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jetlagged but home
Apr. 11th, 2004 04:59 pmSo I'm back.
The flight back was pretty much uneventful - luckily I had an empty seat next to me so I could curl up and get some sleep.
The last few days were a whirlwind. On Wednesday morning I woke up to discover that my ipod had completely shat itself - the hard drive sounded like a floppy disk drive that was trying to tear itself to bits. So that added another thing to my list of things to do. I also had to mule a bunch of stuff three blocks from the old colo facility to the new, and then get out to LAX for a flight out at 5.00pm.
Checked out of the hotel, then jumped in a cab out to the mall where the nearest Apple store was. When I got there, found that a) I only had $10 in my wallet and b) the visa network that the cabbies used was off the air. Fine, told the cabbie to wait while I went and hit an autoteller. "Unable to process transaction". Er, what? Don't do this to me, stupid bank network. I have a $20 cab fare back to the hotel where my bags are, then a $40 cab fare to the airport in a few hours. Second ATM, same result. Argggh!
Found a bank with an ATM inside - it was one of the ones that eats your card and spits it out at the end. During the US trip, I'd been deliberately using the machines that you slide your card through the reader - I did _not_ want to even vaguely risk my card getting eaten. Explained the situation to the bank staff and confirmed that they had a key that they could use to get my card out. Tentatively tried machine... "Incorrect PIN" -- argh argh argh! Stress level rising. Calm blue ocean, calm blue ocean, retry and make sure to get PIN right - worked. Aaaah. Pulled enough out that I didn't have to even think about this again for the rest of the trip.
Next, to the Apple store to get mr ipod replaced. There was a queue of folks ahead of me, most of whom also had ipod issues - not suprising, I guess, since they've sold so many of them. Most of them were "fixed" by explaining that the key lock was on, or similar issues. I spoke to the techie - "it's dead". 'Certainly, I'm sure it's something we can fix' "I very much doubt that. Turn it on and listen" 'Oh wow, what the hell did you do to it??' Absolutely nothing. They were remarkably helpful - particularly since I was getting on a plane that afternoon and sending it off to be repaired was not an option. So, have a new ipod now. The old dead one was beaker, it's replacement is called honeydew (may as well continue the theme).
I should make an aside here - I love seeing industrial design done well, and the ipod blows my mind. It's just so brilliantly done - the physical design is wonderful, and the user experience with it is like nothing I've seen before. Even the way the 'wheel' is operated has been thought about very carefully; rather than mashing the keys on a mobile phone, you just gently stroke the control to achieve what you want. It's user interface done so very very right. Makes me wish nokia and apple would team up on a mobile phone, as I think they'd produce something very very cool.
Anyway, back to downtown LA, and lug a couple of pieces of gear. A cisco 7200 doesn't look much, but the fucker must be solid metal, it weighs so much. That achieved, off to LAX for a flight up to Oakland.
If you're flying to San Francisco, fly into Oakland airport. It's about the same distance on the BART as SFO, and it's a much much better airport. It's smaller, it's better organised, and you get through with much less bullshit.
Stayed at Colin and Shirin's that night, then into OSAF in the morning. What a cool workplace. Not only are they in a "green" building (recycling, power, &c) but it's a dog-friendly workplace. There would have been 7 or so dogs in there when I was there - people just bring their dogs into work with them. Gotta love that. One of the staff has the unofficial "dog-wrangling" role, and apparently they have a dog trainer come in during the week as well. There's even a small "cooling off" area that a dog that's getting too loud or jumpy gets put in for a while.
One of the dogs there was a most entertaining bulldog. She's been banned from meetings, though, because she'll curl up and go to sleep, and her snoring is completely disruptive.
Re-presented a variation on the talk I gave at PyCon at lunchtime, while the rest of the day was spent in a series of meetings with a whole pile of OSAF people. Lisa, who'd organised the trip, had worked out who I should meet with, and had my time micro-organised for the day. Spoke about how OSAF could better interact with the Python community, how they could get more involvement from outside people, how we could integrate voice into Chandler, and a whole lot of other stuff that I wish I could remember. If I spoke to you there, and you're waiting for something from me, please send me an email and remind me. The same goes for anyone I spoke to at PyCon. My memory is just fried.
Back out to Oakland airport, then on to LAX, and finally onto the QANTAS flight home. Yesterday was spent trying to find ways to stay awake until the evening, in an attempt to kick jetlag in the head.
