San Antonio or Google... one of you two suck.
Again, I had a nice frustrating evening trying to get somewhere in this honorably laid out city.
I wanted a steak for dinner, I have been wanting a steak all week. The good steak places I have been told about were too far away (strike for SA) so I tried looking up some steak places closer. Google maps has been less than reliable for me in SA and again it fails me (strike for Google).
So I decided to just drive and see what I could find. Well every time I have ever tried this method, I end up finding the same 6 or so crappy chain restaurants (strike for SA). On top of that the retarded layout of the roads, mean you are going to miss the turn to the place so you have to go around (strike for SA). Even the parking lots are crappy designs (strike for SA).
After I was done with what I was doing this evening I wanted to find some ice cream. Well just repeat the same frustrating ordeal from above all over.
Now I know that Google changed stuff with there map data about a month and a half ago, and may people are not happy, but I was having bad results from the day I got to this town. I truly hope that Google has not messed the Vancouver/Portland area up as bad as SA is. I have to think that it is just the crappy layout of SA that causes Google to have a hard time providing good results.
If I had hair, I would pull it out.
Getting on the plane to fly back to SA in December is going to be hard.
Showing posts with label SA sucks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label SA sucks. Show all posts
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Friday, October 31, 2008
Random thoughts and observations
So I just went to the grocery store. Now unfortunately this was a newly opened grocery store. Why do people flock to the same thing with a new label? It is just the same thing that was across the street last week, just a new building. Nothing more, well except for the 1,000's of extra people that would not normal be there.
While in the store I was looking for oatmeal. I went to the breakfast isle thinking that is where it is in host stores. I did not find my oatmeal, but what I did find is an amazing example of targeted advertising towards kids. Cereal on one side of the isle and candy on the other. Not just a little bit of candy, but the full isle! What ever marketing exec thought this up, I hope you have a lot of money to donate to diabetes research when your own kids get juvenal diabetes.
Another thing, with the buzz word of everything being "Green" why is it that packaging on food keep getting more and more excessive. As I walked through the store, I was seeing things that the packaging has been "improved" on and thought, OK that never use to be that big. The best part, I can almost guarantee you that the amount of the product that you are getting has decreased at the same time. If the "Green" idea was more than just marketing....
Also, to who ever thought the pace of life in TX was going to be too slow for me, well sorry to say that I am about the slowest moving person in this city. The state motto of "Don't mess with Texas" need to get changed to "Get the F@#$ out of my way". It would be much more fitting as there is garbage all over the place. Everyone is in a hurry around here. And the worst part, is because I am not in a hurry, everyone just runs me over and pushed me out of the way. Ever seen the movie Falling Down? I have no plans to ever go that far, but that is how I feel some times.
While in the store I was looking for oatmeal. I went to the breakfast isle thinking that is where it is in host stores. I did not find my oatmeal, but what I did find is an amazing example of targeted advertising towards kids. Cereal on one side of the isle and candy on the other. Not just a little bit of candy, but the full isle! What ever marketing exec thought this up, I hope you have a lot of money to donate to diabetes research when your own kids get juvenal diabetes.
Another thing, with the buzz word of everything being "Green" why is it that packaging on food keep getting more and more excessive. As I walked through the store, I was seeing things that the packaging has been "improved" on and thought, OK that never use to be that big. The best part, I can almost guarantee you that the amount of the product that you are getting has decreased at the same time. If the "Green" idea was more than just marketing....
Also, to who ever thought the pace of life in TX was going to be too slow for me, well sorry to say that I am about the slowest moving person in this city. The state motto of "Don't mess with Texas" need to get changed to "Get the F@#$ out of my way". It would be much more fitting as there is garbage all over the place. Everyone is in a hurry around here. And the worst part, is because I am not in a hurry, everyone just runs me over and pushed me out of the way. Ever seen the movie Falling Down? I have no plans to ever go that far, but that is how I feel some times.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Water
So one of the first things I noticed about the water in SA is that you can not get cold water out of the tap. The coldest you can get is luke warm. We will see if this changes as the temperature gets colder.
The new place that I am staying has a water softener thingy. So you never feel like you have rinsed all the soap off when you are taking a shower. I am sure this will change once I get use to it.
And overall the taste of the water is gross. It is definitely a two lemon water town.
The new place that I am staying has a water softener thingy. So you never feel like you have rinsed all the soap off when you are taking a shower. I am sure this will change once I get use to it.
