Gordon Meyer

The city that works

Residents of Chicago, like those of any big city I'm sure, love to gripe the quality of services. It's practically an American pastime. But this is not one of those occasions. It's a story that, in fact, is almost unbelievable in its efficiency and timeliness.

On Saturday, a light pole on my street came crashing down. It wasn't hit by a car or anything like that. It just, well, it just fell over. This happened just a few minutes before 5:00PM. (Later examination revealed severe rust along the concrete fittings.) Surprisingly, it fell in such a way that nobody was hurt nor any property damaged. (Good News #1) But it sure made a heck of a racket.

I immediately picked up the phone to report the problem. While I did this, two of my neighbors teamed up to drag the pole out of the road. Once that was done, one got a broom and began sweeping up the debris. (Good News #2)

The city dispatcher I spoke with sent the police, who arrived in just 10 minutes or so (Good News #3) and spent several minutes at the scene, most of which were on the phone or radio.

Within 30 minutes a two-person city crew arrived and temporarily restrung and fixed the broken power line. (Good News #4) Electricity on the block didn't seem to be impacted; I think the line simply connects the street lights in series. This meant that the whole block of street lights wouldn't be out.

By early Monday afternoon (less than 48 hours later), a four-person crew erected a new pole and streetlight. (Good News #5).

I'm sure it doesn't happen this smoothly and quickly every time, but bravo, City of Big Shoulders.

The only tiny downside is that when I called for assistance, after dispatching the officer, I was transferred to another number and told to report the problem there, too. I was on hold for 20 minutes and eventually got transferred to a number that rang one, then disconnected. Given the situation with the heatwave, I guess that's not a shock.

Review: UPS My Choice

UPS My Choice is a relatively new service that purports to give you more control over the delivery of shipments sent to your home address. I signed up for the $40 (annually) service a couple of months ago and recently had a chance to try out some of its options. It basically delivered (no pun intended) on its promises, but not without a few frustrations.

The first bump I ran into is that you're only able to sign up for a single delivery address. While this won't impact everyone, I wanted to also add a temporary residential address that I was staying at for a few weeks. I guess UPS won't let you add more than one address in order to prevent you from letting all your buddies use your account, but if you're a traveller, this is less than ideal.

In my view there are two compelling reasons to pay for My Choice. The first is the ability to get notified when a package is coming to you, and the second is the ability to change the delivery date of those packages. (There are other features, too, but those are the most important to me.)

Let's look at shipment notifications first. In my initial experiment I was out of town and shipped several boxes to my home address. Because I was both the shipper and receiver, it gave me a chance to see My Choice from both ends. I was surprised to learn that you don't receive a notification of the impending delivery until the day before it is scheduled to arrive. If you happen to log onto your My Choice account you'll see the shipment listed before then, but if you wait for the email notification you'll have a short window in which to try to change its arrival. Personally, I'd prefer a long lead time. You also get a notification email the morning of a scheduled delivery. But since the first notification was just the day before, the second one isn't very helpful. UPS clearly knows about your package days in advance, so why do they wait so long?

Once you know a package is coming, though, it's simple to try to schedule its delivery. Notice that I said "try," because although I was able to successfully delay a package's arrival , the process didn't engender much confidence.

Because I had shipped the packages to myself, and thus knew they were coming no thanks to the notifications, I rescheduled their delivery immediately after dropping them off at the UPS Store. Everything seemed fine. The My Choice website showed that I had "requested" the change, and when I tracked the packages their estimated delivery date reflected my request too. I was delaying the delivery by a day, which meant they'd arrive on a Thursday instead of the Wednesday that UPS initially targeted.

Come Wednesday, the day before the rescheduled delivery, I noticed that the tracking status for the packages had changed to "unable to intercept. Out for delivery." Yikes! But then about an hour later I received the "Day Before" notification email, stating that the packages would arrive on Thursday as requested. Great. But what the hell?

Well, the packages did arrive on Thursday, as I wanted. I don't know what happened with the tracking notification about interception, but it worked out in the end. If I hadn't checked their tracking status, I probably would have been ignorant and happy. Either the packages did slip through and were caught again, or the tracking status message was misleading. In either case, it reinforces that what you're paying for is the hope that UPS has their act together enough to honor your request.

So the bottom line is that I'm cautiously optimistic about the My Choice service. I'll update this post again if there are any new developments.

