Live from Austin!

Gasoline prices have gone over $5 a gallon in Atlanta. While it’s just a short-term spike caused by the hurricane, I suggest treating it as a rehearsal for the next few years.

The theory that we are hitting Peak Oil may be ‘controversial’ with politicians, but the situation is sufficiently serious that the oil companies are starting their PR campaigns now. Chevron now has a flashy new consumer web site warning bluntly that “the era of easy oil is over”.

Maybe you live down a dirt track and haul farm equipment. That’s great. But if not, I would strongly suggest selling that SUV while it still has some second-hand value. In a couple of years when gas prices are hovering at $4-$5 all the time, not many people are going to want to drive a 12 mpg behemoth.

Well, here I am in San Francisco. Or at least, the Sheraton near SFO. Tomorrow I get to go to a meeting, then back to the airport. At least this hotel has high speed Internet access. It even has electricity, for the moment at least.

Still, it’s weird to be here. Lots of things look like they do on TV. The license plates, the palm trees, the big flat buildings that almost appear to have congealed on the sides of the hills, the scattered pieces of retrofuturistic architecture, the spaghetti tangles of freeway…

Part of the problem is that I’m tired, and when I get tired pieces of my brain forget that I live in America, and get all surprised about it. Hearing people talk about places like Martinez and Orinda is odd too. I know all these names from listening to Negativland albums over and over again, and now here they are on road signs.

Atlanta was pretty much as I remembered it. I called a friend, who much to my surprise wasn’t working and offered to meet me at the airport. We talked about her recent career change from “dancer” to “restaurant consultant”. Running a bunch of Subway stores is apparently hard and frustrating work, but I’m told that it beats dancing naked on tables. Of course, this is somewhat academic for me, as I don’t really have what it takes to dance naked on tables for money.

So tomorrow I’m off to Atlanta. The day after that I’ll be travelling to San Francisco. The day after that, I’ll be returning to Boston, and getting in some time after midnight. Then a few hours later I can get up and go to work again. Basically, I’m going to be spending most of this week in hotels, on aircraft, or in meetings.

I probably won’t even get to see downtown San Francisco, which might have made up for it a bit.

I’ll probably be a nervous wreck tomorrow morning, as usual. Travel stresses me out. When I agreed to go on this latest jaunt, I thought to myself that either it would permanently cure me of my travel nervousness, or it would kill me. And either way, I wouldn’t have to put up with panic attacks any more, so that would be an improvement.