Michael's musings

Tue, 14 Jul 2009

La Ronde -- montreal expo island roller coaster

I went to La Ronde last night after my http://linuxsymposium.org talk. $25 after 5pm, $20 if you buy online. (Internet at my hotel was stuffed, so I couldn't buy online) http://www.laronde.com/

Take Metro to BERI-UQAM, and then take Yellow line south one stop to the island, then take 167 bus "La Ronde" for 5 minutes. It's too far to walk, alas. I got there at 7:30pm, alas. I wish I had got there earlier. (There were plenty of buses at 9pm to deal with the people leaving when the park closes)

I managed to ride "le Monstre" which is one of the larger wooden roller-coasters in North America, apparently. It is fast. They had only one of the two tracks running, otherwise, you'd be "racing" the other track.

I also rode the Goliath, which is a metal coaster. It's not as fast overall, but it has more up-gforces.. I.e. you get weightless as you go over the rises. You are almost standing. I didn't get to ride the one where you hang, and your feet are out, and you go up-side-down.

I did see, next to the Goliath, a diving pool spectacle. It's called Y'Eau. Now I know what happens to retired Olympic divers. Very cool... I just sat down there to finish my food before I lined up for the Goliath... line ups on Monday were not bad... 25 minutes each...

I gotta go back.

I gotta go back with Liam when he is tall enough to ride! I hope he will be into roller coasters.

Wed, 15 Jul 2009

Amtrak trip to New York state field

It's 3:35pm. We've been sitting in a field in upstate New York State for 45 minutes. Finally, the northbound train just passed us, and we are now proceeding. I guess this is because we were too late to get to the next passing track.

I think we were late leave, the train bridge was under construction, so we were slow leaving, and the border crossing at "Rousse Point" was very slow. 2 hours, I think.

PLEASE, can we not work something out so that US border guards get on the train in Montreal, and work as the train moves?

I understand that there are issues with the US boarder guards being armed... well, the Canadian ones are now (unfortunately, I think) now also armed. At least, could we arrange for Canadian immigration to board at Rousse Point, and process people while the train moves?

(Finally, at 3:50pm, after going around some more of Lake Champlain, we got to Port Henry. I think we are 4 hours late now... Apparently there is no train on Thursday/Friday due to track work. I hope they can improve things)

Tue, 30 Dec 2008

VIA Renaissance coach

I am travelling to Basking Ridge, NJ today. I am going VIA to Montreal/Dorval, Delta to JFK, and then Long-Island RailRoad (LIRR) and NJ-Transit to Basking Ridge. This route vs in/out of EWR, because there are no (inexpensive) fares that would let me stay to a reasonable lateness in NJ, while still getting home on "Thursday".

The VIA 12:45pm departure gets me to Dorval for 2:15, in time for my 4pm flight.

The train is a VIA rennaissance coach: I will upload a picture of it. The seats are 2 x 1. So much roomier than the LRC. They are elevated above the ground, and there is an angled space under one's seat that accomodates a medium sized wheelie bag easily. The overhead compartment is miniscule.

The view out the window is very nice.

Complaints: it's not clear that a bag will actually fit under the seat. Some better pictures/diagrams showing this would be good.

The trays pull out from the seat behind you. The seats, do recline, but the seat in front of you really can't get in your way too much... to recline, the seat slides forward, rather than the back going down.

I like that the trays there, it is WAY better than the fold out from the armrest. That also means that the armrest for the side-by-side seats can move up, very nice if two people are trying to sleep snuggled.

But, the tray is NOT strong enough for laptop. It folds out in two sections, and it it does not hold itself straight. So, to get your laptop in the right position, either it is sitting mostly on the second half, bouncing, or it's pushed back, and the keyboard is kinda elevated.

If I had a eeePC or an XO, I guess I could have not folded out the second half at all. The trays are not well labelled either: a grandmother next to me was very unclear how to get it open at all.

There are footrests (optional fortunately). My legs are too long for them. The floor is curved (to make room for the seat in front of mine's luggage slide), so it comes up to meet your feet, which for my leg length is okay, but it doesn't give me much space to adjust my feet. Bending my knee at 90 degrees lifts my leg off the seat.

