Commute

Central Line Time Travel to The Mid 90’s

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London Underground

So instead of replacing all the Central line trains, they’re refurbishing them. There’s a whole drama behind that decision, but I’m not getting into it. Over the past year I think they’ve done, what, two of them? Maybe three? I’ve only ever seen photos. Until going to work two weeks ago.

I got on the train to head into the office and immediately noticed it felt… new. Not “new new,” but “refurbished new,” which is apparently a category now.

Quick recap of what they’re doing: they take the existing trains, strip them down to the frame, rebuild everything, fix the motors, and put it all back together. And in the end, you get something that basically looks like the same train you’ve seen for decades, just cleaner and shinier.

Here’s the weird part. I never rode these things when they were actually new. So in 2025, stepping onto a “brand new” Central line train is like stepping into a fresh-from-the-factory 1990s time capsule.

Some things were noticeably updated. The audio announcements sounded different, the seats supposedly got an upgrade, and the seat pattern definitely changed. But otherwise it was the same old train, just suspiciously clean, like someone hit reset on it.

Strange, but kind of fun for a random Tuesday morning.

Long Commute Home

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Sat on the subway for an hour getting home tonight. Only saw Teagan for 5 minutes or O before I had to feed her and put her to bed:(. She was tired though and went right down after I put her in her crib

First Day Back in The Office

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Today was the first day back in the office since before Sandy.  I got up early since i was concerned about the commute as well as the fact that I had an early meeting.  The trip in to work was fine.  I even got a seat for part of the way.  The guys I work with in NJ didnt fare as well.  Some had 3 hour commutes.

Before I headed home I went to get a hair cut.  That delayed my leaving Manhattan till after 6pm.  I am not sure if that was the reason why the subways were packed, but I had to wait a while for the train and then it was super crowded.  The train also moved a lot slower than normal.  Due to the storm projected to happen tomorrow I am going to work from home tomorrow.  My mom is supposed to come over and watch the baby while MC has a doctor apt.  If she can’t get fuel I want to make sure MC can still go.  Add the storm to the mix and I think its the smart choice to work remote.

Day Three

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I am on day three at the new job. I am having problems timing my morning schedule right. I am ending up at work very early (aka 8:30AM). That would be ok if I wasn’t staying till 6pm the past two days in a row. Well to be technical yesterday was 6:30ish. I had less meetings today, but I had to work on the list of tasks that I need to tackle. For the record it is hovering around 75 so far. The overwhelming factor is diminished a bit today, so there is hope for me!

Secured Commuting

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I work in New York City. I take the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) to work every day. Because of this I have to pass through Penn Station twice a day. It is a peaceful commute most of the time. Ever since 9/11 their has been a significant presence of police and national guard troops in NY Penn station. Right after 9/11 you would see troopers ever 20 feet or so stationed around the place. Even thought they probably would be useless if something major happened it made you “feel safe”. as time went by you saw less troopers. There was always some, but noticeably less. In the past month or so I have noticed again more troops. One thing different is that they now carry M-16 riffles. In the past they had pistol’s only. Again I don’t mind the idea of armed troops around. They are not rounding people up en mass or anything. They are just making a show, or that is what it feels like.

All these troops hanging around brings up the question of if something did happen would these guys be any useful at all? And do people know that something is possibly going on that they armed the troops with riffles now instead of pistols? I was just wondering.

The only thing that did get me a bit nervous was the bomb sniffing dog unit at my train station for a few months in the beginning of 2002. The first few days were weird, then you got used to the K-9 unit just hanging out there during the morning commute.

The changing world we live in!!!

More work, less hacking, unless it is for work

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It is monday again, and I am off to work. Today we meet with another telecom provider to see if they have a good deal. We need to make a decision this week.

OK, time for me to gripe about something. I am on the train, and cannot stand it when people receive cell phone calls (or make them) and have an entire conversation. In addition to that these people usually talk like a plane is flying by. Now I am all for cell phone use. I have 2 of them, and I don’t even have a home phone (another story). When I am out and about I will receive calls but only talk for a min if it is not important. If it is a work emergency (which I get more often than I would like) I talk. What is with this casual talking on a train with 100 other people. We don’t care what you have to say to your friends or family. We don’t need cell phone restriction laws, we need some etiquette from people. Ok, I am done ranting.

Speaking of cell phones I am kind of bummed that my main phone (an AT&T GSM Provided Sony Ericsson T68i) won’t work in our office in Kingston. Actually it wont work in kingston at all. I am not sure what will work well up there. I know verizon works, and t-mobile, but not sure if either of them provides good signal at our site. I have a verizon phone but I wanted to cancel it. No I am paying the monthly fee to wait and see. I also have a T-Mobile SIM card, but no phone. I am holding onto that for a bit longer also.

I gotta tell you, I go through phones (just like PDA’s) fast. I just upgrade to the latest and greatest allot. I was on ebay last night looking for a phone for the CEO of my company. He is going to europe and wanted a phone. He has a SIM already, but no phone. Since I didn’t have any extra he said to look for one. Well after looking I don’t see any GSM phones that do everything I want, except for the one I already have. For my CEO we are just going to rent one, but I started looking for myself also. Like I said I don’t have a phone for my T-Mobile SIM. It is weird. For the first time in a while I am ready to spend money.

OK, back to work talk. This post was supposed to be about work. I ended up sending back the low end Compaq 1U server we got. FYI, 1U is the size of it. Computer racks are broken down by U’s. Each standard rack has 42U. A 1U server takes up 1U of that 42. They are really small. It turns out the compaq server we bought does not have a RAID card for IDE like were were told 3 times. The were going to send me one for free, but I decided to send it back instead. Part of my reasoning is that we were going to get 2 of these. And I want to get them and see if I like them. if I do like them I want to standardize on them later on. If we got a free raid card, I would have to pay for them in the future. That would put the cost well over what I wanted to budget for these low end machines. I ended up ordering a super micro box and saved like $600 off my original quote. It is a no name brand, but we already use no name VA Linux machines, and this thing has a 3 year warrantee. I will see if they are any good.