Riding Amtrak’s Silver Meteor from Savannah to New York City in a Private Roomette, April 2024

Amtrak Silver Meteor Train, Savannah to Penn Station, NYC.

I decided to ride Amtrak back home after visiting my folks, because I dislike the indignity of traveling by air in the United States. I’ve had more than my fair share of “random bag checks,” and I disagree with the security theater at TSA checkpoints that does more to insult than protect.

While a train obviously takes longer than an airplane flight, it provides the individual with a dignified travel experience. You walk from the station to the tracks, board your train, and off you go.

I opted for a roomette aboard Amtrak’s Silver Meteor so that I could sleep more easily on the overnight train ride. The scheduled trip time was about 14 hours, but the actual trip time was closer to 17. For one-way travel, the cost was only a little more than a plane ticket.

Overall, I enjoyed the experience. Perhaps because the experience was new, I had trouble staying asleep. When I ride again, I might take a sleep aid like Melatonin to help with my sleep. Also, as others have remarked online, there were delays. My train’s delays meant that I missed the dinner service, and since the train was designated only with dinner and breakfast service, there was no lunch service despite arriving 3 hours late in NYC the next day. Thankfully, I had learned from other train travelers and came prepared with extra water and snacks to tide me over. However, I might pack an MRE for a meal next time to have something more substantial to eat if needed.

Below are some photos of my trip aboard the Silver Meteor and my roomette. I tried to capture the roomette’s features and amenities as well as demonstrate how much/little leg room there is if you are traveling with another person. Also, this train has a toilet in the roomette–something you would need to negotiate its use if traveling with someone else. Finally, I have some photos of the dining car and the early morning breakfast that I enjoyed (as the dining options are limited, the earlier you go to a meal, the more likely the option you want will still be available).

Savannah Amtrak Station

Two of two murals painted inside the Savannah Amtrak Station.

Savannah Amtrak Station entrance as seen from train when leaving

Sleeping Car

Roomette

Amtrak Silver Meteor Train, Roomette left side seat with toilet and sink, Savannah to Penn Station, NYC.

Roomette Toilet and Folding Sink

Amtrak Silver Meteor Train, Roomette toilet seat, Savannah to Penn Station, NYC.

Amtrak Silver Meteor Train, Roomette toilet seat up, Savannah to Penn Station, NYC.

Amtrak Silver Meteor Train, Roomette sink folded down for use, Savannah to Penn Station, NYC.

Roomette Interior Door and Window to Hallway

Amtrak Silver Meteor Train, Roomette sliding door and interior window with curtains pulled, Savannah to Penn Station, NYC.

Roomette Legroom

Roomette Folding Table

Amtrak Silver Meteor Train, Roomette metal folding table, Savannah to Penn Station, NYC.

Roomette Bunk Bed

Dining Car

Passing Through Washington, DC

Jefferson Memorial and Washington Memorial seen from Amtrak passenger train

Capital Building seen from Amtrak passenger train

Passing Train

Thinking About My Friend Chris Lee: Macintosh Aficionado, Music Guru, and Eidetic Memory Man for Movie Dialog

Chris hanging out in Brunswick. This was my second photo with my Sony Cybershot 2MP camera.

Recently, I was telling my City Tech colleague Kate Falvey about a habit of thought that I have when I encounter things that I would ordinarily want to share with a specific person who I think would be interested in that thing even though that person might have passed away. That kind of thought happens more often with my friend Chris Lee, who passed away in 2016. Our mutual interest in computers, pop culture, and video games was the currency of our friendship over many years that began when he saw me pull out my Apple Powerbook 145B in Mr. Norris’ Graphic Design class at Brunswick High School. Later, after we had a falling out around 2000, he mended the bridge and we became good friends again.

Me in a green hoodie and Chris in a blue jacket outdoors at night.

When we were younger, our great ambition was to open a computer repair shop and publicize it with a video of us marching through flames as Rammstein’s “Du Hast” blasts in the background. He pushed the limits of good sense by loading what I believe to be a record number of Control Panels and Extensions that would dance along the bottom of his Mac’s boot screen–at least three full lines of icons at 1024 x 768. He created archives of sound that surpassed mortal lifespans capable of listening to it all. He mastered anything released for the Nintendo GameCube. He had a phenomenal memory for movie dialog–a specialized eidetic memory that would have been a superpower at trivia night.

Chris Lee dancing in his parents' living room.

The last thing that we talked about was how much had gone on in our lives so far. I texted him, “Too bad we don’t have a time traveling DeLorean. We could stop by and blow our younger selves’ minds 😎.” His reply and last text to me was, “I wish I had a DeLorean.”

LEGO time travel DeLorean with the driver side door open and Doc Brown hanging out.