There is AC on the train, all classes now have it. (That was the major reason I took VIA-1 to Toronto. I have much less reason to do that now that power is everywhere. Wifi is still too expensive for using to Montreal)

Suggestions: Move the AC plug to be higher. Give me a little shelf above the tray area for my drink: that way I can move it up when I need to stand up. Make the tray stronger: just put a piece underneath that can be turned to provide extra support.

It's nice to be higher. I would dispense with the above-head spaces completely, and if I were rebuilding, I'd make it even higher! The seats are nicely lined up with the windows, which they are not on the LRC.

Conclusion: nice ideas, but not built for my size. Not enough instruction on how to use things: pictures would be good.

Thu, 27 Dec 2007

Some notes about our trip to Europe '07

In March 2007, Liam, Meaghan and I travelled to Prague and Florence. We went to Prague for IETF 68 (http://www.ietf.org/), and we went to Florence for fun.

How we got there

We travelled KLM from Ottawa to Prague, by train from Prague to Florence, by train from Florance to Milan, and by KLM back to Ottawa.

Ottawa to Prague

A bus picked us up at the Ottawa train station and took us to the Montreal airport. We left on March 16, 2007. We had two suitcases, and a backpack. Liam had his car seat and an umbrella stroller. We had an allowance of 4 suitcases. Our suitcases were from Canadian Tire, and were a set of 4, each one that fit into another. We had a set like that already, and we got another one. We took the two biggest ones (one blue and one red), and we packed one of the smaller ones into the bigger ones, since we anticipating perhaps bringing stuff home with us.

We brought diapers for about 5 days, giving us enough time to locate a source of diapers in Czech.

At the montreal airport they took our stuff, and we learnt that the plane was full, so Liam wouldn't get his own seat.

At the gate, we learnt that the plane was not a 767, but instead, a 747-400. This is a bigger plane, faster. But not as new. They delayed boarding us --- we learnt, perhaps not accurately, that the previous days' flight had been cancelled, and since there were many people who needed to be rebooked, that this was why they had put a bigger plane in.

Once on the plane, we were told that we would have to wait another hour. WHY DID THEY BOARD US? How stupid. The reason: we can't land in AMSterdam before 7am, and the 747 would get there too fast. Initially, we were seated behind a bulkhead, but Liam is too big for the baby crib that they can attach to the bulkhead. A woman with one child was next to us initially. She had a 4 and half year old. Another woman arrived, they had been double booked. I understand overselling the airplane, but I don't understanding issuing two boarding passes. The second woman had a baby (infant) and a 5 year old girl. They agreed that they would take the seat next to us, and the other woman would move to another seat, since she didn't need the bulkhead for the infant crib.

We found the accomodations on KLM to be distinctly below our expectations for KLM. Seats too small, plane too old, service not that great.

At Schiptol we had some time, and Meaghan had some left-over wine from dinner. We found our gate, found that there was a security screen at it, and that it wasn't open yet, so we went back and ate expensive croissants. We also found Radia Perlman and Charlie Kaufmann sitting on the floor, waiting for the same connecting gate. (They are well known IETF types. Google them. I think they are a couple now! Oops. Maybe that's a secret.)

The 100ml limit on "fluid" meant that Meaghan couldn't bring her half-drunk bottle of wine with her. The bottle was 125ml, but it was only half full.

The Czech-air plane we got on was new. It had only made two flights before the one we were on. It was almost empty. When we arrived in Prague, our luggage arrived VERY quickly, but our gate-checked stroller and car seat took a long time to locate.

We had arranged with the hotel to have a car pick us up. That worked well. It was just charged to our room. On the way in to town the fellow turned on the radio. I wish I could remember what song was on, but like in the intro to Unbearable Lightness of Being it was a popular song, but with Czech lyrics.

I'll talk about our time in Prague later. It was less than 10C that week, which was annoying. It had been 13-17C the week before.

Prague to Florence

We had booked tickets on the train from Praha to Firenze. This was an overnight train from Praha to Munchen, and then a train from Munchen (Munich) to Firenze the next day, via the Austrian Alps (i.e. through Innsbruck). The trip through the alps would be in daylight.

I booked on bahn.de, which was relatively easy, but they were unable to get me a ticket price. It was 300EU for the three of us. I wish I had paid a bit more for first class from Munchen to Firenze.

