Digitally manipulated photo showing what light-rail trains might look like crossing I-90.

A couple of things struck me about the above photo, found in today’s Seattle Times, as I peered closely at its details. First, those electrical power poles are really ugly. It had never occurred to me before that power poles with cable strung between them would be necessary to get light rail trains across Lake Washington, and now that I see the reality of the situation, I don’t like it. The low profile of the floating bridge is one of its best features; it distracts from the otherwise magnificent view only slightly. Adding power poles and cabling across the lake will add an unsightly grid to the horizon, no doubt spoiling the view from, say, Stan Sayres Park looking north, as well as the view south looking at beautiful Mount Rainier from Madrona. Perhaps someone with design sense will find a way to camoflague or otherwise beautify these structures.

Second, the digital artist has squeezed four lanes of westbound traffic into a space that currently only has room for three, not by magically adding concrete where there is none, but by eliminating entirely the right shoulder. Isn’t that convenient? However, there is a problem with this clever solution: cars break down on the bridge. In fact, cars break down on the bridge and pull into the right shoulder every week of the year. I’ve seen it. I’ve been driving this route for almost 18 years. If you take that shoulder away, you might as well kiss goodbye any hope of a trouble-free car commute. And from the looks of things there isn’t a full left shoulder, which means there really isn’t room to have four full lanes and a shoulder on the existing bridge.

So take this picture with a huge grain of salt.

And one more thing: I met I guy at a party recently who happened to be an engineer working on the structural retrofit of the bridge for the light rail expansion and it occurred to me to ask him, “Where else in the world are they running light rail over a floating bridge.” And he just grinned and answered, “Nowhere. No one’s done it. It hasn’t been done before.” Because, you see, there’s the problem of the expansion joints that connect the floating part to the not-floating part, and trains have real problems running over dips and such since that could throw them off their tracks. So the joints need to be redesigned. This engineer seemed pretty confident that it could be done and his firm has the designs to do it, he said. They were testing those designs already. The testing will take approximately three years.

And so it goes.

1. My alma mater now costs two-and-a-half times more than it did my freshman year (1987). Annual tuition plus room and board is $44,160. Cripes.

2. At the local state university, the cost of room and board is more than that for tuition and fees, $8,000 vs. $5,985. (Guess who’s living at home if she chooses to attend the local state university?)

3. By the time my daughters are eligible to enter the local state university, we need to have amassed a pile of savings totaling $111,747, assuming an average inflation rate of 5.94% for college costs which may be on the low side. If they choose my alma matter, bump that savings account up to $704,959. (Holy shit. Guess who’ll need lots of financial aid if she chooses my alma mater?)

4. Undergraduate degree programs ain’t what they used to be, mostly because the students who enter them ain’t what they used to be. There’s a mad consumerist attitude amongst today’s college students, and who can blame them? They are laying out serious cash. How can you lose yourself in the life of the mind while forking over $44,000 a year? How’s an art history major ever going to earn that money back? It’s crazy.

I am alarmed but not totally hopeless. Somehow this will all work out. If you have kids who might go to college someday, and the trend is up in that regard (because everyone knows that a high school education isn’t what it used to be), then you should start saving right now. Look into starting a 529 plan. And have a nice day.

Who could be against smaller class sizes and new arts and music programs? In this case, this page is, because it is irresponsible to create new needs and costs when the district cannot pay for current ones.

So, basically, The Times says we should punish the teachers, students, and their parents for the financial failures of the school district by continuing to under-fund every aspect of public education in the city. How dare the teacher’s union ask for more of our hard-earned money to fund their nefarious deeds, The Times seems to say.

As the parent of a 1st grader in an over-crowded, south-end public school I say bullshit, Seattle Times. The Seattle Public Schools are so poorly funded right now they can barely keep things afloat. It’s a tragedy that Seattle, “one of the most-educated and wealthiest cities in the nation” as pointed out in the editorial, has such a crappy public school system. The Times says we should punish the people who rely on that system to prove a point about fiscal responsibility.

The editorial goes on to say we should look for help from the state Legislature:

A better target for proponents of I-88 is the state Legislature. Washington state’s constitution calls for the state to bear primary duty for education funding. A huge opportunity lies in Gov. Christine Gregoire’s group of education panels, Washington Learns.

The fact is that education funding in Washington is beyond dismal compared to other states. Washington ranks 46th in the nation in class size; 42nd in per-pupil education spending; and currently spends $548 less per student than it did 15 years ago. The state is failing at it’s responsibility. We cannot continue to look toward Olympia to solve our problems. In this wealthy and well-educated city, we can do the right thing and take responsibility for our schools, build them up, support them financially, and volunteer our time to make them better. And step one is to not take away more funds.

I say, vote for I-88 not because I tell you to, or because the Seattle Times tells you not to, do it so my 1st grader and her classmates don’t have to try to learn in a classroom of 30 kids, with no after-school programs or childcare, and over-worked, under-paid teachers.

According to Google Maps, the distance is 1,710 miles and would take about 28 hours to complete without stops. Of the 12 steps from start to finish, the first five merely get you to I-90, a distance of less than two miles. Then at step six:

Bear right into the I-90 E entry ramp to Spokane – go 821 miles.

Step seven is equally momentous yet understated:

Take the I-90 E exit 456 to Sheridan – go 701 miles.

Step eight is more ordinary but failure to follow it will result in your entry into Iowa, something to be avoided on this itinerary:

Take the I-29 S exit 396A – go 182 miles.

And finally, the last four steps get you to the front door of your destination. Brilliant transportation planning.

Now, gasoline would cost roughly $200 to go the distance, and I don’t know about you but I can’t drive for 28 hours without stopping for the night, maybe twice, so add on another $150 for motel rooms. Then there’s food and drink, maybe another $50 (because you’ll be eating at crap restaurants that serve cheap food.) So, it looks like it may now cost up to $400 to drive there. After about a week, you’ll have been reminded of all the things that made you want to leave Omaha in the first place, so you’ll decided to drive back to Seattle. Ouch. There goes another $400.

Not so brilliant transportation planning.

We should have seen this coming. Gone are the days of carefree cross-country motoring. It’s cheaper to fly distances greater than a few hundred miles (for now). Passenger railroad service is laughable. What comes next? Has the great “not negotiable” American experiment in mobility-at-any-cost failed? My answer would be “yep, sure has”.

Update: In July 1994, we took a month-long road trip around America covering approximately 4,000 miles. The average retail price of a gallon of gas in July 1994 was $1.10, so we likely spent about $176 on gas during that trip. The average price of a gallon of gas this week is $2.95 which means the same trip taken today would cost us $472 just for gas. I’m not complaining about the price increase. I understand what’s going on. It’s a combination of supply and demand and oil company profit-taking (get it while the gettin’s good). I’m just saying that those amazing, long road trips behind the wheel of our own personal vehicle are going to make for some great stories to tell our grandchildren.

What’s it like? People, I really hated the GE product. It is tiny, and closes around you. I felt seriously claustrophobic. Then it shot bursts of air at me so hard it actually hurt. I had been told there would be “puffs of air”, but these were not, by any definition, puffs. “Puffs” make me think of cigar smoke. Or “Puff the magic dragon”. Puffs of wind. But these were hurricane strength blasts. Meanwhile the machine barks orders like a concentration camp commandant. Where did they get the voice? It speaks in a chilling metallic imperative borrowed from a really bad science fiction movie. In fact it was barely believable that adults would unleash this contraption on anyone.

I have to agree. I got “puffed” on a return trip to Seattle last November and had a similar reaction to Cameron’s. The woman in the security line behind me also got puffed and we chatted a bit afterward comparing our experiences. We both thought it extremely weird. Neither one of us had the dreaded “SSSS” on our boarding passes indicating to security personel that we were suspects. Both of us had purchased our tickets well in advance. Both of us were traveling round-trip. In fact, we both looked exactly like the 30-something knowledge-worker wage-slaves that we were. Weird.

Cameron does a good job of explaining the feeling of being inside one of these things. It’s like a sci-fi gas chamber. Your thoughts trend toward, “What happens if the machine detects something? Will robotic arms shoot out and immobilize me? Will a tranquilizer gas be released? Will a trapdoor open sending me sliding down to some underground holding cell?” It’s creepy.

A lot could be done to improve the experience. But in addition to making it more “people friendly” how about adding features that might get people to want to be puffed? How about turning it into an “air shower” that blows dust, germs and microbes off your body? Maybe it could use ionization to clean your skin? This would help make air travel be less of a burden on the immune system. If we’re going to have sci-fi security systems, why shouldn’t we have sci-fi personal care systems, too?

I can expect to live to the ripe old age of 85.66 years which gives me almost another 50 years on this planet. Not bad at all. According to my health risk analysis, I can extend my life expectancy by 0.75 years if I quit driving (not likely), give up sex (ditto), and exercise more (touché). The good news is that my habitual 2-3 alcoholic drinks per day has maximized my life expectancy! Cheers to that.

As I was wiping up the vomit at 1:00 am, and then again at 2:00 am, I quietly cursed George W. Bush and his posse for inflicting this pox upon my house. Not that I believe in curses, mind you, nor do I truly believe The Administration had anything to do with the virus inside my child, but it felt good and took my attention away from the smell.

Perhaps this is how the next four years will be for me? Trying to look away from the mess America is making of the world while breathing through my mouth so as not to catch the stench of a country moving increasingly toward the conservative.

Hope for the best but expect the worst.