It’s approaching almost a year now that Jodi and I have been sharing one car.  I thought I’d write a little bit on what it has been like — certainly not easy, especially here in Atlanta (a top 10 in traffic and sprawl in the country).

With Jodi traveling a lot to Athens, GA — really, I have been living without a car.  Here’s how I’ve been commuting:

* Scooter: I bought a 49.5cc scooter (no tag, no title necessary) that I use for most commutes longer than 2-3 miles. I take it to work, to the grocery store, and on errands.  I love being able to park up front/close or in the bike racks.

* Bike: I had a nice urban/hybrid bike, with 700cc tires, but it got stolen.  I’m back to a Schwinn mountain bike (was free) that I use for grocery store runs and sticking on the front of Marta.

* Marta Bus/Rail: I’m lucky in that there’s a bus line that stops right in front of my place.  It goes right to the main Five Points Marta station downtown, which means I can go all the way up to Sandy Springs/Doraville, if needed.

* Zipcar: I use zipcar when I really just need a car (driving to visit my mom in Lawrenceville, or picking up large things).

Advantages:

Besides the obvious ability to project a snobbish “oh, i don’t own a car,” liberal, sort-of-whiny tone with people as I rail on them about the environment or whatever else it is you’re supposed to when you don’t own a car (BTW, if you can’t tell, I don’t do this), I enjoy the freedom of all these modes.  I love taking the scooter up to the grocery store and parking right out front.  I once took the scooter to an Atlanta Braves Game, and parked so close to the stadium that I couldn’t even stop talking about what a great parking spot I got (and free, no doubt).  I like not worrying about my car when I go to the airport on trips.  I like being able to work on my laptop on Marta, read a book, or listen to podcasts while on public transportation.  I like not going to the gas station (or when I do, filling up for a buck or two every month). As the weather gets nicer, it’s going to be a lot easier to take all these modes (and the bike a bit more), which is good exercise (sometimes I’ll ride Marta downtown to work, but take the bike all the way back home, making sure to take off the dress shirt first).

Disadvantages:
It certainly is not easy.  There’s a lot of planning all the time, based on lots of factors (the weather, plans after work, plans during work, etc.).  Unfortunately, lots of places (including Atlantic Station, which surprises me since it is so new) have little or no regard to Scooters or motorcycles.  You cannot park a scooter or motorcycle in the Atlantic Station parking decks, and you have to park it only in certain places, which makes going to any of the office buildings practically worthless.  On the Emory campus, I was told I could not park in the parking deck, and then when I parked in a bike rack outside, got booted and fined.  I’ll hold off my tirade on what these places should actually do (encourage alternate forms of transportation), since they logically make sense (reduce traffic, encourage more visitors).  It’s also not safe — I wrecked the Scooter once, and it hurt bad (me and the scooter).  I’ve since taken a Motorcycle Safety Course, but still feel pretty dangerous when driving scooter or riding bike at dusk/night.

I’ve found that I actually need all of these modes of transportation — there’s not just one I can simply replace for owning a car.  For instance, Zipcar seems like it could be the “swap” but it’s not.  It’s too expensive to take to work and just leave it all day without use, and that’s just not what it’s for.  The scooter is great, but not when it’s raining or cold, or I have to go somewhere by Highway/Freeway (or pick up a friend or relative).  Marta — well, to be perfectly honest, it can be scary sometimes, and doesn’t go everywhere.  Once, when taking Marta to the airport (suitcase and laptop bag in hand) for a business trip to Frankfurt, I got offered drugs twice (I politely declined both times, for the record).

Many times, I’ll use a combination of the two.  When meeting some friends across town, I’ll reserve a zipcar (on my iphone while walking out the door), take the scooter or bike down to where it’s parked, and then take the zipcar.  I love tossing my bike on the front of the Marta bus, and then taking it with me on the rail line.  I’ve also taken my scooter down to the Marta station, and jumped on from there.

Sure, even my friends in San Francisco make fun of me and Jodi, for having a Prius (with the Bike Rack always on the back), and a scooter, but now that I’m used to it, I just don’t think I can go back to jumping in a car every time I need to go somewhere.

I Just got back from two amazing gigs — last week I was in New York at the nytimes.com, helping their interactive team get up to speed on some of the new Rails features, and some consulting on some of their interactive apps (Oscars meets fantasy football, anyone?).  Those guys are whip smart though, so I think I might have been the one doing all the learning.

The very next week, I went down to the ajc.com (well, Cox Communications HQ) to work with the Internet Tech team, but again — some really smart people there, too.  We did a lot with some of the newer Merb/Rack/Rails-Metal technologies — very cool stuff.

It’s fascinating to see how these two organizations are really embracing the rapid-web-application space, and still really trying to figure out ways to monetize what they produce, more effectively.  It’s not really so different from many of our client work at Highgroove.  I guess what I’m saying is that many of our clients have the exact same goal — find ways to monetize their core value proposition.  Everyone is looking to be more efficient, dare I say it, in light of recent economic farthcomingshenancigansskis (there, I made up a word, which has both negative and positive connotations — take it or leave it).

Sure, times are tough, but smart people are still hard at work.  And somehow, I’m still working, too.

It’s not just your average, run of the mill garden, mind you.  It’s an urban, guerrilla garden — meaning that I don’t own the land, technically.