And overall the taste of the water is gross. It is definitely a two lemon water town.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Drivers are getting to me
This is becoming a problem again for me. I find my self yelling at other drivers as I drive around SA. I have not been this mad at people when driving in a long time.
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Directionally challenged
So I got lost in a park today. It was at least a big park.
Today I decided to go for my walk/run somewhere other than the neighborhood. I found a park in the city that had a 6 mile loop and thought that was good.
11 miles later I found my car.
There were no signs at all in the park. There were some posts where signs had once been, but the sign thief's took them.
I can't blame getting lost on much, considering I have been getting lost for as long as I can remember.
I needed the compass that Miller gave me, that he found in a CrackerJack box. :|
Today I decided to go for my walk/run somewhere other than the neighborhood. I found a park in the city that had a 6 mile loop and thought that was good.
11 miles later I found my car.
There were no signs at all in the park. There were some posts where signs had once been, but the sign thief's took them.
I can't blame getting lost on much, considering I have been getting lost for as long as I can remember.
I needed the compass that Miller gave me, that he found in a CrackerJack box. :|
Friday, September 12, 2008
Week six
So Levi was in town this week and I got to hang out with him in the evenings and most of today. We wandered the city and saw a lot of the touristy things, like the Alamo and the River Walk. It was nice to have someone to do things with.
All week we kept waiting to see someone fall in the river. Even today we saw a guy stumble down a set of stairs, and we thought for sure this guy would fall in, so we followed him. He lacked much of any scene of balance, but still did not fall in. We asked the waiter at lunch how many people fall in, and were told "oh daily" that some just fall and others jump.
Today we were looking for a book store so Levi could get another book just in case any of his flights got delayed because of the hurricane. We went to the big, think 5 stories, mall downtown. Guess what, there was not a single book store in the mall. So we asked some people where a bookstore was. We kept getting blanks stairs back from them. We then consulted the Google and got directions to a Barns & Noble. Well like all directions in SA, they did not get us to the place. It drove us to a dead end of a neighborhood.
At this point we are thinking that the state of TX must not know how to read. But we consulted Google once more, this time looking outside of the downtown area, and found one just north of town. We called first and made sure they really existed and verified the address. In SA driving direction style, we still got lost, but finally found it. And look at that, there are three bookstores right next to one another. They must have all got scared and huddled together for protection from the citizens. We asked the guy in the first one, if there was more than a dozen bookstores in SA. His response, "Not that he was aware of". Amazing, just amazing.
The wind has been blowing more today because of hurricane Ike. SA has been out of the path for a couple of days, but Houston and Galveston are his target. They are still expecting SA to get some rain and some wind, just not much.
So I am now officially on 3rd shift. I will be spending the weekend trying to get my body to sleep during the day and stay up at night. So tonight I will be staying up watching Ike and trying to keep my self distracted. So if you were going to call me, don't for the next week or two. Just send me an email and I will call you.
I am still working on running. I kind of took most of this week off because of Levi, but I still went out on Tuesday after work. Working 3rd is going to make this interesting, but I am going to keep with it.
I also donated blood today. Still could not watch the needle go in. They did it in one of the big conference rooms at work, and they had a movie playing. Sure made the time fly.
Well that all folks.
All week we kept waiting to see someone fall in the river. Even today we saw a guy stumble down a set of stairs, and we thought for sure this guy would fall in, so we followed him. He lacked much of any scene of balance, but still did not fall in. We asked the waiter at lunch how many people fall in, and were told "oh daily" that some just fall and others jump.
Today we were looking for a book store so Levi could get another book just in case any of his flights got delayed because of the hurricane. We went to the big, think 5 stories, mall downtown. Guess what, there was not a single book store in the mall. So we asked some people where a bookstore was. We kept getting blanks stairs back from them. We then consulted the Google and got directions to a Barns & Noble. Well like all directions in SA, they did not get us to the place. It drove us to a dead end of a neighborhood.
At this point we are thinking that the state of TX must not know how to read. But we consulted Google once more, this time looking outside of the downtown area, and found one just north of town. We called first and made sure they really existed and verified the address. In SA driving direction style, we still got lost, but finally found it. And look at that, there are three bookstores right next to one another. They must have all got scared and huddled together for protection from the citizens. We asked the guy in the first one, if there was more than a dozen bookstores in SA. His response, "Not that he was aware of". Amazing, just amazing.