Not long after that, I got a call from our friend Kenny. Chris had died. He was back in Brunswick where our friendship had started. I couldn’t really write about it then, and even now, it’s difficult. I’m not able to say all that I feel and how I wish that I could share just a few things with Chris again.

When I visit my parents, I try to visit Chris’s grave in Smyrna Cemetery, which is between Nahunta and Hortense. His grave marker highlights some of his life’s loves, including Apple Computer. Of course, I wish that Chris could hear when I talk, but I know that what I say is only heard by regret.

Username License Plate in New York

Buick hatchback with a New York license plate with the word "USERNAME"

If I had a nickle for every time I’ve said, “Now, enter your username . . .”

LEGO Folding Cooling Stand for Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen 4 Laptop

As I wrote about yesterday, my Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen 4 maintains lower temperatures when it has improved air flow under its body where the twin cooling fan intakes are. Without raising the laptop, the laptop’s support feet only give it about 3 mm of space underneath it, which chokes the intake fans. Since getting the laptop late last year, I’ve used a variety of at-hand objects–books and small boxes most often–to prop up the back of the laptop when I was stressing the laptop with a heavy workload.

ThinkPad P1 Gen 4 rear support foot that runs about 80% of the width of the laptop.

I wanted a permanent solution, but the portable options available in retail are either bulky adjustable metal or plastic platforms or folding 4-point stands. The former takes up a lot of room and those with fans don’t always translate to lower temps, and the latter might not provide the support needed on the ThinkPad P1’s lengthy support foot at the rear of the laptop. So, I turned to LEGO to create a customized stand that gives the ThinkPad the support it needs while also being compact and easily carried in my backpack.

What I made to solve this problem mostly used LEGO Technic elements with some brick elements (plates to provide support underneath its joints and the bright yellow smooth plates on top to orient the stand and provide a stop against the ThinkPad’s support foot).

LEGO Folding Cooling Stand for Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen 4 Laptop holding up the laptop, side view.

The ThinkPad’s support foot fits perfectly in the center of the stand without the studs toward the front or the flat plate in the back touching the laptop’s body.

Essentially, the stand is built like a sandwich: the bread is the Technic bricks with holes on either side, and the filling is the Technic liftarms (straight and L-shaped). I used 3-stud wide pins to hold the sandwich together. The red pins are only used to provide stability to the support legs when they are deployed for use.

LEGO Folding Cooling Stand for Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen 4 Laptop with legs folded

On the back of the stand, the red pegs can be partially pulled out and the feet folded.

LEGO Folding Cooling Stand for Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen 4 Laptop shown side by side.

The LEGO stand completely covers the support foot at the rear of the laptop (seen at the top of the photo above). When folded, it easily slips into the backpack that I use to carry this ThinkPad.

LEGO is a versatile, rapid prototyping medium for building art, expressing ideas, and in this case, creating something practical to solve a specific problem.

If you have some LEGO bricks laying around idle, you might stop and think about what problem they might be able to solve for you!

Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen 4 Powerhouse Workstation

Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen 4 16" QHD+ i9-11950H✓64GB RAM✓2TB SSD✓RTX A5000 with screen open and showing Debian 12 desktop

About halfway through my sabbatical, I needed to visit my parents in Georgia, but I also needed to continue working on my research projects. I didn’t feel safe about lugging my A6000 desktop computer (in checked baggage or shipping), so I followed my own advice and started looking for a used workstation-class laptop.

It took a few weeks, but I landed this awesome, practically new Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen 4 from a seller on eBay. It has a 16″ QHD+ screen (that I scale down to 1080p for my eyes), an i9-11950H (8 core/16 thread) CPU, 64GB DDR4 RAM, 2TB SSD, and an NVIDIA RTX A5000 16GB discrete video card (Stable Diffusion and llamacpp worked without any hiccups).

It plows through all of the work that I throw out at, but it does sound like a jet engine when its two cooling fans spin up. I have found that raising it off the desk by a couple of inches helps tremendously with cooling by increasing air flow. I had been using rigged up stands, but I built a special stand out of LEGO that I will show in detail tomorrow (but there’s a sneak peek in the photos below).

Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen 4 16" QHD+ i9-11950H✓64GB RAM✓2TB SSD✓RTX A5000

I can’t sing this laptop’s praises loudly enough! It works well with Debian 12 Bookworm, but it does have some issues with power saving/hibernation, which is a known issue and might have some work around that I haven’t tried yet.

The one thing that it can’t do without when doing GPU-focused work is it’s chonky 230 watt external power supply. I bring it with me when I know it will eat through its battery doing jobs. I recently upgraded my backpack to a Mystery Ranch 2-Day Assault Pack, which has a built-in sleeve that easily accommodates 16″ laptops like this one (but it can be tricky to use the laptop side egress slot due to the ThinkPad’s thickness).