Ian On The Red Dot

The son introduces the father:

Hearing about how he would commute back just to be with the family, a commute that the son mentioned was four hours, I can’t help but think Singaporeans are generally weak, seeing how we feel about our own commuting experience in Singapore.

Much closer to home - look at the Malaysians who cross over to Singapore everyday to work.

When something is important enough, the strong will make it happen.

Transcript:

Good evening, I’m Beau Biden. And Joe Biden is my dad.

Many of you know him as a distinguished and accomplished senator. I know him as an incredible father and a loving grandfather. A man who hustled home to Delaware after the last vote so he wouldn’t miss me and my brother’s games. Who, after returning from some war-torn region of the world, would tiptoe into our room and kiss us goodnight. Who turns down some fancy cocktail party in Washington so he won’t miss my daughter Natalie’s birthday party.

The truth is, he almost wasn’t a senator at all. In 1972, shortly after his improbable victory, but before he took the oath of office, my father went to Washington to look at his new office space. My mom took us to go buy a Christmas tree. On the way home, we were in an automobile accident. My mom, Neilia, and sister, Naomi, were killed. My brother, Hunter, and I were seriously injured and hospitalized for weeks. I was just short of 4 years old. One of my earliest memories was being in that hospital, Dad always at our side. We, not the Senate, were all he cared about.

He decided not to take the oath of office. He said, “Delaware can get another senator, but my boys can’t get another father.” However, great men like Ted Kennedy, Mike Mansfield, Hubert Humphrey — men who had been tested themselves — convinced him to serve. So he was sworn in, in the hospital, at my bedside. As a single parent, he decided to be there to put us to bed, to be there when we woke from a bad dream, to make us breakfast, so he’d travel to and from Washington, four hours a day.

Five years later, we married my mom, Jill. They together rebuilt our family. And 36 years later, he still makes that trip. So even though Dad worked in Washington, he’s never been part of Washington. He always sounded like the kid from Scranton, Pa., he is. And even that is a story of overcoming.

Now some people poke fun at my dad talking too much. What a lot of people don’t know is that, when he was young, he had a severe stutter. The kids called him Dash — not because he was fast on the football field, which he was, but like a dash at the end of a sentence you can’t finish. But now he speaks with a clear and strong voice. He says what needs to be said. And he does what needs to be done.

When domestic violence was often a dark secret, Dad wrote the Violence Against Women Act, which gave countless women support, protection and a new chance at life. When crime was spiking in our communities, Dad wrote the crime bill that put 100,000 cops on the streets and led to an eight-year drop in crime across the country. When Serbian thugs were committing genocide in the Balkans, Dad didn’t hesitate to call Slobodan Milosevic a war criminal to his face, and to convince Congress and our allies to act. He’s willing to speak truth to power: to the White House and to world leaders.

I know my father will be a great vice president. As I mentioned, my dad has always been there for me, my brother and my sister, every day. But because of other duties, it won’t be possible for me to be here this fall to stand by him the way he stood by me. So I have something to ask of you. Be there for my dad like he was for me.

Be there for Barack Obama because our country needs him. Be there for both of them because millions of families need to know that their best days aren’t behind them, but ahead of them. Be there for both of them because millions of people are trying to overcome, just like my dad overcame. Be there. Be there because Barack Obama and Joe Biden will deliver America the change we so desperately need. Please join me in welcoming my friend, my father, my hero and the next vice president of the United States: Joe Biden.

Came across an interesting article about commuting in the USA.  Every since I started working, I have been having mixed feelings about my daily commute to work.  There are days when it is enjoyable, days when it downright sucks, weeks when I take it as a challenge to be as efficient as possible and try to cut my daily timing for traveling and moments when I decide to take a break from routine and find another way to go home wondering what interesting things I might stumble upon.

I find commuting to work interesting and the article touches a lot of the things I have been thinking about - why we put up with commuting and its routine nature, how we make traveling to work bearable, the social impact of (long) commutes, the psychological impact of (long) commutes, the psychological impact of having commuting to work as part of the daily routine.

Compared to the people mentioned in this article, I have it easy with my travel to work in terms of time taken and distance traveled.  However, there are some things to consider that puts these differences in time and distance traveled into perspective - for example, one of the reasons why the people put up with the long travel to work is so that they can have a nice home at a price they can afford.

How about Singaporeans?  At the end of the day, what do we go back to?

One of the takeaway from the article is that maybe Singapore’s public transport system isn’t as good as we claim it to be.

Let’s do some guesstimation with values from the article.

Rossi travels home from Lexington Avenue at 53th Street to the station at Port Jervis.  Based on Google Maps, the straight line distance between the two points is about 90 km.

My daily travel to work starts from a bus stop which is about 15 km away along a straight line ending at Tampines MRT station.

On a good day, my travel time, including waiting time at the bus stop and stations, is 1 hour fifteen minutes.  On a bad day, it can go up to 1 hour 45 minutes.

Let’s be generous and say the trip takes 1 hour.  I’m rounding down.

Rossi’s trip is about 3 hours and fifteen minutes.  Let’s round it up to four hours.

Her trip is 4 times longer than mine in terms of time spent travelling.   However, her trip in terms of distance is 6 times longer.

Of course this comparison is unfair.  For example, the distance may be longer but the number of stations in between the two points is not necessarily more - Rossi might not experience as many train stops compared to a Singaporean traveling from City Hall and Tampines.  Also, the distance between stops are longer which could allow trains to go faster.

I feel the problem with the current system is not the inefficiency of our MRT system but the density of stations.  The lack of density means the success of the MRT system within the wider public transport system depends on the buses because we would rely on the buses to get us to the stations.

For me, most of the time is actually wasted waiting for the bus and taking the bus to a station.

Back to commuting.  The days when I find commuting sad, I find it sad because it seems like we are living our lives between points.  I start living my life when I reach home or when I am at work.  During the time in between those two points, I could very well be cryogenically frozen.  While people do read, sleep, listen to music, talk on the phone, play games on their PSP and chat with their friends, somehow that doesn’t seem to be living.  I can’t seem to shake of the feeling that it isn’t living and can’t seem to articulate why it isn’t.

Maybe, it is because there isn’t much interaction with your fellow human beings.  Maybe because the traveling is just seen as a means to getting somewhere and not something to be experienced and enjoyed in its own right.  Maybe because the routine seems to drain the soul, or at least my soul.  Maybe because there rarely isn’t any exploring and discovery while commuting to work and a good commute in terms of time depends on predictability which further reduces the chances of any serendipity.

How do you guys make your commute to work and back home bearable if not enjoyable?