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Tuesday February 14, 2006

Commuting to work

Now that I'm living and working in the San Francisco Bay Area, I've a few things to ponder as I think about life th e universe and everything.

Living in the SFBA, you're generally required to drive to work every day, unless you happen to live/work up at the top of the peninsula where there is reasonable public transport (BART, Muni, buses.) There is a single train line up and down the peninsula called "Caltrain" and for Sun employees, there is a bus from the Menlo Park Caltrain station to the Menlo Park campus - its not a short walk.

Coming here from Australia, where I took the train to work every day, I'm noticing some differences in how I spend time commuting. For one, going home of an evening was a great chance to sit on the train and attempt various word puzzles in a free daily newspaper. Of a morning I could sit back with pen and paper and try to think through various problems that required free thinking. Why don't I pull out my laptop? 30-40 minutes isn't long enough to do anything useful, once you consider startup/shutdown times.

Now I spend 10-15 minutes sitting behind the wheel of a car, most of it on a freeway that is badly overdue for a resurface by the world's 5th(?) largest economy.

But don't I have all that extra time to do what I do on the train? It's not quite that simple. When you're at home there are generally "other" things that need to be done and for you to do. Cook, clean, wash, exercise, watch tv, email, etc. When you're sitting on a train, isolated from all of those 'chores', you're free to just sit back and think or read or stare out the window or have a conversation with a stranger or...

...dare I say it but I think using public transport gives you time to innovate without the pressure of being in an office :)

Update on IPFilter things.

Have a look over at the blog to whom I report: