Advice on riding Amtrak - first class!

Via Chris May/flickr

It's been a few years since I had a vacation. The last time I had ever been out of town since working was going to SpelHouse Homecoming in 2011. Which was the first time I had visited Atlanta, Georgia since graduating from Morehouse College in 2009.

This past weekend I took Amtrak for the first time since 2009 - which incidentally I took the train after visiting Mound Bayou, Mississippi in fall 2009. This past weekend I went to Memphis, Tennessee for a funeral. It felt great to get out of town to the point where no matter where I work it'll just have to be important to take a quick trip every now and again.

A few years ago I had some advice as far as making reservations for the train. Coach-class train travel is OK for the most part but sometimes it's better to travel first-class in a sleeper. The problem is that first-class will cost more depending on where you're going. On top of a coach-class ticket you will pay an up-charge for a sleeper car accommodation and that charge will depend on what size room you want. Cheapest likely would be a roomette. If you want more information on sleeper accommodations visit amtrak.com.

In any case we took coach-class to Memphis and then when making the reservations somehow we (well actually my mother) were able to get a sleeper for only $25 more although the ticket round-trip was still in the neighborhood of $600! While we made reservations at the last minute Amtrak was able to get in touch with a deal on a sleeper berth but only on the return trip. This happened when we returned from Dallas, Texas via Amtrak somehow we also got offered a sleeper at a discount.

Needless to say the sooner you make a reservation the better. You can always go ahead and make a reservation for a coach seat in the hopes that Amtrak may call you again offering first-class accommodations at a discount. As for making reservations for a sleeper you can check out this USA Today link one of those options for reserving first-class accommodations is to ask for an upgrade on the train. Although the likelihood of such a possibility is slim.

I would like to do LA via train again and when I did that in 2005 it was in a coach seat. I'm not planning on doing that again, but hopefully I can afford a roomette on the train round trip for the two night ride to the Golden State.

Wishing I can get into real estate

Photo via Curbed Chicago

If only I had enough money to get into real estate. I would like to do rehab a house the way this greystone on the north side of Chicago had been. It's either that or build a house exactly the way this greystone was rehabbed.

As the "blogmaster" for The Sixth Ward I've followed real estate in the often beleaguered south side neighborhood of Englewood. Recently there were information on a vacant lot program which allowed Englewood neighbors in a pilot program to purchase and close on vacant lots there. The cost wasn't entirely cost prohibitive.

It's certainly cost prohibitive to build on those lots if that's what you chose to do with them. At the same time it's not necessary to build on those lots although if I was able to purchase a lot that's exactly what I would like to do. If nothing else until one gets the capital to build anything it's OK to turn these lots into oases instead of lots where weeds would grow and trash would collect.

Of course Englewood isn't the only neighborhood in Chicago where such a program is necessary. And who knows perhaps I'll have the luxury of buying a lot in the future and hopefully build the house I want to build. Or more likely have some property when a neighborhood turns around.

I mention Englewood because I'm starting to believe it's on the cusp. With a major CTA rail line and then a Whole Foods Market coming to such an impoverished neighborhood it seems very likely.

Now to start getting ready to get into real estate.

Alright enough blogs already...

I used to have a blog called My Mind's Eye and now that at the current moment Instagram (ig) is the hot property it's time to bring it back. A ready place to take snapshots from my mobile phone.

It's was something I had done there even with my old Razr phone. Now we're in the era of the smartphone with my current iPhone 4S. And I can share not only some shots that were posted to ig but shots I've taken without touching them up via ig.

So now, I've created a new version of My Mind's Eye with a beta designation. The landscape has changed with cameraphones as opposed to the point and shoot camera I used to have. Still why not have more venues to share the shots I have taken so far.

And if you think I've had enough of these blogs then who's to say I won't decide to stop posting to that blog at some point in the future. It can happen. lol

Adventures in getting connected online...

I like to state that I've been fooling around with the internet for many years in the pre-Facebook - Twitter - Instagram - Myspace years. The internet of the late 1990s was so low-tech I often wondered if my teenaged-self head would explode with what the internet offers day.

Most people years ago connected via dial-up and only recently did my home get connected with DSL broadband. Dial-up was cheap broadband wasn't and thankfully DSL prices went down - even if introductory - to the point where I felt comfortable going for it.

