weekend trip tool

I get one Friday off a month this summer and want to take quick, relaxing, cheap trips. Wish there was a site that showed you a map with circles surrounding your immediate area telling you what was within a 1, 2 or 3 hour plane, train, or bus ride of you. It would be matched up with Foursquare's API or FB or Loopt or something that would tell you which of your friends were within those circles.

So let's say that I was using it (like my terrible drawing?), I could see that Philly is only a 1.5 hour train ride away and that my friend Erica lives there. Then I would be able to drop Erica a line to see if she would mind me visiting for the weekend.

Alright. So who can build this?

chugging along slowly

An hour and 45 minutes after we were supposed to depart, we have now loaded the train. Conductor just announced that we will be waiting here until they fix the track, or something similar to that. No one on the train could really hear the announcement so it's that's our best guess. Great.

How is it that the oldest form of mass ground transportation still hasn't figured out how to get people from A to B on time and without headache? Makes me think of the old Einstein quote: "No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it." Maybe it's time for Amtrak to think outside of it's own antiqued level of consciousness and typical methods of problem solving. We may be able to find a new way to fix trains or track issues, a new way to construct the equipment entirely or perhaps even just a way to make the wait worth a traveler's while. 


#comeonamtrak