Calling in for directions

Yesterday, I was carless in Virginia. I had some minor work done on my car and had to go pick up the car after work. Getting from Reston down to Fairfax was not going to be easy. Using the WMATA website to get a suggested itinerary produced a route that involved getting on a bus, transferring to another, then to the Metro train, and back onto yet another bus.

Alternatively, I found a route which involved one bus, but a mile and half of walking on either end of the trip. Despite, sputtering rain, I chose this route.

Getting to the pickup was relatively easy. I am fairly familiar with the area, and despite misinterpreting the pickup location, I was able to, literally, flag down the bus and get on at a non-designated bus stop.

The trip got more interesting when I misjudged where to get off the bus. I got off way too early! Earlier, at work, I had used Google Maps to get a vague idea of how to get there from the bus stop at which I thought I was getting off. Now, I was nowhere near the stop and had to travel by memory. I could have asked someone, however, it was a) raining so there wouldn't be to many pedestrians, and b) the suburbs where no one walked anywhere anyway.

At this point, I had an idea. I called my brother and had him browse to Google Maps for me. After some explanation, I got him to find my location on the map/satellite hybrid feature. This, as it turns out was very useful. I had him find me a way that would not have been found by simply asking the website for directions. The engine that drives it is designed for cars. I had the ability to cut through woods, between building, etc. to make my journey shorter.

So while I had him on the phone, I had him searching for alternative routes, as I traveled. We cut through buildings, and around a construction site (that was a wooded area on the website).

In the end, I made it to my destination. I had my own Central Command Center. Anand's CentCom is located in Bridgewater, NJ!

Schedule

Nearly a month after returning from my month long trip, I find myself still struggling to return to, what once was, my "normal" schedule. It doesn't help that works been unusually busy, there are major issues to deal with on both boards of directors that I'm a member, my body clock refuses to completely readjust (I still wake up every night at 1:00 and 4:00 am.)

It's no wonder that all the things I've wanted to do, like post to this blog and return to a regular gym schedule, have slipped. I think the gym thing is the root of it all, and that may be the first thing I try to correct. I truly apologize for still not posting about the rest of my trip. I have so many ideas and things I need to write about. You should begin to see me catch up over the next few weeks.

One thing I may do is hermitize for awhile so that I can deal with prioritizing some of these.

Disaster Follows

A quick post about the earthquake this morning near Islamabad. I just called home to get my mom to call our relatives. I have a cousin sister that lives relatively close to Pakistan and, as the earthquake was felt as far away as Delhi, I thought it'd be a good idea to check in on her. We don't expect bad news since she lives further south, but it's probably a good idea to check.

It seems that natural disaster has been striking just after I leave during my trip. Mostly monsoon rains hit towns a day or two after we leave. The monsoon season usually wraps up toward the end of September and sometimes (rarely) into October. This seems to be one of those years. The monsoon usually starting in the south and working its way north, will end in the same way.

The day after we left Porbandar, there were monsoon rains, winds, and even reports of a tornado touching down there. Days after we left Goa, a huge storm hit northern Goa and Gujarat. In Ahmedabad, my relatives said that 11 inches of rain fell in less than 10 hours. And now this earthquake has happened.

It is going to be interesting to see the reaction on both sides of the border since the area largely effected is Kashmir. The Kashmir region is the major reason for the sixty year conflict between India and Pakistan.