All the same that doesn't mean things don't happen to the point where you'd have to call for help. I'm learning that even DSL is headed towards being obsolete. Since my DSL service is through AT&T now I'm learning about U-verse which is supposed to be fast internet as opposed to DSL although Uverse is DSL of some sort.

Anyway it's a bit of a hassle to even get tech support via AT&T because if you have a problem with service as I have then they might decide well that's an opportunity to upgrade. The only thing is all you want is the possibility of a restoration of service. In that instance even getting a new modem seems out of the question as I had been told.

So regardless after seeing how difficult it can be to get through the AT&T sales pitch and finally get some internet service restored and was told finally that we should just get another DSL modem for now. It took time to get service back and while I'm confident in my ability to do things on my own I was forced to call AT&T to get my new modem up and running.

I'm really glad I did and after almost three days offline I'm back on the web. All I needed was to use the correct password to get back to where I wanted to be. That means more activity on the PC and away from my various mobile devices.

You should see this when you get a chance...

[VIDEO] Dear White People (DWP)


If I didn't know better it was a comedy to me. It's been described as more a dramatic satire than anything else. It's very easy to compare this movie to Spike Lee's School Daze (SD).

Fact is it's an inverted version of Lee's classic. DWP is set at a fictitious Ivy League university and we see how the Black students in this movie cope with life at this predominantly white institution.

SD is basically about life at a fictitious historically black college. In fact that film had been shot at the various universities of the Atlanta University Center (AUC). Although those schools took umbrage at Lee's production and ultimately ordered them away from the respective campuses of the AUC.

Regardless, this film takes a look at the racial things college students engage themselves in. In the news we've seen stories of how white students may try to mock Blacks. We see it nakedly in this movie as if the point was they want to be like "us". Certainly Blacks are a lot more than the stereotypes we run into on the news.

Of course there are plenty of other issues in the movie than the simple conflicts between Blacks & whites and how they interact in an academic environment. We see some internal and interpersonal conflict. For example, a mixed race woman has to come to terms with her white father. A Black male who's had issues with other Blacks because of his sexual orientation. An aspiring Black politician who is still under the thumb of his father who had recently been appointed to a major position at this Ivy League University.

There's a lot of drama and funny moments in this movie to hold your attention. You should give it a chance before it eventually leaves your local cinemas.

What should I do with my other Instagram account?

Since late July I had been utilizing a 2nd profile - attached to The Sixth Ward - on the social networking site Instagram. Basically it's used for snapshots taken around the neighborhood and sharing ("regram") posts from other ig users. If used for the sharing of information as has been done with The Sixth Ward's ig it's very nifty.

One of the recent posts that have been somewhat newsworthy was the snapshot (seen above and embed below) I had taken of a local hotdog stand - Jim's Original. The stand is located near the 95th terminal of the CTA Red Line and is slated to close as a result of a project to significantly expand the CTA terminal. It had been the closest and easiest place for me to get a Maxwell Street polish sausage.

All the same I've been wondering what is the most effective way to use this social networking program. It probably can't be used the same way I have been able to use The Sixth Ward's Twitter and Facebook pages.

What I can count on is that it has attracted followers from a number of areas. For example both the Twitter & fb pages have attracted some major companies for example Mariano's as many people on Chicago's south side want to attract the newest grocer to this at part of the city.

My ig page has gotten followed by AMC Theatres which I threw a shout-out for that. In addition to that I have followers who include politicians on the local and state level in addition to aspiring activists and of course aspiring businessmen. Even better my ig page is being followed by the Maroon Tiger ig which is the student newspaper of my alma mater Morehouse College.

So the next question. What is the best way to truly utlize this account? Could this be one way to market the south side to any future investors especially any major companies to come to this part of town? Can it be utilized to share important information?

This Jim's Original hot dog stand is closing permanently Nov. 10 due to the 95th cta project. Here's hoping they'll find another nearby location in the future.

A photo posted by The Sixth Ward (@thesixthward) on Nov 11, 2014 at 12:21pm PST

Gizmodo: What Do You Miss Most About the Early Days of the Internet?

I'm not sure there's a whole lot I miss about Web 1.0. Things were simple in those days and perhaps I might miss that. I just don't miss dial-up and perhaps some of the low-tech nature of the internet back in the mid-1990s.

I'm just as appreciative of all the tools that exist today. Some of these tools existed such as this Blogger platform. If only I knew about that back then.