Category Archives: Home

San Diego Goes Dark

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At approximately 3:35 this afternoon, I was standing in the hallway outside my office, talking to my boss and a coworker. It’s a very odd feeling when the power to the entire building goes out. Everything goes absolutely silent. I never appreciate how much noise the air conditioning, the computers, and even the vending machines make until it’s gone and the stillness sets in. A few seconds later, having given us enough time to pause and understand what was happening, the backup power kicked in, restoring light to the hallway. Looking at the time, I immediately decided to catch the 3:45 shuttle, which would get me on the 4:06 northbound COASTER home. As I sit here writing, reflecting on the afternoon, I’m grateful that I didn’t hesitate.

I received a text message from my wife as I was leaving the building, informing me that power was out at home, 20 miles away from my office. As I sat on the shuttle, listening to the chatter of the San Diego MTS radio, I learned that power was out across the county. I was relatively confident that the trains would continue to run, as they are self-powered and the railroads have radio procedures they follow when the signals lose power. Still, I was relieved when my train pulled into the Sorrento Valley station right on time. The trip home took much longer than usual, while the train proceeded slowly and waited for clearance over the radio. During the ride, I followed news about the power outage, and kept my dad up to date on my status, on Twitter. Fortunately, Verizon’s cell towers remained online.

Traffic was abysmal around the county by the time I arrived at the Carlsbad Poinsettia station, around 5:00 PM. I was fortunate, in that I only had a rough time until I crossed over the I-5 freeway. Most of my short, 7.5 mile trip between the train station and my house is done on less-traveled roads. Once into San Marcos, the traffic signals were operating on battery power, so the final few lights were even normal for me.

Finally arriving home shortly before 6:00 PM, I unplugged the computers and appliances—to safe-guard against possible surges when the power was restored—and prepared dinner. Fortunately, I intended all along to use the propane grill for dinner, so I didn’t have to alter our plans. We did end up eating our dinner by candle light, which is something we haven’t done in quite a while. After dinner, we finished off the chocolate ice cream, which was rapidly melting in the freezer. We spent the remainder of the evening listening to the news on one of our Eton crank-powered radios, all of which I’d selected as pledge gifts over the years from KPBS.

Our power was restored at 10:25 PM, at which point I plugged everything back in, set the few clocks we still have that don’t set themselves, and verified that the temperature of the refrigerator was okay. Then, as my brain wouldn’t let me go to sleep until I purged its thoughts into print, I sat down to compose this post. What did I do right today, and what lessons have I learned?

Know how you’re getting home. I was very lucky today. The power dropped minutes before the first MTS shuttle this afternoon, and I didn’t hesitate to take it. Further, the trains were still running. I do not have a backup plan for how I would get home otherwise. My parents live near my workplace so, barring a grave emergency, I’d likely wait things out at their house. Or, as I told my wife, chill out on the patio at Karl Strauss, knocking back a few pints.

Have portable radios where you need them. We succeeded here, having three of the aforementioned Eton radios. I had one in my car, but didn’t need it, since Verizon’s data network remained up the entire time. My wife has one in her car and we have one in the house, so she was able to listen to the news about the power outage. Our oldest radio doesn’t hold a charge for very long, so it may be time to replace it.

Have several flashlights in several locations, with batteries. Also, candles. We keep large Maglite flashlights in each of the cars and small tactical flashlights both in the cars and throughout the house. Between those and two boxes of candles from IKEA, we had plenty of light. Recently, we’d started moving to using rechargeable batteries for everything, which work great, when you have power to recharge them. I plan to purchase bulk packs of batteries in various sizes to store in an emergency kit, to be used only in emergencies. Speaking of which…

Have an emergency kit. We don’t really have one, though we didn’t suffer for it this time. Creating a plan and organizing a kit has been on my to-do list for a long time and it’s about time I take care of it.

Keep non-perishable food on hand. We’re somewhat okay on this. We have bottled water and canned food, though I don’t think we have enough for three days. I intend to remedy this on our next trip to Costco. In fact, I’ve been making a mental checklist of food items to stock for while. Canned meats are high on the list, followed by dried fruits, and water. Lots of water.