It’s on an abandonded lot, owned by the city, and it backs up to my building’s common area.  We maintain it (read: remove all the weeds and brush growing there), so I figure I’m doing everyone a favor by making use of unused land.

I’ve started a quick and dirty blog of my adventures, named A Geek’s Urban Garden.

Highgroove Atlanta got office space.  Best part: a REAL espresso machine.

Jodi and I are down to the Prius (~50 MPG) and a Scooter (~80 MPG).

We just got back from vacation in Florida and Derek’s Wedding in California.

Baxter Street Lofts has only 4 units left!

I should be working right now.

Down at Highgroove Studios, we’ve finally lifted the wraps off Scout, our simple solution to server monitoring and reporting.

It’s true, we’ve been using Scout internally now for months, and it has proven its usefulness time and time again. We’ve also been collecting meticulous feedback from our pre-launch users. We hope it saves our customers as much time as it has saved us.

See the Scout Blog announcement here: Scout Opens to the Public
See our blog announcement here: Scout’s Grand Opening

Just a quick note to everyone out there that Jameson and I survived the Atlanta Downtown Tornado of 2008 (I’m trying to make it sound more dramatic than it really was).

Strangely enough, I was outside walking my dog when the tornado hit — only just now did I find out that I was merely a few miles from the path of the tornado. I remember it being a nasty storm, and getting pretty drenched with rain, but I had no idea it was as bad as it was until I opened the door to my place and the power on the entire street went out. For about 5 seconds it was eerily quiet and very dark.

From my view outside, I can see downtown, and it is strange to see a few buildings still with holes in the windows and curtains flapping in the wind.

A strange occurrence, for sure — Atlanta hasn’t ever had a tornado in the downtown area (at least since they’ve been keeping track).

Life is good!

Baxter Street Lofts is very close to completion, and the entire site looks amazing. Jodi’s been working non-stop putting the final pieces in place. If you want to picture Jodi these days, just imagine her face glued to her Red Treo mobile phone with a huge stack of files in one hand and her MacBook balancing on the other arm.

Mom is working the Millard Fuller booth (founder of Habitat for Humanity) at the Atlanta Home Show this weekend.

Highgroove Studios is doing better than ever. Our clients just plain rock, and we’ve really honed our process down to pure good-ness. Our long-term goals are clear, our vision is good, and our team is rock-star solid.

I’ve been heads-down, getting Scout ready to launch. We *just* finally got the virtualized, geographically-disperse (InterNAP and AtlantaNAP) hosted web/application instances up. The two database instances (also virtualized and geographically-disperse) are configured with Master-Master replication and have hardware fail-over load-balancing. That’s some pretty serious hardware and setup — but all worth it when I tested by dropping one of the servers while inserting some records through the web application, and rebooting with no hiccups, not even a noticeable lag or nothing!

My dog, Jameson, my little work buddy, sits next to me every day while I work, reminding me when it is time to take a break. She is also a really good listener when it comes to explaining AJAX page updates or general Ruby on Rails questions. As I type this, I’m getting a reminder that it *is* time, right now.

Jodi and I attended our good friend Ben Krause’s gallery showing last Friday - a solo exhibition by another good friend of ours, a talented artist named David Peterson.

I’ve known David for a little while, and always loved his work. I take that back: I friggin’ love this guy and his work. Another disclaimer: we commissioned him to do a large piece for our home. I have watched his work over the past years, and I was looking forward to his solo show.

I remember walking in the gallery last Friday and being blown away. The show was amazing. As a techie/engineer-type, to me, his resin-based artwork resembles amazingly clear flat-panel like displays showing the most intricate, detailed patterns and colors. Pure blacks, and bright colors — amazing, just awesome. For even more of David’s work, check out his website at davidepeterson.com.

I got this letter from my pal Javier:

Dear englishspeaking friends

As you might have already heard, we’re planning a little roadtrip in may 2008 starting from Zürich to Odessa (Ukraine). We’ll be driving about 3000km in 10 days in a car that should cost less than CHF 500 (~ $425). The cars will be sold in Odessa and the profit will be donated to a local NGO.

Intrested in joining us? Write an email before the end october that contains the following information:

1. Teamname
2. First name, last name and email-address of every team member.

The maximum number of cars will be 20, so: First come, first served!

Gentlemen, start your engines!

Carlo, Duri and Javier

P.S.: Excuse our english, but it’s not our fault that your german sucks.

I’m sitting on the porch of the Georgia Tech’s Solar Home, listening in on the strategy sessions on regulating the power from the array of solar panels on the roof. The competition’s scoring system has all kinds of regulations, rules, and ways to earn points. This means the strategies range from making sure the electric car is drawing excess energy from the panels, while running the dishwasher to using passive cooling (opening the doors) versus simply saving up energy to complete the energy balance (no net loss) daily.

The competition is really heating up. Georgia Tech’s team is a bit bummed about their placement in the Lighting category. Their entire concept is based on Lighting — and is quite spectacular, with the best natural light of all the homes, in my humble opinion. Somehow, with their clever use of LED, florescent, and sun-light, they got placed last (20th), and not just last, but quite far behind the 19th place finisher. It’s quite baffling, and it’s dropped them from 2nd to 4th, which says a lot about how well they’re still doing in every other category.

The mood on the mall of DC is very cool. Last night, Jodi was giving me a “private” tour when Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) walked up with a few aides, and wanted a tour as well. So, Bernie and I toured the home with Jodi as our guide.