Levi Chandler Maaia

Vintage Pullman railcar reveals secrets of the Calif. coast

A couple weeks back I saw a flier in a local shop advertising a day trip on a vintage railway car.  The classic 39 seat first class lounge was built in 1949 by the famous Pullman Standard Car Manufacturing Company for use on the old San Francisco Overland Trail line between Chicago and San Francisco on the now defunct passenger service of Southern Pacific Railroad.

We arrived at Santa Barbara’s Amtrak station on Sunday morning as the San Luis Obispo-bound Amtrak train pulled in the station.  The familiar sight of Amtrak’s polished steel train was interrupted by what I would soon learn was the trademark “Daylight” paint scheme of the old Southern Pacific line.  Our Pullman car dropped off a trainload of Los Angeles day-trippers bound for Santa Barbara’s urban wine trail – a prearranged combination train ride and wine tour – and we boarded the classically luxurious streamliner.

Our scenic trip on Southern Pacific railcar 2981 took us through the rarely seen Santa Barbara County coastline, obscured by private ranches, rugged terrain and the implicit secrecy of Vandenberg Air Force Base.  As photo opportunities whizzed by the large, crystal-clear windows, I tried my best to snap my shutter.  The train’s antique windows had an odd effect on the digital exposures, giving each shot a sort of vintage look and coloring.  All of the photos in the gallery were taken on Sunday August 29, 2010, but have a strange quality that, at a glance, might be mistaken for August 29, 1950.

The tracks wind past the infamous Point Conception and Point Arguello where the mostly southern facing coastline of Santa Barbara jogs northward toward the notoriously sharky and perilous waters of the California Central Coast.  Past Vandenberg the missile launch sites are clearly visible on the leeward side of the tracks, as is the gigantic 15,000-foot long runway on the base.

While the Santa Barbara to San Luis Obispo trip is relatively new, the Overland Trail car was purchased 23 years ago by Bill Hatrick and his wife Debbie. They restored the train to its original splendor, complete with stewardess’s quarters and a on-board barber shop. The Hatricks claim that they are just one year away from being the car’s longest-term owners, as their records indicate that Southern Pacific itself owned the 2981 railcar for 24 years.  Bill serves as conductor and host for the rides.  He beamed with pride as he explained the process of restoring the classic railcars to Amtrak’s modern specifications, complete with sanitary holding tanks, rendering quaint the original posted lavatory warnings about not flushing while the train is standing in the station.

When not gliding up the coast hitched to an Amtrak locomotive, the Overland Trail sleeps in Los Angeles Union Station where it is available for charter for a variety of occasions.  The Hatrick’s 2981 railcar was even featured in Clint Eastwood’s “Flags of our Fathers,” among other productions.

Visit the complete photo gallery for more images of our journey up the coast, including photos of the launch facilities at Vandenberg.  More information and a complete history on the Overland Trail Club Lounge Car can be found at larail.com. For booking information on the Santa Barbra  to San Luis Obispo route call Terry at 805.680.0397.

Schwarzenegger’s knee-jerk reaction to the BP spill

The 2003 Space Shuttle Columbia disaster was the second in just more than 100 flights of the shuttle fleet. (photo: Wikipedia)

After 9/11 the Bush administration’s knee-jerk reaction was to attempt to stem immigration and tighten airport security.  After the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, Gov. Schwarzenegger’s reaction was to stem off-shore drilling. While I personally agree with the decision not to drill in the ocean I am not in favor of knee-jerk reactions, even if they have outcomes agreeable to me. Knee-jerk reactions that are 180 degrees from one’s original stance show poor planning and imply to me that the original decision was made in haste.

Schwarzenegger has known the risks of off-shore drilling for years, yet he continued to support its expansion.  This BP spill in the Gulf didn’t change the risk ratio, it merely made it very real for many, many people.  It is politically wise for politicians to withdraw support for drilling after this incident but their motivations are suspect. It reminds me of one famous CalTech physicist who discovered that the risk of catastrophic failure of the Space Shuttle was greater than 1 in 100. So-called “NASA experts” at the time had put the risk much much lower saying the shuttle was safe and that the Challenger accident had resulted in serious safety improvements, suggesting that Feynman’s estimates were grossly overstated. Space Shuttle Columbia, the second shuttle to be destroyed in a catastrophic failure was the 113th flight. Had proper research been done and warnings been heeded in the first place the second disaster might have been prevented.  Draw whatever parallels you may to our current disaster in the Gulf.

United + Continental = ?

With the corporate board approval of the United and Continental airline merger the two companies launched a new Web site to promote the idea of creating the world’s largest airline.  For those of us in cities serviced by both airlines this might ultimately mean that there are fewer flight times and fares for our destinations, however that remains to be seen.  What is known is that if the merger is approved, the unified airline will be known (appropriately) as United but will bear the Continental globe logo and font.  Is it just me or does this look like an alternate reality from a Hot Tub Time Machine malfunction?  This livery design is not an upgrade.  The serif font and 1980′s AT&T-like logo is a side-grade from Continental’s current look and a downgrade from United’s relatively new branding.