Know where to get news. I was fortunate that Verizon’s data service remained online. Between listening to KOGO and reading Twitter, I had a pretty good idea of what was going on. The Twitter accounts I found the most useful today were, @SDGE, @SanDiegoCounty, @ReadySanDiego, @SDSheriff, @GoNCTD, @KPBSnews, and @nctimes.

Have your bug out bag (BOB) packed and your cars fueled. While we don’t have bug out bags, we do keep the cars fueled. I decided long ago to never let the fuel tanks drop below half, because you never know when you’ll need to drive somewhere without the opportunity to refill. Obviously, these precautions were unnecessary today, but non-emergencies like a widespread power outage give us the opportunity to think about what we need and test our preparedness without great risk. What if this had been a wildfire or an earthquake? Would we have been ready to evacuate at a moment’s notice? I’m sad to say, probably not. That leads to my most important lesson…

Know what to do. I need to make sure my family and I are on the same page if a disaster occurs, even if we are unable to communicate. Under what circumstances do we evacuate? Where do we go? What if our primary choice is unreachable? What if, as is likely the case in San Diego, the roads are jammed? As important as knowing when to go is knowing when to stay put and for how long.

There are lot of considerations that go into designing an emergency plan and I know I didn’t go into all of them here, nor did I intend this to be a comprehensive list. These were just the main things I’ve been thinking generally about lately and specifically about today. When I do make our emergency preparation, I’ll likely follow up with another post. If anything, it will serve as documentation for my immediate and extended family. Now that I’ve put my thoughts into print, maybe my brain will let me sleep.

Coasting to Work

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I’ve been commuting between home in San Marcos and work Sorrento Valley every day since I bought my town home three and a half years ago. With the few exceptions when I’ve either been able to telecommute or traffic has been light, it has been an altogether miserable experience. At the beginning of the current recession, traffic improved a bit, but apparently there are still plenty of people who need to drive north on Interstate 5 past Del Mar in San Diego, because this summer has been absolutely awful.

I’ve shifted my schedule earlier for a couple of reasons. First, leaving home before seven o’clock in the morning gets me to work before traffic builds on the freeway; and second, leaving work before five o’clock in the evening gets me home in time for dinner with my daughter. Unfortunately, this summer has seen bumper-to-bumper traffic starting as early as three o’clock in the afternoon.

I’ve gazed longingly at the Coaster as it effortlessly glided by on its rails along the coast, while I crept along at a snail’s pace behind the wheel of my car. For the last three weeks—not coincidently since my return from Portland, where I’ve always enjoyed mass transit—I’ve done more than admire the train from afar, I’ve started to seriously consider using it.

So on Friday I did. I left for work a bit earlier than usual, so I could catch the 6:50 AM train at the Carlsbad Poinsettia station. After purchasing my $11 round-trip ticket, I crossed a footbridge to the boarding area. The tracks aren’t labelled, so I didn’t know which side I should wait on. After a few minutes, people had started to gather on the side I was on, so I guessed it to be the correct one.

When the train arrived, I headed to the upper level, because I wanted to enjoy the view. I wasn’t disappointed. The view of the beaches, the ocean, and the Del Mar Racetrack was gorgeous. In addition to that, I was able to use Twitter and read RSS feeds, something I’ve obviously never been able to do in the car. Twenty-six minutes later I was walking off the train at the Sorrento Valley station. A shuttle took me up the hill and dropped me off across the street from my office. I arrived at the same time, 7:25 AM, I always do.

I had a meeting scheduled from 3:00 to 4:00 PM, so I expected to catch the 4:26 PM shuttle and the 4:51 PM train. Fortunately, the meeting ended early, which allowed me to catch the 3:45 PM shuttle and the 4:05 PM train. That got me home just before five o’clock, which ended in a 75 minute commute. This is a bit longer than it would typically take me to drive home, but I arrived in probably the best mood I ever have after a commute. I attribute much of my mood to the Stone Smoked Porter I drank on the train. That’s right, the consumption of alcohol is allowed on the train. Bonus!