The wind has been blowing more today because of hurricane Ike. SA has been out of the path for a couple of days, but Houston and Galveston are his target. They are still expecting SA to get some rain and some wind, just not much.
So I am now officially on 3rd shift. I will be spending the weekend trying to get my body to sleep during the day and stay up at night. So tonight I will be staying up watching Ike and trying to keep my self distracted. So if you were going to call me, don't for the next week or two. Just send me an email and I will call you.
I am still working on running. I kind of took most of this week off because of Levi, but I still went out on Tuesday after work. Working 3rd is going to make this interesting, but I am going to keep with it.
I also donated blood today. Still could not watch the needle go in. They did it in one of the big conference rooms at work, and they had a movie playing. Sure made the time fly.
Well that all folks.
Friday, September 5, 2008
Why I am having issues getting around in TX
So I just figured out one of the major reasons I keep getting lost when trying to find a place that I have a map and directions to.
Overall, getting useful search results from Google Maps is much more difficult in SA than in Vancouver/Portland.
This is going to come as a shock to any of you that know me, so let me just say it... Google Maps is wrong.
OK, well to be more accurate, NAVTEQ and Tele Atlas two of the major sources of road data have a bunch of contradicting data. NAVTEQ data is used when you got to maps.google.com and are looking at things in San Antonio. Well what first clued me in to this is that there were two, yes two exit 566A going East on I-10. They are about 1/4 mile apart. You can understand how this could cause some confusion!
So as I was trying to figure this out, I came across the same place on the map that was using Tele Atlas data. (still on Google Maps) The issue gets even weirder, as there is not a off ramp for the first exit, but a on ramp!
My brain is all confused.
So I was thinking that maybe this is part of I-10 that has a 'upper' section and a 'lower' section. Yet more confusion. But I looked and the upper/lower debacle does not start till further East. Oh, BTW, if you start looking at this and wonder why I say I-10 East/West and not North/South (like the real true direction that you travel on it through SA) is because I-10 runs East/West through all of TX, just it goes North/South through SA.
At this point there seems to only be one conclusion. TXDot is messed in the head. With all of the crazy road designs that they use and the constant construction (if you can call it construction. It is not much more than lane closure and crap strung out all over the place, just never any one working on it and no progress. sorry) going on, no map data company can keep up.
Overall, getting useful search results from Google Maps is much more difficult in SA than in Vancouver/Portland.
So Google, I am not mad at you, just frustrated with something that is out of your control.
I was going to include pictures and diagrams to help explain this, I think that would have taken the geek factor of this post too far.
I am going to "try" to go to lunch now. I hope I don't get lost.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Not much going on
Well this week is almost over. Not much to write about so far. I have been training more. But at least this week they have started letting me do things, not just watch. I have next Monday off for Labor day, then starting that week the other shifts, 1st and 2nd, are starting 4 10's. So I will be getting a couple of Fridays off before moving to the 3rd shift. I am getting told that once on 3rd, I will have one more week of job shadowing, then I get tossed in the pool to play. :) I am thinking that that week will be spent getting use to the time change more than anything.
The traffic going to and from work is starting to get old. My commute is about 15 miles each way, but it can take anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes in the morning. On the way home, it has taken me 80 minutes one day. This will be one thing that I will not miss when working 3rd shift. Not much traffic at 9pm.
I have been noticing something interesting about some drivers in TX, more specifically their cars. There are some drivers that are ether using there parking brake to slow and stop, or they have disables their brake light switch. I don't see any other way that you can slow a car to a complete stop quickly without doing ether of the two things listed. Neat way to avoid calling attention to your self if you blow past a cop and need to slow down. Maybe just all of the light bulbs are just burnt out. Ya right.
The traffic going to and from work is starting to get old. My commute is about 15 miles each way, but it can take anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes in the morning. On the way home, it has taken me 80 minutes one day. This will be one thing that I will not miss when working 3rd shift. Not much traffic at 9pm.
I have been noticing something interesting about some drivers in TX, more specifically their cars. There are some drivers that are ether using there parking brake to slow and stop, or they have disables their brake light switch. I don't see any other way that you can slow a car to a complete stop quickly without doing ether of the two things listed. Neat way to avoid calling attention to your self if you blow past a cop and need to slow down. Maybe just all of the light bulbs are just burnt out. Ya right.
