Wednesday 22nd April 2009 – The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men

One of the drawbacks of a life in computer programming is a well-developed and very precise sense of unreality.  Computer programs live in what is now commonly called a virtual world.  Computer programmers, on the other hand, don't.  But they can get confused about this.  Having carefully planned something, they may then feel no need to actually do it.  Indeed, they may feel that, having planned it so carefully, they have actually done it.

I am now finding a million things about my trip where virtual and real worlds don't coincide.  Take, as an example, my nice new watch.  For years I had a watch which, if you'll pardon the pun, clocked in with the National Physical Laboratory every night to set itself right.  Then I discovered that there was a new model which not only did that, it figured out where it was in the world and checked in with the equivalent institution in Germany, Japan and the USA.  I hope you can see how attractive and, indeed necessary, such a gadget would be to a computer programmer going on a trip to the United States.  The American Institution is based in the University of Colorado, at Fort Collins.  Fort Collins is pretty near the geographical centre of the United States.  The watch itself knows which of the four US time zones it's in.  So that was knowing-the-right-time sorted out.  You might think that is an excessive attention to detail, but then you're not a computer programmer (or if you are you don't, if you see what I mean).

Crossing the Atlantic from east to west by liner gives one the luxury of a week of twenty-five hour days.  But that's only in the real world.  In the virtual world inside my flashy new watch, however, there was nothing in the Atlantic to synchronise it with reality.  It had to be done manually.

Naturally, I turned to the Standard Operating Procedures manual for the trip.  And under 'Flashy new watch, Adjusting to reality, Manual', what do you think I found?  Nothing; not a dicky bird; there wasn't even a blank page.  Not even computer programmers carry the instruction manual for their watch around with them.  When I was packing my equipment, and wondering which manuals I was going to need, I didn't even consider the only one I've actually needed so far.

But not to worry: I'll pretend I'm a teenage boy and figure it out heuristically, by trial and error.  The watch possesses only two buttons for communicating with the program inside it.  Now consider: how many different ways do you think you can press two buttons?  Most of you will be aware that the ultimate sanction against a catatonic computer sulk is to press and hold the power button for ten seconds.  So you will be able to deduce that pressing a button is likely to be two separate events to a computer, namely 'press' and 'release'.  And the length of time between these two events is likely to be significant, particularly to a watch.  So, to cut an already too-long story a bit shorter, the answer to the question about how many ways is actually an infinite number.  But which of these infinite combinations are going to be significant to the watch?  There is then the added difficulty of figuring out the watch's responses on its two-character screen, which it normally uses to tell me the date and the day-of-the-week.

So, for idle moments on the crossing, I had myself a mind-exercise at least as stimulating  as sudoku, and much more practical.  And it turned out to be fascinating, because the programmers of the watch have clearly left any number of test and check routines inside the watch.  I now know, for instance, how to make the second-hand tick completely round the dial once without moving the minute hand.  I can move all the hands to precisely twelve o'clock.  I can make the hands move to another time which varies according to a set of rules I have not yet deduced.

Of course, time was relatively short (sorry about that), because I was assuming that when the watch reached New York, it would wake up to Fort Collins and set itself right. But it didn't.  New York came and went, and the watch continued in its sulk.  The I noticed that a set of button pressings got me to the point where one button took me through a sequence of numbers that went from +11 to –11, but instead of –9, -8, -7, -6, -5, -4, it went –9, P, M, C, E, -4, which gave the game away.  That's just got to be 'Pacific', Mountain', 'Central' and 'Eastern' hasn't it?  Maybe that was how to tell it it was in New York.  Except by this time it was in Chicago.  So I set it to 'C' (because Chicago's on Central Time) and then put it back into telling-the-time mode.

And this morning, when I looked, it shyly told me that, at six minutes past two, it had had a little chat by radio with a computer at Fort Collins Colorado, which is its way of telling me it knew the time in Chicago: and now, therefore, at long last, so did I.