There were three train stations listen for Praha. I picked one. The one I picked was not the main one. I hesistated to go to the main one. I wish that we had. The train actually started from there, and went to the smaller station (which had NOTHING).

We were at the wrong end of the train, and had to run down the platform. I left the car seat on the first run, and went back for it, and then got on the train at the front, and walked to the back. We had a nice roomette — two bunks. Very nice train, very modern.

At Munchen, we arrived, detrained, and found washrooms and breakfast. We arrived early, before 6am, and our train left at 9am. Liam had fun. Later we saw a seen from the movie Bourne Supremacy --- he walked right past a bar where Liam had been standing under a table. Had Liam been there when they filmed, he would have been in the scene! It's nice to know that it wasn't a fake set..

The train to Florence was full. It was hard to find a place for all our luggage. I hurt my arms and my back lifting it up to the overhead bins. I had to take painkillers and muscle relaxants for days. In my relaxed stupour, I must have turned my ankle one day on the cobble-stones, and not even realized it.

We left on Thursday March 22 at 8pm, arriving in Firenze at 5:30pm on Friday March 23. We took a cab the four blocks to our hotel, since we didn't know how far it would be, and had too many bags. We had repacked my briefcase/laptop/etc. into our spare suitcase for this leg.

Florence to Milan

On March 29th, in the morning, we booked Trainitalia first class to Milan. We left at 9:30am. The day before, while booking the tickets, some gypsies nearly seperated Liam from us in the train station.

We had two seats (should have booked three) next in the first class car next to two Americans (a couple) from San Jose who were travelling. We went to Milan, exited the station (which was under significant construction), failed to find the washrooms, and took a bus to Malpensa airport.

The airport bus express dropped us at departures, and the hotel had a lot of difficulties with the idea that they would be picking us up from departures, rather than arrivals. I don't recommend them.

From there, we took a hotel shuttle to our hotel and checked in. It was nearly 3pm by then, and Meaghan's cousin had called us back only that morning to confirm that we should visit. The hotel was very much un-impressive (the Crowne-Plaza Hotel). We a shower, changed and took the hotel shuttle back to the airport, where we caught the airport express train back downtown.

The airport express train does not connect to the main inter-urban train station, but uses one of the two commuter rail stations. This is rather inconvenient for travellers who want to arrive/depart from Malpensa and see the rest of Italy by train. Malpensa is about 60km west of Milan.

From there, we took the subway to the east side of Milan, where Meaghan's cousin picked us up. It was 5pm-ish by then, middle of the rush hour. We had dinner at her house with her husband and two kids, and then just before he went to work (he edits highlights from Italian soccer games for a sports news channel), he dropped us back at the subway. We took the subway back to the commuter station, learnt that after 9pm, it's a bus to the airport, and waited for that.

The bus took us through the west side of Milan, along lots of boulevards and rows and rows of 5-storey apartments. (There is a word for that, but I forgot it). From the airport, we took the shuttle back to the hotel. We had some beer and wine at the bar (and milk), and we went to sleep.

Milan to Ottawa

Our flight from Milan/Malpensa left at 11am-ish. We didn't want to be in a rush in the morning. We could have stayed downtown really. There was no advantage to being at the airport hotel. Had it been right at the airport, it would be made more sense.

We flew uneventfully to Amsterdam, had a bit of a rush across the airport (which included a stamp through passport control as we "left" Europe. I think that we entered it on the overnight train when we entered Germany).

We then got on another rather crowded airplane, again a 747. This time, we weren't at the bulkhead, but we were in the middle, two seats on the left of the right-hand aisle. There was almost no space for me. Opening my laptop so that Liam could watch Thomas was a real challenge. He slept finally.

We deplaned, did customs and then had to wait two hours for the KLM bus from Montreal to Ottawa. We ate at a very bad restaurant at the Montreal airport. What idiot decided to mix restaurants (that don't take kindly to luggage carts), into the space used by airlines to check people in?

KLM needs to stop running their own bus --- instead use Voyageur/Greyhound, which run hourly buses, so that we don't have to wait so long. Or make a deal with VIA please.

This entry was just about our travel. I didn't mention anything we did.

