Well, it's April Fools Day but this isn't a joke post.  I've never been very good about posting to my blog but I've decided to make another run at it.  It probably won't be daily but I'll get something up here at least once a month.  Now that I've got a halfway decent camera in my 3G phone, I might even do a little mobile blogging.  I may also do some cross-posting of stuff around IPTV to a msdn or spaces blog since our global subscriber acquisition rate for services running Microsoft's IPTV software is ramping rather quickly now.

I've got to figure out what I want to do with photos.  I may either use my Windows Live Spaces site for that or I may share some of them out publicly via Orb.

• Prefab green building
• The rise in the "undeclared / independent" policial party
• The mobile phone as THE device (phone, email/text, video camera, music/video player, still camera, wallet, display/projector, gps, computer)
• IP everything
• Boxed wine
• More content in smaller chunks
• China

According to an article today in the Capital Times in Madison the "sconnie" culture is the new cheesehead for Wisconsin!  My younger brother's company sells "sconnie" shirts and accessories.  Maybe they should make some kind of foam-rubber thing to put on your head at Lambeau Field.

I was reading this SFGate article on BART to SFO ridership being well below estimates this morning.  Having used both BART and Caltrain to get to SFO, I have to admit that it's no surprise that ridership is so low.  I have ridden train to airport links in a number of other cities and there is a clear distinction between planners who "get it" and those who just want to spend a bunch of money (and probably get kick-backs) and check off another campaign promise on their list.

Issues I have with taking public transit to SFO:

1. The link between Caltrain and the airport, a BART train, only seemingly runs every 30 minutes and it NEVER aligns with the caltrain schedule.  In fact, the train often just sits there in the station with its doors closed, taunting you with the view of the airport in the distance.
2. The BART train uses BART fare cards (a separate and overpriced transaction) just after you got done paying caltrain with your caltrain pass/fare.  There is no "get me to the airport" single payment mechanism.
3. When going from San Francisco to SFO on caltrain, you have to go through a maze of escalators and elevators to go over the caltrain track and into BART.  Didn't anyone get the memo that we have luggage when going to/from the airport?
4. There are no clearly posted BART or Caltrain schedules ANYWHERE in the airport.  The odds that I take BART to Caltrain or BART to the city would go up sharply if I knew when the next train was and the rough estimate of when I would arrive.
5. Most people have to take the AirTrain (little airport shuttle on rails between terminals) to get to the BART train to get to CalTrain to go home.  Not only are the schedules for BART and Caltrain not posted but they are not aligned, as mentioned earlier.
6. Taxi to SF: 15 minutes;  Public transit to SF: 45 minutes to an hour depending on time of day.  Don't plan on using caltrain link after 9pm due to Caltrain schedule.
7. The AirTrain station has a bunch of STAIRS you have to use to get connected to the terminal.  Again, did somebody not know I would have luggage?
8. To address low ridership, they decreased the frequency of the BART airport link.  Brilliant.

So here are the rules for a successfull rail / airport link - almost all of which do not apply to SFO:

1. Minimize stairs and escalators between train and airport
2. Have trains actually arrive AT the airport, not one or two stations / transfers away from it.  Extra credit if there are multiple airport stops that the train makes (such as the R1 in Philly)
3. Have trains to the airport run frequently or at least at highly reliable and predictable intervals (like on the hour and half hour)
4. Make it easy and inexpensive to use the payment mechanism and have only one mechanism.
5. Have the total trip time be competitive with driving/taxi - not just for the people in the boonies when compared to rush hour but for those who want to get to/from the major cities (SF, Oakland, San Jose in the case of SFO versus Walnut Creek).
6. If the airport link does require transfers from other lines/modes of transportation, synchronize them.

Having said all this there may still be 1 or 2 times per year when taking Caltrain/BART to SFO will make sense for me, but there are so many boneheaded design decisions that got made with the Caltrain/BART/SFO link that I think they should probably scrap it, take the money they are losing daily and just run a shuttle bus from the caltrain and bart stations in the city (SF) to the airport at a lower cost.

For those wondering, my favorite rail/airport links are Washington, DC and Philadelphia.

Those two people who follow my blog have probably given up on following it since I haven't posted in ages.  The caltrain love poem didn't happen and instead I've been having a very time consuming relationship with my work now that I am responsible for the applications, user experience and server components (metadata mostly) for Microsoft's IPTV and cable products.  The good news is that I really enjoy my work, the people I work with and many of those extra things that don't fall cleanly into either of those.  The bad news is that the long hours have come at the expense of many other non-work things in my life. 

In catching up with my blog feeds today I came across a FT article about "tribal workers."  I think this article describes many things I identify with (beyond just my age).  While I don't believe that the number of hours worked alone is a sign of "success" I do feel the challenge of having too many options and the focus on my career.  I've got the Georgetown undergraduate degree (double major in Econ and English with honors) and the UC Berkeley MBA not to mention some good career experience.  I've worked in DC and Silicon Valley, live in San Francisco and have had some great travel through my job at Microsoft.

I have to think some more about whether or not I fall in this new "class."  I probably do -- I had a pretty good streak of 80-90 hour work weeks in the past few months and I just got off the phone (via my parents' VOIP service) with my relatives in Italy who were watching the World Cup game at the same time I was.

Italy won and I think I probably felt like more of an Italy fan than a US fan as far as the world cup goes.  Don't tell that to the Germans I work with on IPTV. :)

My little brother got a nice writeup in the Milwaukee Journal about his business, Sconnie Nation, LLC.  The entrepreneurship bug still runs in the family!  Check out his site if you want to pick up one of those cool Wisconsin T-Shirts.

I ride caltrain from my home in SF to work in Mountain View just about every day and unfortunately for me, my train is about 80% male.  That being said, every now and then there is someone on Caltrain who has caught my eye.  Just tonight, a neighbor of mine who is a new Caltrain rider asked "are there any hotties on the train?".

It's only appropriate that this evening I stumbled across an article in the Chronicle about a Caltrain love poem contest.  I may have to enter.  If I do, I'll post it here.

Omar, does this mean you can collect royalties?

http://news.independent.co.uk/media/article320877.ece

I know, this sounds weird, but I forgot how much fun it was to hammer nails until yesterday.  A group of managers from my team did a full day volunteer project at Habitat for Humanity in Daly City.  This was my first H4H experience and I found it to be physically and mentally rewarding, not to mention the good that will come of bringing homeownership to a low-income family in the expensive Bay Area housing market.

At any rate, just remember, the key to successful hammering is to make the hammer work for you and get leverage by holding it closer to the bottom!

Green Bay Packers season tickets have been sold out since 1960.  In 1997 I signed up on the waiting list for Packers season tickets.  At that time, which was prior to the Lambeau Field renovation, the estimate was that I would be 51 by the time season tickets were available.  Given that there are more seats and the season ticket transfer rules have tightened up a bit, it might be more like 45 now (I can't find the wait calculator anymore).

While I'm not planning on moving back to Wisconsin anytime soon, by the time I'm that age, you never know.  If the packers were having a good season, I would even consider flying back for some games!