So on Monday I’m going to drive down to the train station and purchase a 30 day pass for $154. Unfortunately, I’ve missed the monthly cutoff to order a pass through my company’s bulk purchase and subsidy program, so I’ll have to pay full price until I can do that. I haven’t worked out how much money this will save me, if any, but right now I don’t care. It’s worth it to preserve my sanity.

This new commute comes with another benefit. We had been considering selling our 1997 Ford Explorer in order to help fund the purchase of a new car. By trading cars with my wife (I drive a 1999 Toyota Avalon) and using the Explorer to make the relatively short drive to the train station, we can get more life out of it, saving us some money. So even if the commute itself is a short-term monetary wash, there is plenty of cost saving in the long run.

Fire in Encinitas

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I just received a text message from Mrs. sirhc that a rather large fire has broken out on the hill behind the Encinitas Towne Center at the intersection of Leucadia and El Camino Real. That’s about four miles from our house, with quite a lot of space without fuel in between. However, here I am in Portland, Ore. at OSCON, a thousand miles from home. It hasn’t hit the news wires yet, so the only information I’ve been able to get has been from my wife. I’m told that a great many firefighters have been called out to fight the blaze, so I’m not too worried that it will become another major blaze on the scale of the Cedar or Witch fires.

Mail Is Boring

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As no doubt nobody has noticed, I haven’t posted anything about my paperless experiment since the end of the first month. There’s a good reason for that. It’s incredibly boring.

One thing I’ve learned is that I get the same mail week after week. Before this experiment, I’d never paid much attention to my mail. If it looked like junk, it got dropped into the recycle bin without so much as a second thought. Now that I’ve been paying attention, I’ve seen the patterns. On Monday I get such-and-such advertising circular, on Tuesday I get another. About every four weeks, I’ll get a solicitation for the same business. It’s awfully redundant. Though I understand the need for repetition when attempting to sell a product no one actually wants.

So I won’t be bothering to post the fascinating week-by-week updates. I have continued to collect all of the data, and I will still present a result after the third month. So far, though, it’s not looking good. In fact, for some things, I may switch back to paper—the electronic alternatives aren’t quite as useful.

Cox Wouldn’t Know “High Speed” if it Bit Them on the Ass

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Since I initiated the service more than a year ago, I’ve been incredibly disappointed and annoyed by the extreme slowness of the mis-named “high speed” Internet access I’ve received from Cox Communications.

Periodically, I will run a speed test, just to gather data points. I’ve consistently seen a sustained downstream rate of 1.6 Mbps. Recently, the service has felt slower—sometimes unbearably so. I ran another test this afternoon:

Download Speed: 1520 kbps (190 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 276 kbps (34.5 KB/sec transfer rate)

Seriously? This is high speed?

Somewhere I’ve seen Cox advertise rates of 3 Mbps, but I don’t have a reference to this handy. Searching Cox’s web site, I’ve found reference to 15 Mbps. I’m receiving one tenth the advertised rate, yet I’m paying 100% of the price.

Gee, thanks Cox. For nothing.

Paperless, Week 4

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A month into my experiment and, in true fashion, I’ve gotten lazy. I blame IRC and Twitter for filling my online social needs, causing me to neglect my blog. I was supposed to post this entry two weeks ago, but here I am, already at the end of week six. Fortunately, I have been keeping track of the mail I receive; I just haven’t been publishing it.

Monday

Memorial Day in the United States, so no mail delivery.

Tuesday

Mail

None.

Junk

  • National Geographic Society renewal offer. As nice as the magazine is, I’ve let my subscription lapse, and I never read it enough to justify receiving it. I can always look through it when I’m enjoying some coffee at Barnes & Noble.
  • PennySaver advertisements.
  • Valpak coupons. I’m pretty sure I’ve never used one of these.

Wednesday

Mail

  • Home owner association account statement and newsletter. I’d prefer receiving this via e-mail. The newsletter isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.

Junk

  • RedPlum advertisements.
  • Renewal statement for Martha Stewart Living, which Mrs. sirhc used to receive. We’ve let the subscription lapse, along with most others. Who has time to read all of this?

