I drove back to New York. New York City, that is.

When I moved to California from New York three years ago I did the drive in four days. I did the reverse drive in about five days. I also logged the entire trip in Google Latitude thanks to the new location history app. Here are 450 data points from my drive. I’m not sure how that single St. Louis plot got there. I may have drifted off the road into a vortex or something.

View Larger Map

I also took some crappy, and relatively boring pictures along the way with my iPhone, geo-tagged for your viewing pleasure.

I moved to Brooklyn. Greenpoint, that is.

Greenpoint is a fun little Polish neighborhood located in the north part of Brooklyn. I love it so far. It’s a lot cleaner and quieter than Williamsburg, but is only a 10 minute subway ride away for when I get brave enough to face the hipsters. I’m also 15 minutes away from Manhattan, and less than 30 minutes away from work.

There’s also a lot of great food, coffee shops, and stores around. My street looks like this.

I’m working in Manhattan. Chelsea, that is.

It’s great. I sold my car and commute on the subway. My building looks like this. The Google office in NYC is definitely a lot smaller than the Mountain View office, but it’s still very exciting and there a lot of fun things going on all the time. Plus, it’s in NYC. California doesn’t have a NYC.

I’m hoping to get back into blogging once again now that I finally have internets in my apartment. There’s a lot of stuff going on around here. I should have made this move a long time ago.

I’ve been able to keep my excitement in check by doing some test runs of the trip back in Google Maps with Street View directions. Here are a few highlights:

Leaving Santa Clara, CA

Just outside Salt Lake City

Approaching Denver, CO

Chicago!

Fulton, NY – My hometown

Brooklyn! My new home

Want to try out my planned road trip for yourself? Here’s a link to the map!

I now have an opportunity to do the same trip, this time in reverse, and with better weather and a little more time. Right now, it’s looking like I’ll be making the voyage the last week of September.

Below, I’ve mapped out a first draft of a potential route. They key stops are marked.

View CA > NY Option #1 in a larger map

Here’s my reasoning for the stops I chose:

1. Salt Lake City, UT — 11h from Santa Clara, CA

If I could make it to Denver in one day, I probably would, but 18 hours of straight driving is a bit too much. So Salt Lake City looks like a good place to stop. I actually stopped here on my way out to California. It was beautiful in the Winter. I’d like to see how it looks in the early Fall as well. Stopping in SLC will also set me up with a nice arrival time in the Denver area…

2. Denver, CO — 7h30m from SLC

Yeah, I stopped here my last cross-country drive as well, but I like Colorado. Also, my brother lives here, so it’s a necessary stop. On top of that, I can’t think of a better way to say goodbye to some of my favorite beers, those brewed by the New Belgium Brewery in Fort Collins CO, than by visiting the actual brewery for a complementary 1554 and/or seasonal brew. Unfortunately for me, they don’t distribute anywhere east of Chicago Speaking of Chicago…

3. Chicago — 14h30m from Denver

This would be my longest day of driving, but there really isn’t much between Denver and Chicago anyway. I’d like to spend at least a full day in Chicago. It’s been over three years since I’ve been there and I’m long overdue. Plus it’s the only remaining city I have left on the “Cities I need to visit in 2009″ list that I made at the beginning of the year. I also know people in Chicago, so I guess I should say hi.

4. New York, NY — 12h30m from Chicago

My new home! I’ll leave myself the option to take a detour during this stretch and stop in my hometown of Fulton, NY if needed, but it actually looks like my parents will be in NYC the same weekend that I’m arriving, so I might not have a reason to.

So that’s my first draft of the road trip schedule. I’ll probably revise it several times before I go. Do I have it all wrong? Have any other recommendations?

But ever since I got my iPhone and Apple integrated Google Transit into the Maps application, I haven’t even had to think anymore.

Let’s say I’m at some random point A. It doesn’t matter where I am. I don’t even have to know where I am. All I need to know is where I want to go, and I don’t even need to know the address of point B. I just search for the point of interest and let Google Maps find it for me:

From there I click the blue arrow from my desired result and then select “Directions To Here” on the following screen. “Current location” should be the default starting position on the following screen:

Now I just click “Route” and let the magic happen:

Bada boom! I don’t even have to think! Google Maps tells me where I need to be  at 7:15pm to catch the closest bus that will get me to my destination, as well as providing me with the trip cost and any transfers necessary. To see the itinerary in list view, click the page flap icon in the lower right corner:

Most cities will offer a two or three day unlimited metro pass, which is usually the best deal if you plan on doing some extreme exploring.

