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Darn. I forgot to wear a flower in my hair. Owell.
Warning, long ranty whiny bits ahead, along with other weird ramblings. It's Sunday mornin and I'm off to the city by the bay to sit in a trade show booth all day long. Yayyyyy!
Denver
Woohoo. Here I am in Denver. Killing a few minutes before the flight boards. It seems that just about every aspect of this trip so far has been following Murphy's Law. Kinda was too busy to type anything before leaving Dulles this morning, so I'm doin it now.
Last night, the folks upstairs made their presence known by doing a heckuva lot of thumping around periodically, keeping me from getting to sleep for a while. Woke up this morning and drove into the office to retrieve the cd I forgot to bring. Need that thing to do demos, so I have to have it on the trip. Gonna copy it to the laptop's hard drive, though, so it doesn't get forgotten again. While at the office, I checked my itinerary again. Looks like I'm not coming home til Thursday, instead of Wednesday. Everyone's been saying Wednesday for weeks. Yeesh! Called the hotel and was able to get the room for another night, thank goodness. I went down to the Hilton that's attached to the office building. Figured I'd leave the car in the work garage and take the Hilton's shuttle to the airport. Save some cab fare. Well I got there at 9:35, so I'd just missed one shuttle. Got on the 10am one and off to the airport.
Dulles is my least favorite airport ever. The wonderful 'airport of the future' design from the 60's obviously didn't work and it just makes things more difficult nowadays. I actually checked my luggage. With the folders and such packed, I took the suitcase that's just a little too big for carryon. They only had 2 lines working at security and when there were 2 folks ahead of me in line, they wheel in 8 senior citizens in wheelchairs. Whee. Takes 'em a while to get those guys through. Finally I'm on the shuttle thing to the terminal. Now I've not eaten anything so far this morning, so I figure I'll grab something in the terminal. At this point I've only 30 minutes til the flight boards. Turns out only Burger King and Starbucks are open. Looks like 'royal food' for me, so I get in line and wait...and wait...and wait... When I got in line there were 3 folks ahead of me. One got her stuff and the next was some Australian woman who wants to whopper jr's. (for some reason, they've no breakfast food. bleah) Simple enough, but we wait and wait. 10 minutes later I give up. Heck, I'll do coffee and a muffin from Starbucks. Actually, I order a frappucino since I wanted something cold. Oops. they can't make those today for some reason. Okay, latte and a muffin. Unfortunately, I've only got a couple $1 bills and the rest is 10's and 20's. Well Gee, they don't have ANY change. Seriously. So I can't pay with a $10. Their credit card machine is broken too, so I can't just use my debit card. With only 10 minutes remaining at this point, I give up and go to the plane, stopping at a news stand for a bag of pretzels and a bottle of soda.
United sells 'restaurant quality' meals onboard, so I resign myself to getting one of those. The flight takes off on time 'n after a bit, they start the food service. I'm in the last row. Back of the plane, so there's a wait before they get back my way. I hear the attendants when they're a few rows up telling folks that they've run out of one of the choices and all that's left is some Mediterranean chicken salad. Eh. Whatever. Food is food. When they get 2 rows ahead, they sell the last one. They ran out of food. Gee, sorry! Here, have a snack. So I end up with one (and only one) of those tiny packets of 'party mix.' Well it's a pretty sucky party, in my opinion.
I really don't sleep in airplanes. I pretty much just doze on and off. This time I actually did start to fall asleep. Got a few z's in then got tapped on the shoulder. The flight attendant woke me to see if I wanted something to drink. Sure. I often sleep and drink at the same time.
It's kinda interesting looking out at the mountains. I lived in Colorado Springs for a couple years when I was in the 2nd and 3rd grades and I guess I got used to seeing the rockies in the distance all the time. Now I see them out there and think how strange it is, to see snow-capped mountains in the distance.