Thursday

Mail

None.

Junk

  • Advertisement for the 17th USENIX Security Symposium. I suppose this could technically be considered mail, because I’m a member, but I’d rather they just sent me catalogs like this via e-mail.
  • Advertising circular for Dixieline Home Centers.

Friday

Mail

  • Proxy voting materials for one of the companies in my stock portfolio. As I cast my vote online, there’s also an option to receive these materials online, but it wasn’t working when I tried it.

Junk

  • AAA travel guide. I’d prefer if this was sent on request. We aren’t likely to be taking a vacation for a while. Not only that, but as stated in the guide, all of these offers and more are available on their web site.
  • United Mileage Plus credit card offer.
  • Local advertisements from the San Diego Union Tribuine.

Saturday

Mail

Junk

  • Solicitation from a dentist in Solana Beach. Technically junk, but it’s one of the more creative solicitations I’ve seen. It’s a kind of welcome-to-the-neighborhood card with suggestions for things to do in the Solana Beach/Encinitas area and includes a coupon for a drink at Java Depot. So I felt he was at least worth linking, even though my dental work can be done at a mobile dentist who comes to my office.

I do feel like I’m receiving less mail overall. This week’s score of mail 7, junk 11, for a total of 18 pieces of postal mail, seems to support that feeling. Real mail this week made up 39% of what we found in the mail box. That’s still quite a bit of junk.

One of the reasons I’m so late in publishing this entry is my desire to create a pie chart that would visually document the ratios of mail and junk I’ve received during the past month. I finally got around to entering the data into a Google Docs spreadsheet. Unfortunately, I didn’t weight the results by true volume, so the resulting chart is slightly misleading, at least depending on how one wants to interpret the data. While real mail did make up a plurality of the total, the circulars were physically quite a bit more weighty (literally).

This experiment has caused me to become more aware of the pointlessness of so much of the mail I receive, even from entities with which I have a relationship. Ideally, there should be a box I can mark when joining to receive everything electronically.

I was chatting with a friend of mine about this experiment, and he gave me one good reason why he prefers paper mail. Accountability. Should he ever need to dispute something with his bank or a creditor, he has records at his disposal. Records that are not easily tampered with. I find this to be a compelling argument. Unfortunately, I lack the storage space in my house for such record keeping (let’s hear it for modern development in Southern California). Also, as a side-effect of living in San Diego County, my electronic records will better survive wildfires, should one ever hit us (we’re actually in a fairly well-protected area).

Paperless, Week 3

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Monday

Not Junk

  • Letter from the IRS explaining that I should expect my economic stimulus payment last week. It was direct deposited into my account on Thursday.
  • Letter from the Toyota dealer informing me that my Avalon is likely due for its 125,000 mile minor service. They include a coupon, which is nice of them. Cheaper than Jiffy Lube.
  • Urgent notice from Time magazine that my subscription requires renewal. This one is borderline. I deliberately cancelled my subscription, but I was a paying customer for several years.

Junk

  • My non-partisan voter information guide, which recommends a full slate of Republicans. Strange.
  • Store circulars from RedPlum. 35 pages. The grocery circulars are actually folded sideways, so they’re only half the number of real pages; however, they’re big enough to count double.

Tuesday

Mail

  • 2008 summer schedule for REI’s Outdoor School.

Wednesday

Mail

  • Confirmation letter from my credit union that one of my CDs has been automatically renewed.
  • June issue of ZooNooz from the San Diego Zoological Society.

Junk

  • One week pass to LA Fitness, with an offer to join for “less than $7 per week.” That’s not quite as good as the $24 per year I pay to 24 Hour Fitness.

Thursday

No mail!

Friday

Mail

  • Membership renewal notice from KPBS, the local public radio station. I suspect if I were more diligent about renewing, I wouldn’t receive reminders in the mail.

Junk

  • Local advertisements brought to me by the San Diego Union-Tribune. 37 pages. I may not take their newspaper, but they still find a way to send me their advertising.