One more thing...in addition to the My Choice account, I also signed up for a UPS Shipping account. This is similar to the more familiar Fed Ex account where you get an airbill number so that you can more easily send packages. This isn't required for My Choice, but the My Choice signup process encouraged it, so I went along with the suggestion. It's a handy thing I suppose, but not without some surprises of its own. For some reason, your local UPS Store has no visibility into your UPS Shipping account and can't utilize it for billing or anything else. So if you show up at the UPS Store with a package to send and you haven't pre-processed it at ups.com, you can't charge the shipment to your account. (Unlike FedEx.) Secondly, when you have a UPS Shipping account, it's harder to find the My Choice area on the UPS website. Seriously, it's really well hidden. It's as if UPS Shipping and My Choice are fighting over who owns your account...and Shipping wins.

My encounter with a St Augustine Monster

On November 27, 2011 at approximately 12:40 in the afternoon I encountered an unknown water creature in St Augustine, Florida. My wife and I had just finished walking our dog, after visiting one of the outlet malls, and suddenly she spotted a large Nessie-like animal in the nearby pond.

It was dark black in color, moving quickly, and although we only saw about 2 feet of it at a time (due the way it was arching its back out of the water), it was clearly quite long. If it hadn't been moving and clearly alive, it would be easy to assume it was a tractor truck tire sticking out of the water. (Just to give you an idea of the size.)

True to form for these type of events, the photos I hurriedly snapped are inconclusive and don't show what we witnessed. The thing was moving fast, and mostly all I managed to capture was the wake it left behind. Although in the first photograph, you can barely see its body slipping below the water's surface.

Was this the spawn of the St Augustine Monster? I don't know. As America's oldest port and home of The Fountain of Youth, clearly there's more to the city than meets the eye. I don't know when or if we will return, but if you're in the area, remain calm and be aware.

Aria: The Automated Hotel

Several months ago I spent a couple of nights at the Aria, in Las Vegas. One of the reasons was to experience their well-touted automated hotel rooms.

The rooms use Control4-based automation systems to provide a quite sophisticated, futuristic experience. (PDF link to Control4's press info.) When you enter the room for the first time, it springs to life. The lights gently turn on, the curtains open, and the large HD television turns on to the room's control panel, which is adorned with your name. If you're expecting this to happen, as I was (no thanks to the front desk staff; I did my homework before booking the room), it's a neat experience. If you're not expecting it, I imagine it's a little disconcerting.

Despite my expertise with home automation, I found many aspects of the system to be frustrating. There were many switches and settings that did things I didn't understand, and turning off the lights when leaving the room just wasn't, well, very simple. Fortunately, thanks to the Control4 system, you can use everything the old fashioned way (that is, by turning the switches) and not cause havoc with the system.

Next to the bed was a small controller device, which you can see pictured in the bedside documentation sheet (pdf link). Changing the brightness on the screen is a must, as it is eye-scorchingly bright in the dark. Sadly, the user interface of the controller is not very intuitive, and the number of function is overwhelming, as evidenced by all the "notes" on the instructions. Frankly, I'm skeptical that very many real people are interested in reading documentation about how to use the system, especially when the pleasures of Las Vegas are beckoning. Also, anyone who has used an iPhone or iPad will want to toss the controller across the room. Not just for the bad design, but for the finicky and miserable touch screen.

One interesting function I found on the controller was apparently intended for the house keeping crew. There were macro buttons that set the curtains, lighting level, and TV channel/volume for the morning cleaning session, and for the evening turn-down service. (Yes, it's a fancy-schmancy hotel.)

All of the functions of the controller are duplicated on the TV, but for me the IR response was so slow that it was more frustrating than the crappy touchscreen controller. But on the day of our departure, I did enjoy having in-room access to the airport's schedule.

I also rather enjoyed the alarm clock function, which opens the curtains and tunes the TV to the music or show of your choice. That's something I could certainly get used to.

I took the time to poke around into the mechanics of the system. Everything is hard-wired. This certainly explains why the room was quick to respond to commands; as well as being very reliable. Aside from the clunkiness of the controllers, I was impressed with how it functioned. The installers did a great job of hiding everything too, unless you looked behind the TV and found the usual sprawl of cables and extra electronics.