Oakland
Many thanks to Sudonym for meeting me at the airport and giving me a ride to the hotel. We did dinner 'n hung around and stuff. He's a really nice fella and it's nice to finally meet him in person. I even managed to resist the urge to pester him to draw some stuff for me.
High Anxiety...
I'm staying in the Hyatt Regency on the Embarcadero. The hotel room is pretty nice. For almost $200/night it had better be. I confirmed that yes, this is the hotel that was in High Anxiety. Every time I ride the elevators up or to the room I'm tempted to hum the song Mel Brooks sang. Anyone who's seen the movie will understand why I'm afraid to ask to have a newspaper sent up to my room. The room is on the 12th floor and has a 'premium view' which basically means you can see part of the bay from the balcony. I've been spending a bunch of time on the balcony when I'm not down manning the booth in the exhibitor hall. The view isn't bad, and it's nice and cool out there. A great place to sit 'n have some coffee or a soda.
Fly my pretties!
I have my own little group of evil minions. Each morning here I've been sitting on the balcony having some coffee before I get up. Each morning a little flock of tree rats...er..pigeons comes and lands on the other side of the railing in hopes of getting food from me. They don't seem to hang around on the other balconies. Maybe mine's special. I dont' give them anything, but they stay there all the same. Actually, I think one of them is in love with me. I assume it's a male because it's neck is all irridescent and it keeps puffing its neck up and cooing at me. He's kinda annoying. No matter which of the 2 chairs I sit in, he waddles over to that end of the railing and twirls in little circles cooing away deeply. Great. I finally get hit on in a hotel and it's by a gay pigeon. Ooh baby. Let's ruffle some feathers.
Tuesday
Ruwhei was down in SF working today, and came over to hotel in the evening. Since I have two badges, I let Ru borrow one to get into the exhibit hall. It's not like they go actually looking at the names on the things when folks enter the hall. We went back up to the room and yakked a bit, then went down to a happy hour thing CSC was having. I'd wanted to skip it, but got told I was needed to demo one of the Diverter products for folks there. Hey, it meant free beer and some sushi 'n other food. It was decided that it was way too loud to demo the Diverter, so I packed it up, and stuck it back in the room. We left and Ru gave me a little whirlwhind tour of the Embarcadero 'n such. We went to Pier 39, but everything was closing there. Heck, we'd walk up to a store and they'd close the doors as we approached. Harumpf. Hoofed it on over to Ghiardelli on a quest for chocolate bars with macadamia nuts. Alas, it turns out they're no longer making those.
Swag...
There are 3 of us from my company in the booth, along with about 7 other folks. It's a 10x20 booth that CSC got. My company is part of the DIESCON team with CSC, so we get to have one end of the booth to show off our stuff. Two of the other folks, Kathleen and Theresa, are CSC employees whose job is pretty much to just set up booths at big shows and make sure the stuff being given out is always stocked. They're both pretty good at scoping out the coolest trinkets being given out by companies and are good at talking people into giving out the cool stuff they normally reserve for special customers. As a result, I've managed to find out where and how to get some nifty stuff. I guess it's a good sign for the economy that companies are starting to give out silly, nifty, useless, toys 'n things at shows, instead of just crappy pens with a logo on 'em. SOme of the big names have some downright nice things. Scored a nice little leather notepad and pen from Northrup Grumman, and a handy lil screwdriver set and a blinky pen from General Dynamics. NetApp gave me a 32meg USB flash drive that'll replace the one I lost a while back. Wednesday I actually won a little radio controlled golfcart from Booze/Allen, and Kathleen gave me one of the little stainless steel thermoses CSC had for special important customers.
Thursday Touristyism...
All that swag I got at the conference, along with the poster I got at a store, was never gonna fit into my suitcase and laptop case, so I went out this morning and packed 'em all up and shipped 'em off home. After checking out of the hotel, I left my bags at the bell desk and spent a few hours ambling around downtown. Rode a streetcar down to Pier 39 again and poked around, then rode back and wandered around downtown. After getting my bags back, I took BART back out to the airport.