Saturday

Mail

  • Time magazine.
  • June 2008 issue of The Costco Connection.
  • Summer coupon book for Costco. Not a lot I’m interested in this time.

Junk

  • Another vote recommendation guide.
  • Advertisement for Cox digital cable. Their internet service is so bad I’m considering looking for an alternative. I’m certainly not about to pay them for digital cable, with an interface much, much worse than my TiVo systems.

That leaves me with 10 pieces of mail and 6 pieces of junk. I notice that not one piece of junk mail was a credit card offer. Maybe this experiment is working?

Paperless, Week 2

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This week I’m formatting my post to more easily distinguish desired mail from junk mail. One might also notice that we’re not very good about walking out to the mail box every day. Just another reason to go paperless.

Monday and Tuesday

Mail

  • Stages magazine from Fidelity. Right on the cover, they advertise going paperless. I hope this applies to the magazine as well as their statements.
  • @UCSD, a magazine for alumni.

Junk

  • Solicitation for some token amount of life insurance for Mrs. sirhc, through our credit union.
  • Solicitation from AMVETS to leave donations on the doorstep for them to pick up. I’m pretty sure I get one of these every month, but this is the first time I’ve ever taken the time to determine what it is.
  • Solicitation from a junk removal service. They even direct me to their web site. Gee, thanks.
  • PennySaver and associated circulars (15 pages, not including the PennySaver and included CouponSaver).
  • Local business circulars, from RedPlum, which is apparently a company that specializes in sending circulars. 41 pages.
  • LEGO catalog. As awesome as this is to flip through, I can browse their web site just as easily.
  • REI catalog. Same as the LEGO catalog.

The RedPlum circulars do include the weekly specials for Sprouts and Vons, which we do frequent (we also shop at my favorite store, Trader Joe’s). Both stores have their weekly specials on their web site, so there’s no problem losing the RedPlum circulars.

Wednesday and Thursday

Mail

  • Results for Mrs. sirhc’s last ultrasound. It’s a girl!
  • The June issue of San Diego Westways. Part of our AAA membership.
  • The June issue of Parenting. Part of a free two issue trial, which Mrs. sirhc has already canceled.

Junk

  • Invitation to join the IEEE Computer Society. I’m already a member of USENIX, SAGE, and LOPSA. I suppose I could throw in IEEE and ACM as well, but I’ll first see if work will pay for it. Of all the junk mail I get, I expect the computer societies to be paperless.
  • Solicitation for AT&T’s internet, phone, and TV services. Junk, but with the quality of Cox’s internet service, I’m almost tempted.
  • Another voting guide to instruct me which way I should vote on the issues. With a little more than two weeks until the election, I expect a lot more of this. My mistake, apparently, was not registering as a decline-to-state voter. I’ll remedy this after the election.
  • Solicitation for a United Airlines credit card. I get this about once a month, both at home and at work. I guess they think I’ll eventually break down.
  • Solicitation from UCSD’s Computer Science and Engineering department to support their tutoring program. This is what I get for registering for the tutor reunion (and then not going anyway).
  • Catalog for Basset, which apparently sells furniture.

Friday

Mail

  • Rebate check for my cell phone.
  • Rebate check for Mrs. sirhc’s cell phone.

Junk

  • Pre-approval notice from our credit union that I’m eligible for an auto loan.
  • Pre-approval notice from our credit union that Mrs. sirhc is eligible for an auto loan.
  • Local business circulars, consisting of 45 pages.

Normally, the pre-screened offers would bother me. However, we’re actually in the market for a new car right now. Not very green of me, I know.

Saturday

Mail

  • Time magazine. Including the warning about my subscription expiring. Darn.

Junk

  • Something called NC Magazine. There sure are a lot of community-oriented publications where we live now.
  • Get1Free magazine. A coupon book that rarely contains anything I want.
  • An informative reminder that I can save on Alamo car rentals because I’m a Costco member. Um, thanks.

Ratio of mail to junk for week 2 is 8:19. More than twice as much junk than mail. It’s a good thing I recycle.