The flight back was pretty much uneventful - luckily I had an empty seat next to me so I could curl up and get some sleep.
The last few days were a whirlwind. On Wednesday morning I woke up to discover that my ipod had completely shat itself - the hard drive sounded like a floppy disk drive that was trying to tear itself to bits. So that added another thing to my list of things to do. I also had to mule a bunch of stuff three blocks from the old colo facility to the new, and then get out to LAX for a flight out at 5.00pm.
Checked out of the hotel, then jumped in a cab out to the mall where the nearest Apple store was. When I got there, found that a) I only had $10 in my wallet and b) the visa network that the cabbies used was off the air. Fine, told the cabbie to wait while I went and hit an autoteller. "Unable to process transaction". Er, what? Don't do this to me, stupid bank network. I have a $20 cab fare back to the hotel where my bags are, then a $40 cab fare to the airport in a few hours. Second ATM, same result. Argggh!
Found a bank with an ATM inside - it was one of the ones that eats your card and spits it out at the end. During the US trip, I'd been deliberately using the machines that you slide your card through the reader - I did _not_ want to even vaguely risk my card getting eaten. Explained the situation to the bank staff and confirmed that they had a key that they could use to get my card out. Tentatively tried machine... "Incorrect PIN" -- argh argh argh! Stress level rising. Calm blue ocean, calm blue ocean, retry and make sure to get PIN right - worked. Aaaah. Pulled enough out that I didn't have to even think about this again for the rest of the trip.
Next, to the Apple store to get mr ipod replaced. There was a queue of folks ahead of me, most of whom also had ipod issues - not suprising, I guess, since they've sold so many of them. Most of them were "fixed" by explaining that the key lock was on, or similar issues. I spoke to the techie - "it's dead". 'Certainly, I'm sure it's something we can fix' "I very much doubt that. Turn it on and listen" 'Oh wow, what the hell did you do to it??' Absolutely nothing. They were remarkably helpful - particularly since I was getting on a plane that afternoon and sending it off to be repaired was not an option. So, have a new ipod now. The old dead one was beaker, it's replacement is called honeydew (may as well continue the theme).
I should make an aside here - I love seeing industrial design done well, and the ipod blows my mind. It's just so brilliantly done - the physical design is wonderful, and the user experience with it is like nothing I've seen before. Even the way the 'wheel' is operated has been thought about very carefully; rather than mashing the keys on a mobile phone, you just gently stroke the control to achieve what you want. It's user interface done so very very right. Makes me wish nokia and apple would team up on a mobile phone, as I think they'd produce something very very cool.
Anyway, back to downtown LA, and lug a couple of pieces of gear. A cisco 7200 doesn't look much, but the fucker must be solid metal, it weighs so much. That achieved, off to LAX for a flight up to Oakland.
If you're flying to San Francisco, fly into Oakland airport. It's about the same distance on the BART as SFO, and it's a much much better airport. It's smaller, it's better organised, and you get through with much less bullshit.
Stayed at Colin and Shirin's that night, then into OSAF in the morning. What a cool workplace. Not only are they in a "green" building (recycling, power, &c) but it's a dog-friendly workplace. There would have been 7 or so dogs in there when I was there - people just bring their dogs into work with them. Gotta love that. One of the staff has the unofficial "dog-wrangling" role, and apparently they have a dog trainer come in during the week as well. There's even a small "cooling off" area that a dog that's getting too loud or jumpy gets put in for a while.
One of the dogs there was a most entertaining bulldog. She's been banned from meetings, though, because she'll curl up and go to sleep, and her snoring is completely disruptive.
Re-presented a variation on the talk I gave at PyCon at lunchtime, while the rest of the day was spent in a series of meetings with a whole pile of OSAF people. Lisa, who'd organised the trip, had worked out who I should meet with, and had my time micro-organised for the day. Spoke about how OSAF could better interact with the Python community, how they could get more involvement from outside people, how we could integrate voice into Chandler, and a whole lot of other stuff that I wish I could remember. If I spoke to you there, and you're waiting for something from me, please send me an email and remind me. The same goes for anyone I spoke to at PyCon. My memory is just fried.
Back out to Oakland airport, then on to LAX, and finally onto the QANTAS flight home. Yesterday was spent trying to find ways to stay awake until the evening, in an attempt to kick jetlag in the head.
