Category Archives: Jack’s Travel

My business or non-family travel.

DFW Rental Car

DFW Airport Rental Return

Jack's Travel, , , , ,

About DFW Airport Rental Return: if you are in the North Dallas area, to return your rental car you need to head back to a specific address at the DFW Airport:

Center Garage Dr and Passport Dr, Irving, TX 75062 (DFW Airport Rental Return)

You can follow the signs to DFW, but they will take you to the North entrance to the airport. You’ll have to drive the length of the airport, another 6 miles South to get to the DFW Rental Car Center.  Last week, I was in Plano; from there, you take President George Bush Turnpike (PGBT) until it turns into 161, then exit onto Northgate Dr, and head West.

Save DFW Airport Rental Return address into your phone’s Google Map

So if you have a chance, program the address above into your mobile phone’s google map. Just telling google maps that you want to go to DFW is not good enough. For me, I’ve entered this address into Google Maps MyPlaces.

In Android Google Maps applications, the addresses in my MyPlaces are found under the Layers icon in the lower right of the screen (looks like three sheets of paper stacked). I click on MyPlace, then look for the location I saved. You probably already have your favorite way of saving location short cuts. This is just a suggestion.

You don’t have to save anything.  You can use the microphone feature inside of Google Maps; I found that saying “Passport Dr Irving Texas” into the microphone inside of Google Maps works good, too.  You can just type this same phrase into Google Maps.  I like pre entering my travel destinations into my phone as part of my travel planning.,

Some additional addresses

Chevron Gas Station, 5075 West Northgate, Irving, TX 75062
- In my experience, this is the best gas station to stop at and refill your rental car. In fact, this might be the address you put in your Google Maps app while driving to the airport. Stop here, then continue for another 1.5 miles along Rental Car Drive to the Rental Return.

DFW Rental Car Center, 2424 East 38th Street, Irving, TX 75062
- This address is for the front entrance to the Rental Car building. To return your cars, you need to go to the back. This is the address on the airport website. It works, but it confused me.

I was driving during rush hour, the last two miles of 161 (PGBT) was backed up. It wasn’t too bad, and it wouldn’t change my advise.

Tracks from my GPS

Above is a google map with tracks from my GPS device (I use a Garmin GPSMAP 60CSx).  The red box out lines the DFW Rental Car Center.  The orange line represents the track I followed to leave the airport; the purple line is my track back to the DFW Airport Rental Return. The flag labeled R is the rental car return entrance (Avis, Hertz).  The R location is the address I site at the beginning of this post.  The flag labeled G is the location of the Chevron Gas Station.  Many of us travelers have a money savings routine that includes one last stop at a gas station before returning the rental car.

Note: There’s a divided highway on Valley View Lane.  If you need to leave the gas station from the West entrance, you’ll have to take a right; it will take you a little out of the way, but you can circle back on S Airfield Dr.  See my GPS track in purple on the map above.

OT: DFW Airport Rental Center Public Art

Below are a few images from the beautiful lobby of the DFW Rental Car Center.  These are bronze statues of a cowboy and cattle.  It was striking enough for me to pause and take a couple of pictures.  It’s bigger that it looks.

DFW Rental CarDFW Rental CarDFW Rental Car

Saint Louis Cathedral

New Orleans French Quarter Walk

Jack's Travel, , , , , ,

Saint Louis CathedralBackground on my New Orleans French Quarter Walk: After my second day of meetings, I went out for a late evening walk through the French Quarter / Vieux Carré.

Guitar PlayerI started at Bourbon and Canal Street.  I walked Southeast along Canal Street to the Riverwalk Marketplace.  I circled back up Canal and branched onto N Peters Street, which merged into Decatur St.  I stopped at Jackson Square, then worked my way up St Peters Street, turned left onto Royal Street.  I passed by many shops, restaurants and street performers and ended up back on Canal.

The sun was setting on my New Orleans French Quarter Walk, the light was really nice and I took some good pictures.  Noteworthy:  Canal Streetcars, United States Custom House, Harrah’s New Orleans Hotel and Casino, Audubon Aquarium of the Americas, Paddlewheeler Creole Queen, Bienville  NOLA Founder statue, Saint Louis Cathedral, Cabildo, Charles de Gaulle Fountain, Major General Andrew Jackson statue, Court of Appeal building and Pat O’Brien’s.

Creole TownhouseI really liked the New Orleans French Quarter architecture.  The Creole Townhouses with their unique balconies are really nice looking, and I like how they are each decorated and painted differently.  Very nice character.  Also informative, the French Quarter has signs that remind you that this was also a Spanish Colonial city.

Just so you know, Jackson Square closes at 7pm sharp. I was lucky to get in and get a couple of pictures.  Also, some of the key St Louis Cathedral pictures were taken facing into the sun; I decided I was coming back the next morning.

Streetcar, Canal StreetThe next morning I headed back to Jackson Square and took a few more photos, but with sunrise, instead of sunset, lighting.  My focus was to get St Louis Cathedral, the Cabildo, and the Andrew Jackson equestrian statue all with better morning lighting.

My morning walk was from Canal street, following Chartres Street straight to St Louis Cathedral.  I then walked around Jackson Square, then headed back on Decatur Street finishing on Canal.

