Blog

Short blog posts, journal entries, and random thoughts. Topics include a mix of personal and the world at large.

Can't be me!

Now that I finally bought an OTA antenna for my LG TV, I’ve been tuning in to the local morning news during my hour of getting ready for work. Every morning I see how horrible the commute traffic is, and count my lucky stars that I don’t have to participate. I’ve got the next best thing to working-from-home: living a few blocks from work. The only traffic I encounter is the traffic light at the main thoroughfare next to campus.

I drove down to Souther California last week, and timed it horribly. I arrived in Los Angeles just as the Friday evening commute began. The 405 was an absolute parking lot in the Culver City area - where our hotel is. It was utterly despondent to see on the navigation that it will take half an hour to go a mere four miles. And to think: most of these folks do this every single work day, every single work week. Either they’re numb to the soul-sucking, or they’re watching YouTube videos while inching agonizingly forward in traffic.

If that were me, I’d move closer to work. As I have done in my current situation.

Did you know there’s a Hilton in Culver City? I didn’t, until on a recommendation from an acquaintance who does lots of business travel. Culver City is close enough to LAX that I saw many guests checking-in from their arrival flights. The Hilton Los Angeles Culver City is a finely-appointed hotel, with broad and clean rooms. The lounge area with a full-feature bar on the first floor makes it easy to hang out with friends staying at the same property (as we did). Of course, it doesn’t come cheaply: I paid (with points) about $300 for one night. Granted, any decent hotel these days is going to run you in the $200s per night. That’s inflation doing its work.

Fair warning: if you have a car, valet parking is mandatory. You absolutely cannot self-park. Cost? $42 per day. Extortion, is what that is.

I should have drove

Yesterday evening I got invited to attend a Giants game at Oracle Park. For once, I decided to take public transport instead of driving. I live two blocks from a light-rail stop, on a line - with a brief transfer at a later station - that takes me directly to the ballpark. It doesn’t get any more door-to-door service than this. It sure beats getting stuck in rush hour traffic driving, only to park many blocks away from Oracle Park (because free parking), necessitating a lengthy walk.

That is, if the light-rail is actually functioning normally. I got on the first train yesterday, only to encounter a completely shut tunnel system. No trains of any line were able to go underground towards downtown. We had to instead get off at West Portal - just before the tunnel - and take a surface shuttle bus. It doesn’t take a genius to realize a street bus is far slower than an underground metro train that’s unimpeded by car traffic. Worse, the bus shuttle got me only to downtown - it didn’t extended beyond towards the ballpark. So I walked the rest of the way.

A trip that at most should have taken about an hour, instead took two. And you wonder why public transportation ridership hasn’t recovered fully from the pandemic. It’s a really bad look to have a major section of the light-rail system closed off during evening rush hour. Folks have already suffered the nine hours at work already! Adding to their already lengthy commute time is kind of unconscionable. It’s a bad deal for the people with responsibilities waiting at home. I at least had the luxury of not being in a hurry (I’ve been to enough baseball games to not care about missing the opening few innings).

Silver lining to everything: it was an enjoyable walk along the Embarcadero towards Oracle Park. The summer evening sun provided a great ambiance. Crisp air and excellent views will make anyone forget about the unscheduled delay.

Everybody wants it

A new guy started at work yesterday, and he’s got one gnarly commute just to get to campus. He lives in the East Bay so he takes a ferry to downtown San Francisco. Then he gets on the light rail, which thankfully takes him right in front of campus. I’m low-key not sure why he applied for this position given this arduous commute. What sucks even worse is leaving work at 6:00 PM and having to do the reverse. In the pitch dark.

Of course I not-so-meekly bragged to the guy: “Yeah, I live right across the street.”

Sorry about it! I will never be shy about my wonderful commute: a 10 minute walk. Moving this close to work is honestly the best thing to come out of the pandemic. The reclaimed hour lost to my old commute adds back to the work-life balance I deeply cherish. The fact the neighborhood near my work is also far quieter further decreases stress. I know this situation won’t last forever, so I’m going to enjoy it as much as possible while it’s there.

And I’m going to tell everyone about it, including new coworkers who’s got the opposite of what I have. Probably not the best for first impressions, however.

Work-life balance: it seems everybody around me want it. My one lawyer friend is looking to get back into government work after finding out even the slightly less hectic mid-size law firm life is still too hectic. My other friend who is a manager level position at a tech firm is overworked to the point of being hospitalized twice this year. Another friend who works at the same company but at a lower level have decided that management is not for her. The extra pay for the substantially increased stress is simply not worth it.

I completely agree. I too have zero desire to get to management level at my work. I’ve seen the hours my supervisor puts in. I very much like to take vacations, thank you very much.

Seven dollar mark

Not even during the height of the initial Ukraine situation did gas prices breach the magical seven dollar mark. Quite a few times the cost of premium at my local Chevron station rested at $6.999, but never above that. Until now. For reasons I can only find as “refinery issues” - it’s always refinery issues - the signpost at that Chevron now reads $7.099 for a gallon of 91 octane. I’m so glad I filled up at $6.959 just the week before.