Of course, as is common with these heuristic processes, I can't remember how I did it.  So when I move on to Mountain Time, I'll have the same problem all over again

Wednesday 22nd April 2009 – Irish Pubs and Catholic Boys and Drinking Heavily

Chicago isn't just called the 'Windy City', it's also called the 'Second City'.  Like all 'second' cities, it nurtures, nurses and flaunts its culture at you.  There are huge sculptures everywhere.  There is a Culture Centre, an Arts Centre, an Opera Centre and a Symphony Hall.  I was told by a lady truck driver on the train coming here that there is also a thriving fringe theatre scene.  One of its most famous creations is the Second City comedy theatre company, now spread to many other cities. 

It's architecture is quite distinctive.  One sees echoes of it all over Canary Wharf in London.  I was struggling to find a way of describing it, but it turns out it's mostly described as 'Chicago School'.  There are almost no old buildings in Chicago, since it was burned down in a great fire in 1871.  It is therefore pleasingly harmonious.

Union Station is one such neo-classical rectangular boxes.  It comes in two halves: the even tracks point south, and the odd tracks point north.  The track entrances, no doubt for the benefit of the blind, shout their numbers at you constantly.  Since there is a single entrance for each pair of tracks, the effect is an odd cacophony of ladies shouting, variously, "Track Nine", "Track Eleven", "Track Thirteen", "Track Fifteen" (all of which you can hear at the same time), as though they were ladies of the night, vying for our favours.  If my memory serves me right, and it often doesn't, this form of trading is known as 'Open Outcry' and originated in the Chicago commodity markets.  So perhaps the natives think it's quite normal.

Talking of cacophony, I had settled in a nice quiet local bar with my book and a beer when a new member of staff turned up and decided that the music and its volume were not to her liking.  So it suddenly got loud and throbbing, like a disco; all the customers fled; an odd way to run a pub.  So, although this is a heavily Greek neighborhood, I ended up in a nearby Irish pub watching the Calgary Flames beating the Chicago Nighthawks (Ice Hockey).  I fell in with a couple of recent graduates of the local posh catholic high school, who were clearly having a drinking lesson (it's something catholics have to do, and is definitely better done in the more understanding Irish setting).  They insisted on listening to my Glasgow story, and insisted on buying me beer after beer after beer. I got my own back by instructing them on their responsibilities in life.  As the beer flowed, I distinctly remember the barmaid, who was called 'Jen', falling deeply in love with me and wanting to take me home.  I had a bit of a head this morning.  I hope the boys were suffering too.

Wednesday 22nd April 2009 – Listening to that Lonesome Whistle Blow

The Amtrak train is not packed. The seats are large, comfortable, and well-spaced. They recline, and have leg-rests which come out from underneath. I get a double seat to myself, so I'm set for a bed-sized space for the night. In fact, one of the seats would be a comfy enough.

Amtrak is very badly named, since the one thing it doesn't own is the track, and most of it's problems stem from that. It's like the British rail we used to know and love to hate. It has friendly staff, who tell us they're going to turn the announcements off so we can all get to sleep, but not to worry, because they know what stops we want to get off at and they'll come and check at each stop. It also has an amazingly cheerful buffet-car conductor, who cheerfully tells us, half-an-hour into the journey that he's off for his meal break and will be back in an hour.

But freight drives the system. I think that's why we got a bus yesterday: they were fixing the track, and Amtrak doesn't count. In all honesty, that's true, because there were only about thirty people booked through to Albany from Boston. As we travel through the night, we are constantly passed by great long freight trains. From time-to-time we pass through huge marshalling yards. And we sometimes have to wait for quite long periods to let a freight train clear.

But the dominant memory of the night (the journey took about 15 hours) was that classic American train whistle. I think they are required to blow it for level crossings, and there are level crossings everywhere. So the whistle is going more-or-less continuously. I find it very soothing, and seem to have got a good night's sleep. Which means I missed almost all the sights, the Hudson River Valley, Lake Erie, the Berkshire Mountains, the Mohawk River Valley and the Erie Canal. But since it got dark almost as soon as the train started, I would have missed them anyway.

I wake briefly to find myself in Toledo, which means I missed all of New York, the little bit of Pennsylvania the sticks up onto Lake Erie (the town or Erie itself, the train schedule tells me, is actually in PA), and all of Ohio. The name 'Toledo' has me drifting back to sleep to the jangle of my spurs on the dusty sidewalk.