Friday, August 22, 2008
Week three
Getting a new job is fun.
Moving is fun, in a strange sort of fun way.
Getting a new job and moving at the same time is even more fun in a strange sort of way.
You have so much stuff to do, that you don’t really have time to have fun, but you are having fun not getting to having fun…
So today I got a big envelope with some mail from Vancouver. I also got a new debit card, a bunch of stuff on my car insurance, my life insurance, my dental insurance, stuff about my new 401k and my old 401k. I have mail all over the place.
My new debit card is because I somehow crack my card in half about every 6 to 9 months. It started to crack 3 days before I left to drive down here. Not so good timing. I have been babying it until I got the new one. I also have to learn a new PIN for it because my bank is not around here to get it re-PINed. I wish I could get a debit card made out of steel. It would be a little heavy, but I but it would last longer.
I then got all the stuff for transferring my auto insurance to TX. They messed the address up and they un-enrolled me from my automatic payment, which they said they would not do. Now I have to call them on Monday. On my life insurance, they changed the address to the house address that I am staying at. First, I never wanted them to touch the life insurance part, only the auto, and I told them to never send any thing to the house address, only the mail box that I am renting. I fear that they have somehow messed up my home owners insurance as well. At lest the dental insurance stuff is only the new card and I don’t have to do anything with it.
I also got about a pound of info from both my Nautilus 401k and stuff to look at about my new 401k. I really wish I could trust the financial adviser guys out there so that I did not have to spend a bunch of time looking this stuff over. I have contacted one of the people that Dave Ramsey recommended, but I still am leery of people in this profession. It also does not help that some people have the “southern hospitality” turned on a little too thick for a cynic like me. It is only my retirement at stake!
Other fun things to do when you move, get your new license and license plates. Well maybe if they had the DMV and all the other places they make you go to open on the weekend! I am going to be lucky if I get this done this year, with all the stuff they make you do.
While I am close to the subject of cars, I am going to give you a sneak peek at my observations of Texan drivers. I will bore you with a full post about this some other time, but for now I can sum them up with this: bi-polar lemmings!
And the best part about moving, getting to miss my nieces 3rd birthday. Getting to miss all my friends. Getting to miss all my family.
Ya moving is fun…
Moving is fun, in a strange sort of fun way.
Getting a new job and moving at the same time is even more fun in a strange sort of way.
You have so much stuff to do, that you don’t really have time to have fun, but you are having fun not getting to having fun…
So today I got a big envelope with some mail from Vancouver. I also got a new debit card, a bunch of stuff on my car insurance, my life insurance, my dental insurance, stuff about my new 401k and my old 401k. I have mail all over the place.
My new debit card is because I somehow crack my card in half about every 6 to 9 months. It started to crack 3 days before I left to drive down here. Not so good timing. I have been babying it until I got the new one. I also have to learn a new PIN for it because my bank is not around here to get it re-PINed. I wish I could get a debit card made out of steel. It would be a little heavy, but I but it would last longer.
I then got all the stuff for transferring my auto insurance to TX. They messed the address up and they un-enrolled me from my automatic payment, which they said they would not do. Now I have to call them on Monday. On my life insurance, they changed the address to the house address that I am staying at. First, I never wanted them to touch the life insurance part, only the auto, and I told them to never send any thing to the house address, only the mail box that I am renting. I fear that they have somehow messed up my home owners insurance as well. At lest the dental insurance stuff is only the new card and I don’t have to do anything with it.
I also got about a pound of info from both my Nautilus 401k and stuff to look at about my new 401k. I really wish I could trust the financial adviser guys out there so that I did not have to spend a bunch of time looking this stuff over. I have contacted one of the people that Dave Ramsey recommended, but I still am leery of people in this profession. It also does not help that some people have the “southern hospitality” turned on a little too thick for a cynic like me. It is only my retirement at stake!
Other fun things to do when you move, get your new license and license plates. Well maybe if they had the DMV and all the other places they make you go to open on the weekend! I am going to be lucky if I get this done this year, with all the stuff they make you do.
While I am close to the subject of cars, I am going to give you a sneak peek at my observations of Texan drivers. I will bore you with a full post about this some other time, but for now I can sum them up with this: bi-polar lemmings!
And the best part about moving, getting to miss my nieces 3rd birthday. Getting to miss all my friends. Getting to miss all my family.
Ya moving is fun…
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