. From my limited exposure, at least the inner Iowa City gets it. They have an extensive Pedestrian Area, and the local library offers WiFi coverage outside its boundaries. And there’s more to come.

Denver gets it. I like that they’re putting in a light rail system along the freeway. I like that they have a good shuttle system downtown. It’s not on par with Portland, OR, but it’s a wheel in the right direction. Lots of WiFi in Denver (looks like they’re #13).

Speaking of transportation, Las Vegas doesn’t quite get it. Monorails are Hip, but not if you have to walk and walk and walk to get to them. Why is the system hidden behind the hotels on the east side of the Strip? I smell a massive compromise. If you’re going to get people flowing amongst the resorts, put the damn transportation front and center, right down the middle of the Strip, with stops at every intersection. Is that so hard? On the plus side, I like the elevated walkways. It’d be oh so Hip to put the damn road underground, and turn the Strip into a massive promenade. Maybe within 20 years?

Don’t even get me started on hotels that still charge for Net (yo, Luxor, you kidding me? $180+ a night and you still want to charge for wired access? Later, Luxor). I praise Holiday Inn Express. They’re not the Hippest, but at least they Get It.

Yikes, I’ve been lax on writing up stuff on The Drive. I’ll do this bit on some cool spots I want to go back to (and a couple I’ll avoid), and another on Tech things I noticed along the way.

(more…)

I’m a little torn between wanting to comment on my trip, and attending to the unpacking, upcoming photo weekend, gig searching, and getting back to tech stuff imersion. So I won’t write a proper intro.

The month has been a blur. In between driving 1300 miles to and from OSCON, and another 3900+ coast to coast, I’ve been a road tripper – disconnected from the online and everyday.

And I did it oh so wrong. I may have seen some roses along the way, but I didn’t feel like I had time to stop and smell any. I got to pay a lot of turnpike tolls though. I still wonder what New Jersey will do to me for accidentally running an EZ-Pass lane. Yo, Jersey! Figure out some meaningful signs! Ask Ohio or Penn, or Iowa! Not like it’s hard to do, Jerseyites.

Speaking of turnpikes, the “service plaza” concept in Ohio and elsewhere is pretty cool, in a surreal Americana sort of way. Reminds me of the Autobahn.

My conclusion is that 200 miles a day is a nice target. That gives you room to be spontaneous – to take this or that road, or to check out the place that has 20 faded billboards touting for miles on end. 300-400 miles is a tease: look, but don’t stop! I had some ideal in mind of avoiding the interstate, but the reality of wanting to check in at a decent hour dictates the route.

But hey, I did it. Coast to coast! It’s something I’d wanted to do since I was a kid (I was fortunate to grow up with a father that had a real sense of exploration – thanks Dad).

And I want to do it again next summer. Not the same way, of course.

Drove a lot. Back. Much to unpack and organize. Many people to email and call.

Most impressive new city I’d never seen before: Chicago. Ugliest: Gary, Indiana. Bulldoze it and start over: Grand Island, Nebraska. State with its road act together: Iowa.

Lots more to write. An overall impression is that driving 300-400 miles a day is too much, too rushed.

I’m in the air on Song Airways. SFO behind me, JFK is 5 hours in front.

Song has touch screen “information displays” that do Dish Network TV, Movies, Music, Games, and some other stuff. 10 minutes into the programming … “we have to reset the TV”. Ok, so one figures it’ll be a blank screen for a few seconds. Even though I had just been to OSCON for a week, I figured the plane had some wierd proprietary system – you know – something with the imprint of Microsoft all over it.

Imagine my surprise to see a full Red Hat Linux bootup sequence! 10’s of lines of device driver inits, mount points, sheesh.. everything! I nearly burst out laughing, in a strange Jambalaya of “yay, Open Source”, and “ohmigawd, that is soooo ugly to be showing to the end users”.

Pretty cool system, once it’s running. Navigation is via intuitive touchscreen menus. Ok, Jet Blue, time for you to copy!

postscript: on the other hand, Song was on hour late taking off, and we sat on the tarmac for a good 20 minutes waiting for a gate to open up at JFK. I’ve never had that happen with JetBlue.

Mighty Mouse — so there is more than one sanctioned button, after all :-)