Oakland again...
Welp, I'm way early for my flight. Kinda thought I'd get a beer while waiting, but the bar near the gate is packed. There's only one empty seat in there and it's at a table with 3 businessmen. I don't really feel like talking to strangers, so I'll do a little typing while giving the place a chance to clear out. Kinda stinks to be drinkin alone anyhoo. Shoulda brought that gay pigeon along with me.
THe trip's had ups and downs. I'd rather not have come out here for stupid work stuff. Kinda lousy timing for it too, with my having moved last weekend. Still, I got to spend some time with Sudonym and Ruwhei. Can't wait to get home and just flomp on the bed for a while. Still got a ways to go before the first flight even boards though. Think I'll check out the bar again. Maybe sneak in a little snooze at the gate area.
Oakland 6:18pm
Woo. Guess I should've made sure I'd eaten something befor getting that beer. Turns out a pizza place here also serves beer, so I went there and got one. I'm a cheap drunk, for the most part. One beer on a fairly empty stomach has me pleasantly buzzed. Kinda makes the waiting a little nicer. Still, I can't wait to get started on going home. From where I'm sitting,looking out the window over the apron, I can see The SF skyline, way off in the distance behind some rather impressive clouds. The only reason I know it's SF is because I can make out the spire of the Transamerica pyramid sticking up.
I'm such a equine-lovin loser. On my quest for beer, I was walking through the terminal and glanced over at a little gift kiosk and spotted a pair of horsey-looking ears on a shelf. Walked over and it's a purple beanie baby zebra named Vegas. Well I'm now the proud owner of Vegas. He's in my jacket pocket, with his head poking out. At least I've got a travel companion now. Good thing he's not a clydesdale beanie or he might've tried to get some of my beer. Of course, it's not like I need another silly stuffed equine. Oh well. He'll join the others once they're unpacked at the new apartment.
Warning, long ranty whiny bits ahead, along with other weird ramblings. It's Sunday mornin and I'm off to the city by the bay to sit in a trade show booth all day long. Yayyyyy!
Denver
Woohoo. Here I am in Denver. Killing a few minutes before the flight boards. It seems that just about every aspect of this trip so far has been following Murphy's Law. Kinda was too busy to type anything before leaving Dulles this morning, so I'm doin it now.
Last night, the folks upstairs made their presence known by doing a heckuva lot of thumping around periodically, keeping me from getting to sleep for a while. Woke up this morning and drove into the office to retrieve the cd I forgot to bring. Need that thing to do demos, so I have to have it on the trip. Gonna copy it to the laptop's hard drive, though, so it doesn't get forgotten again. While at the office, I checked my itinerary again. Looks like I'm not coming home til Thursday, instead of Wednesday. Everyone's been saying Wednesday for weeks. Yeesh! Called the hotel and was able to get the room for another night, thank goodness. I went down to the Hilton that's attached to the office building. Figured I'd leave the car in the work garage and take the Hilton's shuttle to the airport. Save some cab fare. Well I got there at 9:35, so I'd just missed one shuttle. Got on the 10am one and off to the airport.
Dulles is my least favorite airport ever. The wonderful 'airport of the future' design from the 60's obviously didn't work and it just makes things more difficult nowadays. I actually checked my luggage. With the folders and such packed, I took the suitcase that's just a little too big for carryon. They only had 2 lines working at security and when there were 2 folks ahead of me in line, they wheel in 8 senior citizens in wheelchairs. Whee. Takes 'em a while to get those guys through. Finally I'm on the shuttle thing to the terminal. Now I've not eaten anything so far this morning, so I figure I'll grab something in the terminal. At this point I've only 30 minutes til the flight boards. Turns out only Burger King and Starbucks are open. Looks like 'royal food' for me, so I get in line and wait...and wait...and wait... When I got in line there were 3 folks ahead of me. One got her stuff and the next was some Australian woman who wants to whopper jr's. (for some reason, they've no breakfast food. bleah) Simple enough, but we wait and wait. 10 minutes later I give up. Heck, I'll do coffee and a muffin from Starbucks. Actually, I order a frappucino since I wanted something cold. Oops. they can't make those today for some reason. Okay, latte and a muffin. Unfortunately, I've only got a couple $1 bills and the rest is 10's and 20's. Well Gee, they don't have ANY change. Seriously. So I can't pay with a $10. Their credit card machine is broken too, so I can't just use my debit card. With only 10 minutes remaining at this point, I give up and go to the plane, stopping at a news stand for a bag of pretzels and a bottle of soda.