Given the intimidation and frustration that I experienced--and remember that I had specifically requested an automated room--I doubt that many visitors take advantage of, or barely use, the extensive functions that have been implemented. I'm sure the house keeping staff must appreciate the quick reset, however.

For a contrasting view of another automation enthusiast, see this site.

If you've stayed in one of these rooms at the Aria and experienced the system, please do leave a comment and let the rest of us know your impressions.

Finding your lost luggage

If you've ever had the airlines lose your luggage, and it's only a matter of time until they do if you've been lucky so far, then you know that when you file a claim you're asked to describe your bag. "Umm, it's black and about this big," you say, making a box-like shape with your hands.

It turns out that there are standard ways of describing luggage, but that's arcane knowledge that you and I aren't hip to. Instead of memorizing if you have a Pullman or a trolley, just take out your iPhone and show the person behind the counter a photo of your bag. Then ask them how they'd describe it. They're professionals and spend their entire day figuring out how to distinguish between hundreds of look-alike bags, so what they say is what you want to write on your form.

Taking a photograph of your bag is best, because it will also show the bright pink ribbon you tied on the handle, but you can also use a photo from the manufacturer's website, as I've done for my beloved Filson bag, shown here.

Performance snapshot

I recently returned from Las Vegas where I lectured and performed at a conference for magicians. It was a good and productive trip, but it was such a whirlwind of activity that I barely got to sample any of the usual trappings of the resort area. I think another, non-working, visit is in order soon.

Hollywood's Characters

One of my favorite parts of Hollywood is the seedy collection of star characters that gather in front of the Chinese Theatre. They're there to hustle tourists for a buck while posing for photographs. Two of the favorite shots I have taken are Ragged Chewbacca and Heroin Elmo. Unfortunately, I don't have a photo of Spider-Bum, but he does appear in this video about another favorite, The Saga of Homeless Jack Sparrow. It's short and illuminating. If you're a fan, or not, of Hollywood Blvd it's worth watching.

The automated luxury hotel room

The new ARIA hotel in Las Vegas will feature guest rooms that include personalized home automation. According to a recent press release the rooms include:

As guests approach their room or suite, the system will recognize if it is their first time in the room and “greet” them as they enter. Light will fill the room, curtains will automatically part, and the TV will turn on to display a list of automated controls for guests to personalize.

Guests will enjoy seamless, integrated one-touch control of guestroom features, including lighting, room temperature, television/video systems, music, wake-up calls, draperies and requests for services through a single, easy-to-use remote control. All settings will be remembered and incorporated every time a guest is in-room.

Green settings on the room’s remote system will allow guests the opportunity to voluntarily “green their stay” by indicating their preferred light level, room temperature and frequency of linen and towel changes.

The automation is being provided by Control 4. This is a very interesting development as it will require automation that is intuitive to use and doesn't annoy or surprise the guests. A challenge, but if successful it could help drive the home market, too.

Announcing "Las Vegas: Underfoot"

"Las Vegas: Underfoot" is my latest project. It's a photographic essay about Sin Ciy's terra magica; the foundation that lies beneath. You can learn more about the book, and see the photos, at this website. I hope you enjoy it.

A Super Duper portable strategy

I can't add too much to the chorus of people who like Super Duper as a Mac OS X backup utility, mainly because I don't use it that way. (For backups I faithfully use psyncx.) However, I am a very happy Super Duper customer. I use it because most of the time my primary computer is a desktop iMac. But when I have a presentation to give, or I'm otherwise going to be out of the office, I use Super Duper to copy my /Users directory to a PowerBook. This ensures I have all of my files (and the different user accounts that I use) with me when I need them. When I get home another Super Duper session back to the iMac and I'm once again current and have all the changes I made while on the road. Because I have to do this somewhat regularly, I use the "changed files only" option to reduce the time it takes; but overall it's definitely fast enough and very, very convenient. I know that I'm missing out by using Super Duper as a one trick pony, but it's a good trick that is essential for my current working style, so I'm happy. If you're faced with a similar need, I suggest you give it a try. IMPORTANT UPDATE. DEC 2007. - SuperDuper is not compatible with Mac OS X v10.5 Leopard. Despite knowing about this before Leopard's release, the product has not yet been updated. Do not use SuperDuper with Leopard, it will be unable to correctly restore your files. It will, however, happily run without complaint while it screws up your system. I speak from experience.