I wake up for breakfast in the middle of Indiana. There is a proper dining car, with white table cloths, and the waiter introduces me to a lady truck driver as a breakfast companion. When I say 'truck driver' I mean, as she put it, '18-wheelers', those monsters of the freeway. Surprisingly, she is only twenty-seven, but she has lived all over the US, and proves a most stimulating table companion. She is part Japanese, and we share some experiences of Tokyo.

We trundle through the freight yards of Elkhart IN, where there is clearly a railroad museum. Actually, it looked more like a graveyard than a museum, but there was one huge steam locomotive in good condition.

Then we got into Chicago's Union Station with one last ten-minute wait to clear a freight train. Chicago's commuters have double-decker trains. It is a beautiful, sunny day, so I have no problem figuring north from south and navigating to my hotel, which is only a few blocks away. They want to put me on the third floor so I can check in straight away, but I'm now in the price range of no elevators, so I elect to check my bags and go for a wander and wait for a first floor room to be cleaned.

I have lunch in Berkoff's, at the bar. The man next to me and the barmaid are clearly both natives of the city, and bona-fide US citizens, but he suddenly asks her what nationality she is, and she immediately replies "Italian". I am reminded that Americans don't consider 'American' to be a nationality. Of course, they're American, but they also have to have a nationality, where their ethnicity, their looks, and that sort of thing, came from.

Tuesday, 21st April 2009 – A Memorable Four Hours in Albany

At South Station, the station announcer asked us to assemble at the information desk, and from there we were led out to a bus: yes, a bus; the grandly-named 'Lake Shore Limited' is a bus on Tuesdays; sic transit gloria mundi (I usually just say 'stgm'). There are redeeming virtues, however: the bus is modern, gets there in half the time (Amtrak has to use the freight lines, so operates at very restricted speeds), and has on-board WiFi. I'm checking my emails out on the Massachusetts Turnpike when I get a phone call from London: I feel like a true international jet-setter. And I am somewhat mollified by the presence of a genuine American train conductor in a genuine American train conductor's hat. The bus is taking us to Albany, the capital of New York, where the real 'Lake Shore Limited' will start today. I guess it's called the 'Lake Shore Limited' because it runs along the banks of Lake Eyrie, through New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio before turning north through Illinois to Chicago; and because it doesn't stop very often.

Actually, it turns out, it's not taking us to Albany at all, it's taking us to a place just across the Hudson River, called Rensselaer. Because it's so fast, we have a lot of time to sit in Rensselaer station. The slim grey-haired lady who sat opposite me on the bus sits opposite me in the coffee shop. I decide I am either going to get my face slapped or take a walk. Since I have already deduced, from a sneak-peak at her reading material, that she is a nun in mufti, I check my bags and opt for the walk.

The Albany skyline is quite attractive, so I walk towards the river for a better look. I spot a big navy ship moored on the other side, and head towards that.

And then the most magic thing happens. I spot a sailing boat moored on this side of the river, and, as I get closer, I notice its name: it's the 'Clearwater'. Could it possibly be …

I had this friend in New York thirty-odd years ago; more of a colleague, really. We got on famously. She even visited us in London from time-to-time. She lived on the Upper-Westside of Manhattan, and one weekend she insisted on taking me off to save the planet (it may actually have been one of the very first trendy, middle-class planet-saving events in history, or at least my history). By way of compensation, she promised I would meet Pete Seeger, one of my heroes. We were to go on board his sailing boat, by name the 'Clearwater', moored on the Hudson, near where she lived, and sign up to join the 'Clearwater crew', tasked with saving, if not the planet, at least the little bit of water on it which flowed down the Hudson. And we did, and I, briefly, got to shake hands with the great man.

Could it possibly be … ? Amazingly, yes it was. A boat I had actually been on, with a great friend, half-a-life ago. The crew member I spoke to told me it now mostly did educational work with middle school children. He also told me that this May is not only its fortieth anniversary, it's Pete Seegar's nintieth birthday. I wonder if, when this is publicised, anyone in New York will pause and think of me.

The other ship was a destroyer, DE766, the USS Slater. It appears to be a museum.

