What can you do with 4 free hours a day?

2007-11-05T08:45:00.000-05:00

Three months ago, I moved with my girlfriend. She owned a condo while I was still renting an apartment, so we choose her place. Cool, isn't it?

I'm very happy about it... I really am. But there is a down side: about 55 minutes now separate my home from office. And that is the good scenario: at rush hour, it usually take 1:20. I even expect it to reach 2 hours, once it start snowing outside (that means December to April, here in Montreal). Yes, my total journey will be between 3 and 4 hours a day, commuting from one suburb to the big city, and to another suburb again.

I feel bad about all this. About the consequences on environment, of course (yes, really I do feel bad about it). And also the money I spend on gas and car usage. But most of all, I feel bad for the time I loose not doing something more useful.

When I was a student, I used to travel by bus and metro. Thought I must admit public transportation was sometimes unpleasant, I still considered commute time as a perfect period for reading, doing crosswords or sudoku, taking notes about personal ideas, relaxing and more. Isn't it great to have one hour of free time, doing something pleasant and useful at the very same time that you take care of those boring but necessary tasks?

But now, I'm driving a car. You can't reasonably read while driving. Actually, I tried: it took me 25 minutes to read a single page of Dilbert cartoons. I also tried Rubik Cube some time ago, but it required too much concentration and hand motions (should I feel unworthy of being unable to solve a Rubik Cube blind and single handed while driving?). Sudoku is possible, but writing is hard and hazardous, so I'm limited to very simple problems that can be solved in head.

So, what can I do with 4 free hours a day? For sure, driving is a complex mental process, and most uncommon actions are dangerous, both for the driver and for other people around. Any activity that require looking at something other than the road, moving hands or body out of driving position, or concentrate deeply on something is unsafe.

I just recently realized the luck I actually have: I can listen and I can talk. Now, that may not seems like much: radio or music won't help me in the accomplishment of my projects, and I have nobody to talk with. But combined with a laptop computer with speech synthesis/recognition software, I can do miracles!

Think about this: every morning, before leaving home, I download to my laptop my latest emails, news, Slashdot headlines, technical articles, blog posts and comments, and much more. Once in the car, I put on my Bluetooth headset, and there we are: I can now give voice commands to my laptop, asking it to read my mails and other texts. I can even dictate email replies and blog comments: they will be queued for posting once I get in WiFi connection range. Best of all, if I get a phone call on my cell, I simply press a button on my headset to answer it (thanks to Plantronics Voyager 520's multipoint feature).

Actually, I am not installed yet, so I have not really tested this whole thing, but I expect to be done with the setup for next Wednesday. Hope it will work: it could save me 4 hours a day of complete nothingness...

James's first attempt at blogging

What can you do with 4 free hours a day?