Mon, 19 Mar 2007

GSM phones

Today, I got a call on my mobile phone from a Bell Mobility sales person.

The irony is that, were I a Bell Mobility customer, he couldn't have called me, since I'm in Prague, roaming on GSM.

He wanted to offer me a Bell Mobility corporate package.

I explained that I was not interested in what I call a cordless phone. Sorry, Bell and Telus don't offer mobile phones. They are just cordless phones. Cordless phones have a base station (usually in your house), and you can go some distance. You have to use the phone that came with the base station, and one can't use different phones with the same base station.

Mobile phones such as those based upon GSM, seperate their handset from the identity, and you can roam almost anywhere in the world. You can switch phones by just switching the SIM card, or make my phone become your phone by doing the same thing.

What Bell "Mobility" sells is just a cordless phone. Sure, it has a larger range (a good part of Canada, and some parts of the US) than the one I can get at Walmart, but that's really it.

Bell will switch to GSM. When it happens, I will switch. Or to Telus.

Mon, 25 Sep 2006

O-Train Canceled

Today I spent two hours at my "alma mata", Carleton University.

It's been 10 years since the Herzberg building was expanded, but I still think of it as new. For many, the O-train is still new, yet it will soon be old. Unless you do something about it.

I was giving out flyers about the cancellation of the O-train.

http://otra.sandelman.ca/2006-09/

I talked to students arriving by O-train and bus about the cities' plans to replace the widely successful O-train with a streetcar system. Most were very surprised.

OC-transpo doesn't talk much about this, yet it is a critical part of the plan: by shutting things down for a long enough period, people will have to make new arrangements, and will therefore not care if the "replacement" train gets finished or not. It will be more expensive than buses (it's designed to be), so, we'll have to cancel it.

http://www.cs.unca.edu/~manns/intropatterns.html explains some of this method, but I don't have the book in my hands, so I can't tell you the name of this anti-pattern.

I wrote about this before, using a piece from Tim Lane, that really says is better than I ever could:

http://www.sandelman.ca/mcr/blog/2006/06/12#tim_lane_on_o-train

Now the Mayor seems to have fallen into the trap of forgetting what the diesel O-Train has accomplished, and is convinced that any future LRT has to be the expensive kind.

He has forgotten that the #1 reason you bring in light rail, is TO REDUCE THE COST OF OPERATING YOUR TRANSIT SYSTEM!

The #2 reason, is to give your riders a FASTER, MORE RELIABLE TRIP, if terms of travel time, and schedule adherence.

The new North South LRT extension, looping through Riverside South before entering Barrhaven from the south east, will, at enormous cost, provide passengers with a slower trip from Barrhaven to downtown, than the express buses on Woodroffe Avenue.

The plans for the East West light rail lines, with proposals to run it down busy city streets, rather than the existing, mostly grade separated rail corridors, show that the purpose of LRT, now, is to enhance the value of developers properties.

The two real reasons for LRT, above, have been thrown out the window.

Tue, 13 Jun 2006

Tim Lane on O-train

(used with permission)

Op Ed piece on LRT expansion - June 12, 2006

By Tim Lane

There seems to be a concerted effort to forget, or dismiss, what the existing diesel light rail O-Train has accomplished.

A fifteen minute service on an existing heavy rail line, that carries upwards of ten thousand passengers per day, on a single track.

A system that integrates O-Train & bus to give people a faster, more comfortable trip than by bus alone, to many destinations.

A system that is the ideal way to get to events at Dow's Lake (Tulip Festival, Winterlude, etc.).

A system that has won awards, although on at least one occasion, management didn't tell the train drivers about it. (Ask me about that one!)

A system that has had beneficial effects on the bus system, freeing up buses to be used elsewhere.

A system that has tremendous fuel savings, on a per- passenger basis, compared to buses.

A system that reduces air pollution, compared to buses.

A system that provides ENORMOUS savings on snow clearing, compared to roads.

The O-Train kept running flawlessly, during last December's snowstorm that immobilized hundreds of buses.

The David Gladstone Memorial Pathway, between Bayview Station & the Ottawa River Parkway recreational path system, would have allowed people out for a stroll or bike ride, to see how close the O-Train comes to the Prince of Wales bridge. Of course, some people in the City don't want the public to know that a simple, low cost solution to cross river traffic congestion is immediately available.

