Do people really talk like this?

“I remember the sound of silence so palpable, so merciless in its depths, that you could almost feel your heart stop in sympathy. Now we are prisoners of sonic effluence. I grieve for the past.”

- Cheryl Lindgren, as quoted in a recent NY Times article about Noise and Wind Turbines

Is there any way that Cheryl Lindgren actually talks like that? I don't know anyone who can speak that poetically off the cuff. Amazing.

CTA, I'm STILL ashamed that you're my "Rapid" Transit Provider

As a follow up to my post from September 2009 about how awful the CTA's service had been, I thought I'd write about another sour experience this morning.

I arrived at the Bryn Mawr red line at 8:04. I waited 15 minutes for the first northbound Red Line train to come. I boarded the train and headed toward Howard. One stop before Howard, a Purple Line train passed us.

As we stopped at Howard at 8:25, the Purple Line train that was stopped at Howard started pulling away from the station. Apparently the train couldn't wait another 30 seconds for us to stop and let its passengers make their necessary transfers.

A few frustrated passengers approached the box where someone from the CTA sits. I use the word 'sits' and not 'works' because he was clueless. I think he was sleeping while the whole thing happened. He started talking about circuits and pockets, making it sound like it was technically impossible for the two trains to be at the station at the same time. I asked for him to explain in plain English why the train left the station when it did. He couldn't provide me with anything sensible.

A mother and her daughter approached the box where napping CTA guy sits. They were curious when the next train would arrive. Tired, lack of customer service sense CTA guy looked at the monitor that shows train locations and said the next Purple Line train was just a stop away. Everyone could tell he was lying. We could see the previous station and there was no train in sight.

10 minutes later, the Purple Line train that senseless sleepy CTA guy claimed was "just a stop away" pulled into the station. The frustrated passengers boarded the train. It waited about a minute for a Red Line train to pull into the station so its passengers could make their transfer. What a novel idea!

All told, my Bryn Mawr to Davis CTA commute took nearly 45 minutes. Disgraceful.

Mapping Baltimore's 50 Best Restaurants

Heading to Baltimore in a couple months for a weekend. Wanted to have a couple of nice dinners near the Inner Harbor. Rebecca found this list of Baltimore's Top 50 Restaurants. Not being familiar with the addresses, I converted the restaurants and their addresses into a public google docs spreadsheet complete with lat/long data from this site and then used this tool to create the map code for me. If I update something on the google docs spreadsheet, it will automatically be displayed on the map. Turns out blogger is having trouble displaying this map.

I used www.batchgeo.com to load the data - unfortunately it's not automatically update-able but that's OK for now. Map can be viewed here.

Embedded here:

How to Make a US County Thematic Map Using Free Tools

I followed this tutorial on flowingdata.com to make the graphic below. No key but the redder the county, the higher the unemployment rate. My first experience using python. Pretty powerful. The actual graphic shown is a png version of the svg file.

London - not for tourists

Since I regularly get asked this question, I'm putting my collective thoughts here for future linking.

Stuff that's not at the top of the tourist list but I highly recommend:

• Sir John Soane Museum (free) - architect and collector - he turned his house into a museum and it's just awesome.
• Guided tours of the National Gallery and/or National Portrait Gallery - not heavily advertised but available a couple times a day. They pick 4-6 pieces and get in depth on each one. Free if I remember correctly.
• Have a pub dinner on a Thursday or Friday night
• Climb to the top of St. Paul's (lots of stairs but one of the best views of London from the very top)
• Take a run in through one/many the parks (there's a running club that meets Saturday morning for a 3 parks run that was a total blast. Let me know if you'd like more details).

Touristy stuff that I wouldn't miss/would do again:

• British Museum (free)
• Double-decker bus tour
• Tower of London
• Eat at an Indian restaurant
• Beatles walking tour (kind of cheesy but some great info)
• Walk the full length of Camden market on Saturday morning. Great for people watching.
• Buckingham Palace/Westminster Cathedral/Westminster Abbey/Houses of Parliament
• 1/2 price West End Show (London's equivalent of Broadway if you're into shows) – all for about $35 a show – all in the 10th row or closer. Decide on a show and the day of go here for half price tickets - http://www.officiallondontheatre.co.uk/tkts/leicester_square/
• Fish and Chips (at least once)
• To head out for the night I'd suggest Waxy O'Connor's near Leicester Square. Has a good pub feel and is close to the theater district, a number of other bars, restaurants.
• You might also be able to catch a football match. Very much an NFL type atmosphere.