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April 2010

Monday Night in Winston-Salem

A note to my very sweet (but slightly overachieving) neighbors:

Please note that the assorted crabgrass and weeds have now been trimmed to a more manageable height. I realize the yard isn’t likely to impress you–or hell, even to placate you–but I hope you at least appreciate the gesture on my part. I even swept some of my trimmings off the street and disposed of that pile of leaves by the garage.

That said, please don’t look on this as a sign that I will be spending the rest of my weekends this spring and summer vacuuming the grass and steam-cleaning the driveway, as you apparently do, nor do I need a suggestion about which specific Disney animators you hire to make sure you have only the most attractive birds in your trees. Priorities, you know? I’m not a yard person, and this is the best I can am willing to do.

Thank you,
David

Editing

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Ever re-read something you’ve posted and realized it didn’t come across at all as you’d intended? Yeah, me too. More than usual lately, as it happens.

I Love Pair

No, really. Pair Networks (based in Pittsburgh, by the way) may be the only company I’ve dealt with in the past decade that has never disappointed me. They are so incredibly amazing that I’m ticked pink to pay a (relatively small) premium to use their web hosting service rather than suffer through the nightmare of some others I’ve dealt with. I’ve been using Pair for more than ten years and the difference between them and other hosts is unbelievable.

Why? Because their service is scalable and user-friendly for techies and non-techies alike. And because they have kick-ass tech support that (a) is completely based in Pittsburgh, (b) is staffed by people who speak English, and (c) exudes competence and is inclined to actually do something when you have a problem rather than just read from a fucking script.

We love yinz guys…

Randomly Sunday

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Links, etc.:

  • Great Historicist article on Peter Dickinson who apparently singlehandedly brought modern architecture to Toronto.
  • Here’s some Pittsburgh photography after my own heart.
  • Look. A video for Sheena Easton’s “Morning Train.” I never really knew there was one, and it’s not very good, but EMI is at least possessive enough of it to disable embedding.
  • If you haven’t been following the hubby’s cross-country photo tour, you should start. I’m getting the deluxe edition by email, with updates from each train station and bus stop along the way, but that option isn’t available to the general public. I’m special ‘cuz I put out, I guess.

Bed now. Hopefully, my stomach will have recovered by morning from whatever is bothering it so. I’ll spare you the details.

Bad with Names?

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It struck me tonight that there’s a period from about 1996-2004, roughly, where there are a significant number of people I spoke with on a fairly regular basis and felt that I knew rather well. I would not, however, recognize many of their names if I saw them. But show me their email addresses and it’s instant recognition.

I’m not sure if that’s really sad or mildly amusing. I’m going to choose the latter just because it makes me feel better about myself.

An Open Letter to the Winston-Salem Transit Authority

I am not a regular transit commuter, but I am an occasional user of WSTA buses, albeit an admittedly infrequent one. One of those occasions was Friday, April 2, which is apparently a holiday for city and state employees, but not for many other people.

On that Friday morning, I needed to drop off my car for service and did so assuming that I could take the bus home. I made this assumption because there was no indication whatsoever on WSTA’s website or phone system that the buses would not be running. Who knows how long I might have been standing at the bus stop had someone not yelled out his car window to let me know about the mistake I was making.

I understand that regular riders are probably very familiar with the holiday schedule. I know that transit budgets are stretched pretty thin. But how much effort does it really take to add a note to your website and a message on your phone system to let people know that there will be no service on a specific day? There’s not even a general holiday schedule posted on the website as far as I can see. Frankly, that would seem like pretty basic element to me.

It’s occasional riders like me that WSTA presumably wants to attract. We’re also a powerful swing vote who generally support transit when bond issues are proposed. With customer service lapses like this, though, it’s little wonder that people who have a choice generally choose not to take the bus.

All the same, the experience provided me with the chance to take a (very hilly) 4 km hike home on a busy four-lane road with no sidewalks. It might have been a nice change of pace if I’d planned to do it. Or had time.