Tips:

As you might expect, at 6am in New Orleans, there are still some people out the prior night.  Indeed there were a couple of bars open, or at least they looked open.  But also, I stumbled upon a side walk spraying crew; they had a small truck with a big heavy plastic container filled with soapy, sudsy water.  I viewed this as a good thing.

French Quarter / Vieux Carré walk — Canal, Riverwalk, Decatur, St Peters, Royal at EveryTrail

Engineering Fountain

Purdue Campus Walk

Jack's Travel, , , , , ,

Here’s the background behind my Purdue Campus Walk:  I took the day off of work and drove down to West Lafayette to attend the celebration of the Purdue’s Computer Science Department’s 50th anniversary. This was a good chance for me to meet former professors, fellow alumni, students, and listen to day of distinguished speakers.

Memorial GymBefore this day of activities, I went for an early morning walk through the center of campus.  My meetings started at 10am, and I timed my walk with the rise of the early morning Sun over the tree tops — making for some very nice lighting on the buildings.

I started my Purdue Campus Walk at the Purdue Memorial Union, walked West along State Street, cross through Memorial Mall, crossed by the Armory to University Street, then headed back through the Engineering Mall, then cut through the Chemistry Buildings back to the Union.

Along the way, I saw:  Purdue Memorial Union, St. Thomas Aquinas, University Hall, Spirit Arch, Purdue Bell Tower, Elliott Hall of Music, Memorial Gym, Math Sciences Building, Lawson Computer Science Building, Hovde Hall, Engineering Fountain, Potter Building, and the Wetherill Laboratory of Chemistry.

This is a favorite campus walk for me.  Nice familiar place, with lots of good memories.  This morning was very nice morning for a Purdue Campus Walk.

Lawson Building

Tips:


If you can, get a room at the Union Club Hotel.  This is the only hotel on campus.  Since the campus doesn’t permit cars, it is very hard to find a parking place.

At the Union, you can park in the hotel garage and walk anywhere on campus.  Everything is nice and close — easy walking.

Purdue Campus Walk – Union, University Hall, Bell Tower, Engineering Mall at EveryTrail

Vint Cerf at Purdue

Jack's Travel, Web Programming, , , ,

Vint Cerf Presenting at PurdueBackground on my Vint Cerf at Purdue posting:  I attended the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Computer Science department at Purdue University. It was an excellent chance for me to see former professors, alumni and attend a day of presentations by distinguished lecturers, including Vint Cerf, on of the founders of the Internet.

Vint Cerf at Purdue on “Political, Economic, Social and Technical (PEST) Impacts of the Internet”

Purdue UniversityHe told the story of how the Internet was founded. He very modestly discribed his role and shared a bunch of factoids on the growth of the Internet and some new initatives.

Some topics that caught my attention: IPv6, internationalization (UTF-8), new gTLD, DNSSec, Sensor Networks, Smart Grid, Mobile Devices, poisoned caches, routing system hijacking, a laptop integrated into a surf board (surfing while surfing), digital vellum, Openflow and content based routing, MOOC, etc.

Interplanetary Internet

[youtube  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTmYm3gMYOQ&w=300&h=180]

He was particularly excited telling his story behind interplanetary internet. He described the problem of transmitting a packet to Mars where the propagation distance can vary between 7-40 minutes of round trip delay, or even worse given that the planet rotates out of coverage once per Mars day. He described that space craft in the future will be designed to perform deep space network relaying for the benefit of follow on missions.

CDsHe was particularly stuck by a meeting with a librarian who showed him a perfectly preserved manuscript from over a 1000 years ago. He was challenged to show them any computer-based storage technology that can hold its meaning for a 1000 years (let alone 10)! He said that Internet needs to create a Digital Vellum.

Do Anything Differently?

A member of the audience asked what was wrong with the original Internet design and what he would do differently? The question was received with some laughter because it implied that Internet designer had done a less than perfect job, but in good spirit he answered: IP address space and security.

For IP addresses, they discussed number of countries, number of sites, and numbers of servers, based on creating something that mirrored the DARPA net. 32 bits was more than enough. They debated variable vs fixed length, and they decided that since the Internet was a research project that they could revisit the decision if they ever decided to productize the design.

For security, they had a whole nicely designed security solution worked-out with the military. It never got put into the Internet because noone had sufficient security clearance to know what the security architecture was going to be. Further, the original paper by Martin Hellmen, et al (Diffie-Hellmen Key Exchange) didn’t come out until the late 70s. If it had been around, they would have used it.

The Machine StopsAnother question from a student in the audience: (paraphrasing) … if the internet is connected to your bathroom scale, your refrigerator and everything in your refrigerator is RFI tagged, then what’s to stop the government from locking your refrigerator if you weigh too much? This question was asked very sincerely. Vint gave a good answer that said this question has been asked since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution around how machines are taking over our lives. He referred the student to a 1909 book called “The Machine Stops,” by E. M. Forester.

Video of Vint Cerf at Purdue

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-8lXXzQ1e8 ]

Purdue posted a nice introductory video of Vint’s presentation; it’s only the first 3 minutes. At some point, I’d like to get Vint’s ppt slides and maybe a pointer to his full presentation. I’ll post here if I can.

I was honored to sit at his table for dinner. We shared a brief conversation about Google’s Serge LaChapple and his WebRTC project. Vint was very excited about it.

Lawson Building

Lawson Computer Science Building