For a car that sits stationary for most of the week. I’m fortunate that I can walk to work during this period of insane inflation. I cannot fathom what it’s like for people who have to commute by car. What can they do but pay up, honestly? It’s not like they can simply stop using their cars. Public transportation is notorious not great around here. Buses arriving in 10 minute intervals in considered optimal during commute hours!? And that is if the bus even comes on time.

This isn’t Japan, where rush hour trains arrive in three minute intervals, and almost always on time.

No one is going to subject themselves to the public transport experience once they are so used to driving. Being stuck is traffic is still better than longingly waiting for a bus that may never come. Not to mention, you’re going to be late. Grumble they may about high fuel costs, but there’s really no other option. Buying a more fuel-efficient car or a fully electric-vehicle isn’t the solution, either. Because you have to account for the entire cost of the whole car. Imagine how many gallons of gas (let’s say) $30,000 can buy!

Good news is our union have negotiated a one time 7% raise for its members. Bad news is all of that new money will go towards covering the existing inflation. It’s not just gas prices, right? Practically everything purchasable have increased in price. Except for the new iPhones, which curiously have stayed the same price as the previous years. Lucky me.

Why autonomous cars?

I was listening to The Smoking Tire Podcast with guest Missy Cummings, an expert and professor in autonomous technology. At one point, host Matt Farah asks a really poignant question: why the need for autonomous cars? Why are companies spending billions on chasing this technology? The answer is simple: to save time.

Or rather, take back time. The countless hours stuck in traffic on a commute could be better spent doing something else, if the car is able to drive itself without any user input. Take a nap, perhaps, or read a book. What would I do in the hypothetical reality where autonomous cars are possible? Cook and eat a really nice meal. Induction, naturally. Open flame in a moving car just spells disaster.

Anyways, the want to regain the time lost in traffic illuminates an obvious solution that’s far easier than figuring out self-driving cars: get rid of the commute. One of the best things I've done last year was move within walking distance to work. Never again will I have to sit in traffic to and from the campus. The reason a sizable amount of people are clinging to the work-from-home lifestyle even as we are opening back up? (Delta variant notwithstanding) There’s no commute working at home!

We are lucky to even have this discussion. The entire service industry don’t have the option of telecommuting. Though it seems some teachers unions are keeping on the Sisyphean fight to the end.

It’s sitting in traffic for hours that really sucks the soul. Instead of waiting for autonomous technology (one that may never materialize in cars) to save us from our misery, employees can and will instead opt to work for companies that allow remote work indefinitely. Or, they can move closer to work as I did. Either which way, the solution is there. It’s better for the planet, too, with less cars on the road during peak hours.

Mechanical sculpture

It’s somewhat ironic that there’s a Chevron gas station just a few blocks down from where I live. The convenience and proximity is very nice, obviously, but I don’t commute to work! It would be nice in theory to be able to fill up before I set off on another slogging drive. Thankfully, it’s only a 10 minute walk to campus; my daily two miles of exercise.

And thankfully I don’t drive very much, because gasoline prices have gone through the proverbial roof recently. A gallon of 91 octane at that corner Chevron station is currently at $4.75, which is rather high. I joked that if I did have to commute, I’d have to get rid of my BMW M2 and its ~20 miles-per-gallon average fuel mileage and get something way more efficient. Or perhaps a fully electric vehicle.

But then the question becomes: could I really afford to own a particular car if higher gas prices will force me to sell it? That’s a deep-cut into my spending numbers that I don’t really want to go into. It’s scary. Besides, the reality of the situation is: I can drive as little as I want. Just enough to keep the engine healthy by running it periodically if I have to.

That’s why I can afford to keep the M2 around. At present moment, car ownership is more symbolic than anything. Sure I use it at least once week to visit my parents, but other than that, the M2 simply sits. It’s more living room decoration than kitchen utensil. Admittedly, the mere fact I own the car is a large part of the whole experience. I get a sense of joy just seeing it parked outside through the window of my room.

All this is to say: gas prices are too damn high, but it hasn’t affected me much at all.

Walking home

With summer semester going into action at the university, the staff are being asked to work on campus fully for two to three days out of the week. California is getting ready to fully open in about a fortnight, so things are returning to normal quite rapidly. Every weekend in May, I’ve gone out to places and ate indoors at restaurants. I’ve hung out indoors with a relatively large group of friends, unmasked. We are back, baby.

Except for much of the rest of the world. Rising COVID rates in countries with formerly ultra low outbreaks such as Taiwan and Vietnam show that vaccines are the only solution out of this mess. It’s perverse luck that the United States is amongst the worse in COVID deaths, yet we are the amongst the first to achieve an appropriately high level of vaccination. I read on twitter that some people are contemplating travel to America just to get the vaccine.

From worst to first, the underdog story. That’s America!

Anyways, being back to working a full day at work makes me appreciate how nice it is that I now live only a 10 minute walk away. To end a nine-hours day on campus without a commute slog in a car afterwards is just the best feeling. Yesterday evening I walked by heavy traffic on 19th Avenue on the way home, and thought to myself how grateful that I’m not the one stuck in a car amongst that quagmire. Maybe it’s not the job that’s soul-sucking, but it’s the commute?

I think this is why plenty of people are thriving with working-from-home. The commute time they get back in turn allows them to perform better. They are less stressed because they have more time. Unfortunately they’re going to hav a rude wake-up call if and when they are asked to return physically to work. Something for employers to look out for, surely.