Screw Loose

Staggering out of bed this morning in the hotel here in Lisle, I reached over and put on my glasses, whereupon I immediately felt the left lens fall out and land on my foot. Darn it, the screw has come loose. Shortly thereafter, the screw itself popped out of the frame, but fortunately I was able to find it by feeling around on the patterned carpet. Going through my briefcase and computer bag, I could not find my glasses repair kit. It has presumably gone away after a couple of changes of briefcases and bags.

This is annoying. I can survive without my glasses for a while, because the correction is relatively slight, but I do want to get it fixed. The very fact that I can compose this and read mail, albeit that I'm squinting slightly so my eyes will focus on the same spot. I wonder if the hotel's front desk has a little mini-screwdriver. And I must not lose the tiny screw!

Update, 11:50 AM: My co-worker drove me to the office. (I can legally drive without my glasses, but I don't like doing so.) One of our IT people had the necessary tiny screwdriver and I was able to reassemble my glasses. Hooray!

Not Taking Full Advantage of the Stay

Unfortunately, I've not been able to take as much advantage of the facilities here at the Lisle Wyndham as I would have liked. Tonight being the middle night of the three I was here, it would have been the best opportunity to do so; however, I had a conference call meeting of the Westercon San Jose in 2011 Committee at 8:30 PM Central Time, so instead of going out to dinner with my co-workers after today's classes broke up, I went and got something quick (and excessively carbohydrated) before heading back to the hotel and working my e-mail instead of going to the exercise room. 202 blood sugar. Bad Kevin. And a meeting, so I couldn't go exercise then. 161 another hour later, after the meeting. Finally I went down to the exercise room and walked 1.25 miles on the treadmill. Down to 124, over 3 hours after eating. Better.

Having exercised, a dip in the pool and a soak in the hot tub to loosen up my still-stiff back was called for. Except that the pool/spa/exercise room closes at 10 PM sharp, with a hotel employee standing there to shoo people out. Mumble, grumble.

And on top of all that, if I want a non-caffeinated sugar-free soda, I'll have to go drive a mile or two to find it, for there's nothing of that nature in the machines here at the hotel. The last thing I want to be drinking is anything with caffeine in it at this hour when I have to be up at 5:30 tomorrow morning in order to at the office bright and early at 7 AM.

On the Brighter Side...

...This is a good hotel at which to stay for one reason: the rooms are decorated with posters of classic railroad advertisements and other train-related scenes. The hotel restaurant is named "Union Station."

Edit, 22:15: Rearranged this entry and the previous one so they were in the correct sequence.

Simple, but Far-Flung

I think I've mentioned this before, but following a link from debgeisler and following on from it led me to a site showing various subway systems at the same scale. I had forgotten that the BART system, while nowhere near as complicated as the New York Subway or London Underground, and therefore having far fewer total track-miles, is huge as far as the area it covers. (When you look at the BART map, remember that when I take BART to SFO, I'm riding from the point on the lower right corner around the inverted U shape and down to the lower left corner's right branch.) In a way, it shows one of the big problems of BART -- it's trying to be an urban metro and a suburban electric commuter railroad at the same time.