Category: dallas

A Better Way out of Uptown?

Ashley Bischoff3 Comments

I left work just after 6:00 yesterday (maybe 6:10 or so) but it still took me until about 6:45 to get to the gym. It’s perhaps a little over six miles and I would think that it might be possible to get there in about 20 minutes — if there wasn’t any traffic. So, I’m curious whether there might be a better way to get there. I work off of Turtle Creek & Hall and the Bally’s that I go to is at Abrams & Skillman. Here’s my current route :

  1. Starting from work, go east on Hall St
  2. Go through a few traffic lights and then turn left (north) on McKinney
  3. At the next traffic light, turn right (east) on Lemmon
  4. Turn left to go north on 75
  5. Exit Northwest Hwy — East
  6. Take the turn-off for Skillman North
  7. End at the Bally's at Skillman and Abrams

I don’t see much room for improvement, for the most part, but I’m wondering about that Lemmon-to-75 stretch. Of course, Lemmon connects with 75, but it really just goes onto the service road; then, you actually have to go north on the service road to Blackburn which then has a proper on-ramp to 75. Would it be faster to drive further while I’m on McKinney and only turn right once I reach Blackburn?

Silly Power, Tricks Are for Kids!

Ashley Bischoff5 Comments

Out of seemingly nowhere, a severe storm swept through around 2pm yesterday. It only lasted maybe 20 minutes, but there were heavy rains and strong winds. I was typing an e-mail reply at the time and I was concerned that I might lose power. As it turns out, the power did go out, but my computer is on a UPS and I was able to save the e-mail to disk and safely shut down my computer.

I had planned to set aside the day for work — I had some freelance work that I wanted to get a head-start on before next week. But, without power, there wasn’t much I could do there. I waited around a few minutes in case the power came right back on, but it didn’t. So, what next?

  • Plan B: The gym. I’ve had a lot of work over the past few days and I hadn’t been to the gym recently. So, I figured that would be a healthy option. I packed up my gym bag and headed off to Bally’s. As I drove into the parking lot, I noticed that the gym didn't have power either (bummer). So much for that idea.

  • Plan C: Groceries. Since Super Target is on the way home from the gym, I thought that I could at least get some grocery shopping done. I drove up to Target and, sure enough, I could see the lights on inside (so far, so good). But, I then realized that it wouldn’t make much sense to buy groceries (eggs, cheese, et al) since I didn’t have a running refrigerator at home in which to put them. Foiled again!

  • Plan D: Movies. Well, without any productive things left on my list, I reasoned that I may as well make an enjoyable afternoon out of it. Still in the Target parking lot, I accessed MovieFone via WAP on my mobile to check for movies playing nearby. I had wanted to see Super Size Me for some time and, sure enough, it was still in theaters. But, there weren’t any showtimes until around 5:00, which wouldn’t have allowed me to get back in time for Leia’s birthday celebration at The Elbow Room later that evening.

  • Plan E: Ice Cream. Isn’t Plan E always “ice cream”? ;) With no further options, I decided that ice cream would work well. I hadn’t been to Braum’s in a while, so I headed off in that direction. I was a bit concerned that their power might be out as well, but they did have power. I walked in and ordered one of my favorite sundaes, their Peanut Butter Hot Fudge Sundae. And, in an attempt to counteract the full-sugar hot-fudge & peanut butter sauces, I ordered the sundae with low carb ice cream (yeah, Braum’s has low carb ice cream these days).

When the power first went out, I was a bit cheesed off since it prevented me from getting any work done; but, I became less annoyed as my adventure progressed. And, really, who can be mad while eating ice cream? So, yesterday turned out to be all right after all.

Still Looking for a Roommate

Ashley Bischoff3 Comments

I’ve mentioned this to several people already (and posted about it the other day) that my roommate Mike has just moved out. So, I’m looking for a new roommate. My posting on Craigslist has more details, but here are the pertinent ones:

  • It’s a two-bedroom townhome in The Village (around 75 & Northwest Hwy).
  • Rent is about $504/month plus around $120 for utilities.
  • The floorplan is online.
  • I’ve already setup the cable modem including WiFi via a Linksys router :).

If you know someone that might be interested, please have him/her get in touch with me. (And be sure to check out the Craigslist posting for the rest of the details.)

Warwalking in Dallas

Ashley Bischoff2 Comments

As the weather gets nicer in the coming weeks, I’ve been thinking that it could be rather nice to work outside some days, just sitting under a shady tree enjoying the spring breeze. I already have the PowerBook but it would be even better if I had WiFi outside…

So, on Friday afternoon, I decided to go warwalking. You may have already heard of wardriving — driving around with a laptop looking for WiFi access points — but I needed more granularity than that. So, I made sure my battery was charged and I loaded MacStumbler onto my laptop (MacStumbler is an app which continuously scans for access points).

I had to carry my PowerBook open as it would just go to sleep if I closed it, but I found a comfortable position where I could support it with my left forearm as I rested it against my chest. From there, I just started walking around my apartment complex.

I didn’t really want much road noise as part of my hypothetical spring afternoon, so that actually made my search a bit easier. Heading away from the major roads, I walked towards the trees & paths near the Village clubhouse. I had a good feeling about this area since it was wooded enough to be quiet and peaceful yet there were apartment buildings not far away (hopefully with WiFi emanating from them).

Sure enough, I found a few good spots there. As I don’t yet have a GPS receiver for my PowerBook (still looking for recommendations, if you have any), I just had to record each hotspot’s info the old-fashioned way — with TextEdit. I made notes to myself primarily on how to find each spot (in some ways, like a squirrel trying to remember where he buried his nuts).

I also ensured that each spot had a shady tree nearby :). Then, just to be sure tree was still in range of the signal, I sat down under each tree and tested the signal there (usually by browsing a couple pages from Slashdot). Of course, as long as I had signal-bars, the test-pages would usually load fine. Occasionally, however, I couldn’t connect through some of them :-/.

I also didn’t want to have to walk that far to my WiFi Tree(tm), so I limited my search to about a 15-minute radius from my apartment. I ended up with about half a dozen prospective hotspots and I narrowed it down to two likely candidates. One in particular is a hotspot that’s reachable from one of the benches overlooking the small lake in that area. I figure that a bench would be comfortable and I could also bring along a flat object (like a book) for use as a mousepad next to me.

So, the next time a sunny day comes along, I’m ready. I'm guessing that my one-page list of findings wouldn’t be useful to many people but if you live in The Village, I’d be happy to pass them along.

Goodbye, Landline

Ashley Bischoff3 Comments

I cancelled my landline with Comcast today. I’ve been thinking about it for some time and — since I have a cell phone anyway — there was little reason to keep the landline. Really, what kept me from cutting it off even sooner was DirecTV. Since it needs a landline (for DirecTiVo especially), I hesitated to cancel the landline and lose that option.

It didn’t help that Comcast Phone offered no means of auto-payment each month nor any means of online payment (sure, Comcast Internet Access has both of those, but it seems that two subdivisions may as well be separate companies). I mean, if they had auto-payment that billed my credit card for the $24 each month, I probably could have put up with that. Compared to paying online, I’d rather not have to go through the effort of writing a check and licking a stamp each month.

The final straw was their recent form letter about an upcoming 19% price increase on residential service (up two dollars). Well, forget that. Of course, DirecTV would be a bit of tougher option now ;). But, my primary interest there was just for HBO (since it’s not available in my area without moving to digital cable). And, Mike has a Netflix subscription so we can probably get most of the good shows (Sopranos et al) on DVD through there.