When I got back to the station, I just had to share my excitement with someone, so I did a bit of eye-contact stuff and got into conversation with a couple of brothers from Chicago, who had come to Boston for the Marathon (their modesty forced me to drag it out of them, but they did a creditable 3:37). I told them I had joined in at Heartbreak Hill; just to keep my end up. They helped me quite a bit with Chicago. The coffee shop also had free WiFi, so I brought up Google maps of Chicago, and they showed me the sort of places I would enjoy. There is a place with a genuine U-boat on display. I hope I can find it.

Monday, 20th April 2009 – Patriots’ Day, But Not a Scoundrel in Sight

I was in New York at the beginning of July 1977, just about half-a-life ago.  The natives were preparing to celebrate 200 years of independence from you-know-who.  A small band of Brit ex-pats met in a First Avenue bar to decide whether to skip across the border to Canada, where the money still had the Queen's head on it, or to go to Washington and show there were no hard feelings by joining in the celebrations.  Naturally, the celebrations won.  In at least one respect, it was a bad decision: from a heat and humidity point-of-view, there can be few less pleasant places than Washington in July.  But we woz there, and we all got the badge, and the T-shirt.

Now here I am, half-a-life later, in Boston, where it all started, celebrating the early victories in what they call the Revolutionary War.  The battles of Concord and Lexington took place just outside Boston, and Massachusetts has a public holiday on the third Monday in April to commemorate the victories.  Once again, I am determined to join in the fun, show there are no hard feelings.

The big event on Monday is the Marathon.  I must say this came as a bit of a surprise to me, because, being a rowing man, I thought the Boston Marathon was a rowing race from Lincoln to Boston in England, a race I once planned to take part in.  But that only started in 1946, whereas this running race started 112 years ago, in 1897.

I decide I should take part.  There is quite a tough qualification requirement, but I am going to overlook that.  Of course, I'm not going to run the whole race: I shall just do the hard bit.  The Boston Marathon is notorious for the Newton Hills, a set of four hills which occur about twenty miles into the race.  In 1936 the current champion, who was in second place, overtook the leader on the last of these hills, and gave him a consoling pat on the back as he did so.  This so upset his opponent that he rallied and retook the lead, going on to win.  The Boston Globe reported this as breaking the retiring champions heart.  Ever since, the fourth hill has been known as 'Heartbreak Hill".  I decide a trip out on the 'D' trolley to share the anguish would be a suitable celebration.  Of course, I didn't run all the way up, a dignified walk was sufficient.  But I did run a little bit of the way.  So I've run up Heartbreak Hill.

There are two kinds of people on Heartbreak Hill today: sadists and masochists.  The sadists are the spectators, and the masochists are the runners.  Some of the masochists, rather touchingly, emblazon their name on their bodies or shirts, thereby encouraging the sadists to personalise the sadistic messages they are shouting.  "come on, Mary-Lou", they shout, "only six miles to go".  One particularly sadistic member of the traffic police has nailed a sign on every tree saying "No Stopping".  I noted one particular lady, of about my age, looking determined to finish if it was the last thing she did, and looking as though it well might be.

Going back to town, this lunatic arrangement whereby the ball game ends at the same time as the race ensures that the trolley takes an hour.  But there are plenty of cheerful people bedecked in their silver blankets and medals to make it all seem worthwhile.

 

Tomorrow, it's "all aboard" the Lake Shore Limited and off to the Windy City.

Saturday 18th April 2009 – Looking Round Logan Field

I came to Boston by car, and I'm leaving by train.  Rather oddly, I'm staying at the airport.  It's the cheapest I could find, and it's actually very convenient.  I have to get the tube, sorry, 'subway', into town, but it's indoors all the way.  There are walkways everywhere, and free shuttle buses to the station. 

There is a considerable mount of automation, with its usual slightly sinister overtones.  Some of the walkways move, and a young lady always tells me at the end to watch my step.  I can get on and off the walkways without altering my gait, so she must be referring to some less obvious failing: but I can't figure out what it is.  She also tells me to attend to children, although I'm the only person in sight.  She remains calm, and repeats the message at the end of every walkway.