To see a list of global cities where Google Transit directions are available, visit the Google Transit site.

Happy exploring!

* Disclaimer – I work for Google, but I’m still allowed to think this is awesome.

What I’m trying to say is that I don’t dislike living in California. I just dislike living in northern California.

I took a short trip down to San Diego this past weekend. They have beaches there. They have real beaches there. Beaches like I saw in movies and TV shows about California as a kid. Beaches that just don’t exist up here in northern California.

The beach city vibe and laid back lifestyle is great too. Seemed like nobody had a care in the world.

This doesn’t change anything, however. I’m still planning on leaving California. But if someday far in the future I ever come back, and I no longer have a care in the world, San Diego is where it will be.

Not that anyone really cares, but I just felt like mentioning some of my upcoming travels for the summer.

Boston: May 21 – 26

I’ll be working out of the Cambridge Google office for a day and then probably wandering aimlessly the rest of the time. I might have mentioned this a few times before, but Boston is by far my favorite U.S. city. In a perfect world I would be living there, working at Google and have my own personal robot butler. Alas, the world is not perfect.

I’m not exactly sure what I’ll be doing in Boston this year, but it most likely include an assortment of the activites listed below:

• Red Sox game(s)
• NCAA lacrosse championship tournament
• Consumption of Dunkin’ Donuts beverages and breakfast sandwiches
• Consumption of delicious foods
• Consumption of delicious beers
• Meeting up with friends
• Meeting up with my older brother
• Meeting new random people
• Wandering aimlessly
• Not checking my email

That’s probably a good list to work from.

San Diego: June 6 – 7

Southwest Airlines was having a one-day half-off sale a few weeks ago. I couldn’t resist a $70 roundtrip flight to a place that I’ve never visited before. I have no idea what I’ll be doing, but that’s fine with me. If you have any suggestions I’d love to hear them.

Syracuse, NY / Fulton, NY: July 1 -7

Central New York may not be the ideal getaway location, but it’s my old stomping ground. I wasn’t planning on being there for a whole week, but I had an award flight voucher from jetBlue and those were the only dates I could use it for around the July 4th weekend. I’ll do whatever it takes to save a few hundred bucks.

I’m really looking forward to it. The whole reason I’m making the trip is because my maternal grandparents are both turning 90 this year and the Irish side of my family has decided to celebrate. There’s no way in hell I’d miss it. My grandfather’s health has also hit some rocky times as of late. So I really want to capitalize on every opportunity I can get to travel home. It’s not easy living 3000 miles away.

As always, visit mikeleotta.com/location to find me anytime.

Today, February 17, 2009 my stylin’ 2000 Pontiac Grand Am reached 100,000 miles as I drove past a Yahoo! building in Santa Clara. Here’s the proof:

I think it’s pretty safe to say that this is the greatest accomplishment of my life. Well, this and when my last car reached 100,000 miles.

Now where do I go from here? 200,000 miles?? 300,000 miles??? 88mph back in time???? Do you think the “Service Engine Soon” light would interfere with a flux capacitor?

So what do I have to show for myself two years later? Well, I do have a place to live, but I still don’t have any money. I think I’ve figured out the whole California life style thing, but I’m pretty sure that it’s not really for me. I think I’ve been clear about this in the past.

I’ve been thinking about my cross country drive a lot lately. I recall during the actual drive it was rather boring and I’m pretty sure I recall having many unhealthy conversations with myself, yet I really want to do it again –  but in reverse this. I want to take the time to actually see what’s out, talk to a few strangers, and get lost a bit. I want an adventure this time.

This was my route last time:

View Larger Map

It was pretty much a straight shot on route 80, except for a short detour to Boulder, CO. I needed to get to California as soon as possible, so I took the most direct route. On the way back I want to try something different. Maybe something like this:

View Larger Map

[UPDATE: Just found out that a good friend of mine will be living in Wichita, KS after he returns from serving in Afghanistan. I've adjusted the travel route accordingly. Note to Reid: This means I get to drive through St. Louis and Kansas City now. The BBQ better be good!]

It would be a significantly longer drive (something like 15 23 hours longer), but I would get to drive through a few areas that I’d really like to see. New Mexico has always fascinated me and Nashville, TN has always been a city that I’ve wanted to visit. Other random stops in there (San Diego, Myrtle Beach, Philadelphia, Oklahoma City Wichita, Denver) would be to visit friends and family.

You may also notice that the end point of the above map is Boston. I would really like for Boston to my final destination. Sighhh…maybe someday.

So, who wants to go on a road trip?