The reason I call it the "David Gladstone Memorial Pathway", is that he will probably die of old age before it ever gets built. (pace, David!)

Capital Railway (the O-Train) now has the federally mandated authority to run a rail passenger service into Quebec, which would obviously involve using the Prince of Wales bridge.

Doing this would be the simplest, most cost effective solution to downtown traffic problems.

It would allow many Gatineau residents, who, for example, work at Confederation Heights to ditch their car, and take a much faster transit service to work.

It would allow many OC Transpo and STO buses to stay on their respective sides of the river.

This would reduce bus congestion in the downtowns of both Hull and Ottawa.

It would allow many of these buses to be redeployed in various Gatineau and Ottawa neighbourhoods, thus improving bus frequency, without having to buy any new buses.

Now the Mayor seems to have fallen into the trap of forgetting what the diesel O-Train has accomplished, and is convinced that any future LRT has to be the expensive kind.

He has forgotten that the #1 reason you bring in light rail, is TO REDUCE THE COST OF OPERATING YOUR TRANSIT SYSTEM!

The #2 reason, is to give your riders a FASTER, MORE RELIABLE TRIP, if terms of travel time, and schedule adherence.

The new North South LRT extension, looping through Riverside South before entering Barrhaven from the south east, will, at enormous cost, provide passengers with a slower trip from Barrhaven to downtown, than the express buses on Woodroffe Avenue.

The plans for the East West light rail lines, with proposals to run it down busy city streets, rather than the existing, mostly grade separated rail corridors, show that the purpose of LRT, now, is to enhance the value of developers properties.

The two real reasons for LRT, above, have been thrown out the window.

There is no way that the proposed Light Rail system will provide a fast, reliable trip. Nor will it reduce the cost to the taxpayer of providing transit, if the vehicles, subsidized by the hour, are taking forever to get people where they're going.

I believe that it is time to put a halt to these LRT expansion plans, until after the election next fall. That would give the public and the planners time to get some sanity back into our transit system.

Tim Lane

Sat, 22 Apr 2006

VIA-rail now has wifi

To: Customer_Relations.VIA@viarail.ca

I used wifi for the first time via your parsons.com and opti-fi.ca service on my trip from Ottawa to Toronto.

I never did get why you trialed things on the Toronto/Montreal trains, as Ottawa is where high tech is. I also want to let you know that I would have taken the overnight service from Ottawa to Toronto on this trip had you ever bothered to make the stop in Ottawa as you promised to. (I DO want to get to Ottawa 6am. It means that I don't lose a day to travel, and I don't have to leave Toronto at 5:30pm, and I don't arrive home tired)

I very much hope you consider equipping ALL of your trains with wifi, including the Montreal/Halifax run. That would be a big incentive for me to take that train, although a better connection to Fredericton is probably the major limiting factor.

Your provider needs to offer WEP/WPA service. Not for privacy --- WEP and WPA is trivially cracked, but for authentication. The web portal mess is just that --- a mess. It won't work from my wifi phone, or my wifi instant messaging appliance (it's PDA sized).

Your price is okay, but not great. I had to think about $8.95. Is it worth it. At $5.99, it's a no-brainer. Particularly since the network connection is slow.

The network connection also emerges from whatever radio/satellite system you have in Dallas Fort-Worth. This concerns me as the United States has very much different laws as to copyright than Canada. Keep my data in Canada if it is in Canada. Perhaps Ontario Hydro can help with transit across Ontario. This is important to me, and I'm willing to pay $1 more for this.

I do not in general like the web portal mess. I would prefer that my laptop just noticed that it was WPA, picked the right password and authenticated when it booted. My 802.11 phone can also do this, but it doesn't have a browser.

I am willing to use it for the initial sign on, at which point I would prefer to buy blocks of hours. I.e. $50 for 50 hours, valid for up at least 1 year.

(At 5 hours per Ottawa/Toronto trip, that's 5 round trips/year). You might just want to make this a perk at the Prestige or Premier VIA-preference level. I would also be very happy to redeem VIA-preference points for this.

Again, you need more bandwidth.