The automation becomes more sinister at the subway.  Here the voice is definitely shades of HAL, telling me the train is "approaching", then "arriving".  Reality does not quite coincide with this choice of vocabulary, so when he tells me the doors will open on the right side, I start to get nervous.  One of the trains I was on had a broken door, so only one of the pair opened.  I was standing in front of the other.  For a moment I thought of saying let me out, wondering if he would respond with I'm afraid I can't do that, Dave.

On the way back, as I stride onto the first walkway, I am greeted by no less a personage than Senator Kennedy.   I recognise his voice.  He tells me how wonderful Boston is.  Since he is a politician, I feel at liberty to tell him to watch his step.  He is a very senior politician, so he doesn't really need this advice, but he accepts it with good grace, and it makes me feel better.  Then it's HAL's cousin, telling me what to do with my parking ticket.  I tell him what to do with his.

You might think that all this banter with the disembodied computers would have people giving me a wide berth, but almost always, I'm the only person there. 

I bought myself a bagel at one of the terminal fast-food stands.  I hadn't quite finished it when I got to the hotel walkway, so I thought I would do a round trip on the walkways to the next terminal and back.  After all, wandering into a hotel eating a bagel is bad manners, and there was, as usual, nobody about on the walkways.  I had no sooner launched myself onto the walkway when, in the distance, at the far end of it, someone appeared out of nowhere and stopped the return walkway.  As I reached the end, he was striding away.  I shouted for him to start it up again till I got back to the hotel walkway, and he said I'm sorry I can't do that, Dave.

At this point, I notice that I'm half way between terminals C and E, where you might expect to find terminal D.  But there is no terminal D: the terminal directions refer only to A, B, C, and E.  I panic: does HAL have plans for me?  I drop the remains of the bagel and run for the hotel.

Friday 17th April 2009 – Blue Stockings and Red Socks

My trip is now gradually getting into gear.  I suppose this is a roundabout way of saying the gross mistakes are beginning to show up and be straightened out.  Like somehow having brought European plug converters instead of US.  I have to find an electrical shop with only minutes left on the computer battery.  In the old days, I would simply have stripped the cables and connected things up with a couple of matches, but I'm older and wiser now.  But I can't bring myself to sign up for a day's WiFi with no guarantee of being able to use more than aforesaid minutes.

I give a bit of ground and accept that staying a few more days in the expensive hotel solves some immediate problems.  At least I won't have to trek round Boston with all my worldly goods.  And I can use the hotel's computers to locate electrical suppliers.  I find a Radio Shack near the Red Socks stadium.  So the electrical problems will soon be solved. 

It turns out that staying in Boston was a good idea, because it's coming up Patriots' Day (note the punctuation, they're very particular about that), which is not only a long weekend in this part of the world, it's the Monday they run the Boston Marathon, the original city marathon.  This weekend sees the 113^th year of the event.

Out at Fenway Park, the Red Socks are slogging it out with the Baltimore Orioles.  It turns out to be a bit like the film 'Groundhog Day', because every time I look at a television, the game is on.  I think I'm seeing replays, or highlights, but the game is live, and they seem to have been playing for a week.  In fact, it's a playoff series.  I think it's nine games, but I'm not sure.  I don't know what trophy they're playing off for either. But it doesn't matter: I really enjoy watching baseball.  I have to find a bar to watch it in.  I contemplated going to a game, but it's impossible to get tickets, and, anyway, it's too difficult to follow without the aid of the television graphics (unless you learned it at school).  The Red Socks will actually play a game on Monday morning so as to end while the Marathon is finishing.  Sounds like a crowd-control nightmare; I can't imagine the Met Police going along with that.

I find a bar close to the Fenway Park to watch tonight's game.  It has a star lady cocktail barman, who works frenetically the whole night.  I suggest she takes Monday off, and runs the marathon, just for the rest.  I missed the last out of the game watching her perform a particularly daring shake. She even gets the boys to eat their greens, by pulping them into their drinks.

 

As soon as the game is over, the TVs all go off and get shut away behind cupboard doors.  This is obviously a classy bar. 

 

[I was going to work all the smart young ladies at these fancy Boston colleges into the story, with the barmaid as the star, but I'm getting hopelessly behind, and I don't have time.  That will have to wait for the rewrite.  But it's such a good title, I refuse to change it.]