Adobe Flash: Killing it softly

I read the now (in)famous Steve Jobs “Open Letter to Adobe Flash” last week. Jobs did an excellent job explaining his position. I agree that the insecure and proprietary system that seemed poised to dominate the web 8 years ago was misguided. The best sites on the Web don’t rely heavily on Flash (except for maybe YouTube, which may soon adopt HTML 5 video tags) and most of us browsers are sent searching for the “skip intro” button as soon as we see some lengthy splash page animation. Madison Avenue has finally come to realize that Flash frustrates and have dialed it back. That and the push for compatibility with mobile devices has stemmed some of Flash’s growth.

However, I find it ironic for Steve Jobs to compare Flash’s proprietary model to that of the iPhone/iPad, yet go on to say that being proprietary is ok for us (Apple) but not for them (Adobe). His crusade against Flash, while it has some merit, seems more like corporate bullying.  These are the same or similar tactics that Bill Gate’s tried early on in the browser wars of the last decade in a format held over from before the PC (see Gate’s Open Letter to Hobbyists which attacked open source before the term “open source” existed).

While I don’t agree with what I believe to be Job’s mostly self-serving  motivations, I am happy to see the creative ways that hackers and coders have make other technologies work for them in place of Flash.  On the Full Channel site that I maintain we have had a Flash slideshow on the main page for some time.  It has been an easy way to keep the site fresh and visually interesting, something we would not have been able to easily do without Flash just a few years ago.  However, our slideshow began showing up as a mystery box on more and more devices that did not support Flash.

With the release of the iPad and the ever-increasing sight of passersby engrossed in their iPhones it seemed that this Flash-disabled audience was reaching critical mass.  So, today I retired the site’s increasing incompatible .swf slideshow in favor of Jon Raasch’s very simple and elegant jQuery Slideshow.  I like that jQuery’s motto is “write less do more.”  jQuery is a lighter duty alternative to memory-intensive Flash and it works on many mobile devices including Apple’s.  That and I feel a special kinship with Raasch as he too must also be spending a lifetime explaining that in fact there are two “A’s” in his last name.

This dual may not be over between Apple and Adobe.  The fervor over Job’s letter is just beginning.

For more on this: Ars Technica has a nice piece today arguing that “Apple is presenting users with a false choice between Adobe’s proprietary software and Apple’s walled garden.”

Finding Feynman

I have enjoyed the stories, antics and brilliance of Dr. Richard Feynman since first reading “Surly You’re Joking Mr. Feynman” years ago.  Feynman rose to prominence during the Manhattan Project, received a Nobel Prize in Physics for theories I will have to wait for another life to understand and nearly single-handedly discovered the cause of the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger accident.  He is perhaps one of the most accomplished and equally well-known modern scientists.  His reputation is due in part to his jovial attitude and ability to make complex theory accessible to the masses through his lectures given undergraduate students at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).

That being said, I am in Pasadena this week for The California STEM Innovation Network Summit which is being hosted by Caltech.  I thought that I should check out the book store here in hopes of finding a memento of my visit to Feynman’s campus.  I eventually found, after some fumbling, searching online and circling campus in my car, the illustrious (or rather elusive) Caltech bookstore (picture on the left in a photo from Wikipedia as I didn’t bring my camera).  I was surprised to find that the store contained little else than these few Feynman books and some “Caltech Dad” XXL T-shirts on a sale rack.  The entire remaining “book department” was bare-shelved and empty and the adjacent computer store was a ghost town.   I did found a couple Feynman books on this shelf that I hadn’t read,  a Caltech logo hoodie on a back hanger behind a XXS Jet Propulsion Laboratory sweater and at the checkout counter I picked up the prank MIT newspaper that Caltech students distributed at MIT’s 2007 Campus Preview Weekend.  While it wasn’t the shrine to Feynman that imagined it was a beautiful sunny campus.

E*Trade’s two cents

Closed a savings account with E*Trade last week.  I told them they could keep the change but they insisted on sending me the balance.

The FBI’s newest tool: Google Images

This one from the This-Guy-Could-Be-Him file:

The FBI recently used a photograph of Spanish politician Gaspar Llamazares as an example of what Osama Bin Laden might look like today.

According to Reuters, FBI special agent Jason Pack said a forensic artist had been unable to find suitable features from the FBI’s database of photographs and used a picture from the Internet instead. That photo turned out to be one of Llamazares who apparently looks strikingly similar to what the FBI thinks Bin Laden would look like with a few extra years on him.

“I am stupefied the FBI has used my photo — but it could have been anyone’s — to compose a picture of a terrorist. It affects my honor, my own image and also the security of all us,” LLamazares said in a statement.

‘Obey’ the Law

Former Rhode Island School of Design student, Shepard Fairey the Los Angeles street artist known best for his Obama campaign posters and Obey Giant clothing and collectibles was sentenced today to two years probation for charges of “placing a poster on a Boston electrical box in September of 2000″ according to the AP who said that “in the plea deal, Fairey admitted to the 2000 incident and two others this past January: placing a sticker on the back of a traffic sign and affixing a poster to a private condominium building.” (see full story full story no longer available).  In addition Fairey must also not posses glue or stickers in Suffolk County, Mass.