Paperless, Week 1

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A week ago, I signed up for paperless bank statements and paperless billing. Additionally, I signed up on GreenDimes. Shortly after I posted about this, a fellow by the name of SanjDimes, who is apparently affiliated with GreenDimes, asked that I wait at least three months before I review the effectiveness of the service. That gave me an idea. Why don’t I spend that three months documenting the amount of mail I receive, and how much of that is junk? This will give me empirical evidence of the success or failure of my experiment.

Monday and Tuesday

We never got around to checking the mail on Monday, so the first two days of this week have been combined.

  • New home survey from CIDR Systems. This is actually the second copy we’ve received, since I couldn’t be bothered to fill out the first one (they’re kind of annoying).
  • Credit card offer from Southwest Airlines. Incidentally, I received this same offer at work. Two pieces of junk mail for the price of one.
  • Credit card offer from Chase, advertising their “card factory,” whatever that is.
  • Bill from American Express. This was mailed before I opted for paperless billing.
  • Greeting card for Mrs. sirhc.
  • Several grocery store circulars. I did, however, pull out the advertisements for Sprouts and Vons.
  • PennySaver and associated circulars.
  • California primary election sample ballots. Yes, we’re having another one this year. No, I don’t know why they couldn’t be combined into one.
  • Costco coupon book.
  • Postcard reminding me to spend my Costco credit card rebate. Of course, I have already done this, so the reminder is pointless.
  • Advertisement for a local tanning salon.
  • June 2008 issue of Linux Journal. I don’t intend to renew my subscription. I never get around to reading it anymore, and most of the articles end up on their web site anyway.
  • Brochure for the 2008 USENIX Annual Technical Conference. Did I really need a hard copy of this?
  • AAA offer to upgrade my membership. Just like last year, and the year before that, I’m not interested.

Wednesday

  • Another greeting card for Mrs. sirhc. Well, we are expecting a baby, and Mother’s Day is this weekend.
  • Our absentee ballots for that superfluous California primary election.
  • Terms and conditions for my wireless phone protection plan.
  • A neighbor’s advertisement for Ocean Enterprises. I wonder how much of my own mail ends up in my neighbors’ hands. Good thing I’m going paperless.
  • Brochure for this year’s LinuxWorld conference. Yet another advertisement that could have been sent via e-mail. I expect better of technical conferences.

Thursday

  • Workforce and community development course catalog from Palomar College.

Friday

  • Circulars for local chain stores (Target, Rite-Aid, etc.).
  • Advertisement for Discount Tires.
  • Our “voting guide” for California’s upcoming primary election. I don’t know what I’d do without people sending me mail to tell me how I should vote.
  • Solicitation to alumni to pledge money for UCSD’s Jacobs School of Engineering. This was sent because I refused to pledge money to someone who cold-called me soliciting money.

Saturday

  • Time magazine. I won’t be renewing my subscription after next month. It’s another magazine I no longer have time (ha ha) to read, and the articles all end up on the web site anyway.
  • City news and recreation guide for the city of San Marcos. I’ll have to read through this to see if it’s something I want.
  • Invitation to the Zoological Society of San Diego’s Member Appreciation Evening. I’ve been a member for a number of years, so I expect these things.
  • Solicitation to become a member of the Birch Aquarium. Nice, but I’ll pass for now.

The first thing I’ve learned from this experiment is that it’s not as easy as I expected to distinguish the signal from the noise. Some pieces of mail—the credit card offers—are obviously junk. Some pieces of mail—the greeting cards—are obviously not junk. Others, such as the San Marcos recreation guide or the circulars for stores we actually shop at, are not so easy to classify. For the purposes of this experiment, I will classify them as junk, because they were unsolicited commercial mail. This, as some may recognize, is similar to the official definition of spam e-mail. That said, what was my signal to noise ratio?

We received 13 pieces of desired (or not so desired in the case of bills and ballots) mail and 15 pieces of junk mail. While these numbers may look close to equal, much of the junk mail was composed of circulars and brochures, which consist of much more paper than the typical desired piece of mail. Next week I may need to refine my measurement criteria by counting the number of unique advertisements in each circular.