Bay Bridge: 2013

I’ve always loved bridges.  I remember a younger self heading out on restless nights to drive over the Bay Bridge to marvel at human ingenuity.  The eastern span of the bridge has always been god-awful ugly, however.  So I was excited when construction began on the new eastern span. 

 

In any case, I stumbled upon this pretty awesome site (http://baybridge360.org/).  It’s surprisingly elegant and attempts to provide a hands on approach to following the construction/retrofitting of the new and old spans. 

 

Short term plan

Sell off everything I don’t need:

  • 1 road bike
  • 1 set of carbon tubular Zipps (i.e. racing wheels)
  • 1 20” LCD monitor
  • 1 ’97 BMW M3

Reduce set cost of living:

  • No more car insurance (or rather pay much less by including myself on Sanny’s)
  • No more co-lo (use cloud computing when desired – otherwise just work locally)

Save/invest all savings.

Which is sexier?

 

Or:

 

 

If you had asked me a year ago, I’d have said the Ferrari.  Sure, as a status symbol of one, a fast car is king.  But it serves no greater purpose and is of course a money sink at the same time.  So while I won’t have the funds to buy a Ferrari or have access to a local High Speed Rail service anytime in the next 10 years (CAHSR supposedly will open for service in 2018ish) I much prefer to drool over the beauty and potential that is modern heavy rail: the status symbol of region.

 

*Note:  This choice is more difficult when you substitute a Tesla for the Ferrari.