United sells 'restaurant quality' meals onboard, so I resign myself to getting one of those. The flight takes off on time 'n after a bit, they start the food service. I'm in the last row. Back of the plane, so there's a wait before they get back my way. I hear the attendants when they're a few rows up telling folks that they've run out of one of the choices and all that's left is some Mediterranean chicken salad. Eh. Whatever. Food is food. When they get 2 rows ahead, they sell the last one. They ran out of food. Gee, sorry! Here, have a snack. So I end up with one (and only one) of those tiny packets of 'party mix.' Well it's a pretty sucky party, in my opinion.
I really don't sleep in airplanes. I pretty much just doze on and off. This time I actually did start to fall asleep. Got a few z's in then got tapped on the shoulder. The flight attendant woke me to see if I wanted something to drink. Sure. I often sleep and drink at the same time.
It's kinda interesting looking out at the mountains. I lived in Colorado Springs for a couple years when I was in the 2nd and 3rd grades and I guess I got used to seeing the rockies in the distance all the time. Now I see them out there and think how strange it is, to see snow-capped mountains in the distance.
Oakland
Many thanks to Sudonym for meeting me at the airport and giving me a ride to the hotel. We did dinner 'n hung around and stuff. He's a really nice fella and it's nice to finally meet him in person. I even managed to resist the urge to pester him to draw some stuff for me.
High Anxiety...
I'm staying in the Hyatt Regency on the Embarcadero. The hotel room is pretty nice. For almost $200/night it had better be. I confirmed that yes, this is the hotel that was in High Anxiety. Every time I ride the elevators up or to the room I'm tempted to hum the song Mel Brooks sang. Anyone who's seen the movie will understand why I'm afraid to ask to have a newspaper sent up to my room. The room is on the 12th floor and has a 'premium view' which basically means you can see part of the bay from the balcony. I've been spending a bunch of time on the balcony when I'm not down manning the booth in the exhibitor hall. The view isn't bad, and it's nice and cool out there. A great place to sit 'n have some coffee or a soda.
Fly my pretties!
I have my own little group of evil minions. Each morning here I've been sitting on the balcony having some coffee before I get up. Each morning a little flock of tree rats...er..pigeons comes and lands on the other side of the railing in hopes of getting food from me. They don't seem to hang around on the other balconies. Maybe mine's special. I dont' give them anything, but they stay there all the same. Actually, I think one of them is in love with me. I assume it's a male because it's neck is all irridescent and it keeps puffing its neck up and cooing at me. He's kinda annoying. No matter which of the 2 chairs I sit in, he waddles over to that end of the railing and twirls in little circles cooing away deeply. Great. I finally get hit on in a hotel and it's by a gay pigeon. Ooh baby. Let's ruffle some feathers.
Tuesday
Ruwhei was down in SF working today, and came over to hotel in the evening. Since I have two badges, I let Ru borrow one to get into the exhibit hall. It's not like they go actually looking at the names on the things when folks enter the hall. We went back up to the room and yakked a bit, then went down to a happy hour thing CSC was having. I'd wanted to skip it, but got told I was needed to demo one of the Diverter products for folks there. Hey, it meant free beer and some sushi 'n other food. It was decided that it was way too loud to demo the Diverter, so I packed it up, and stuck it back in the room. We left and Ru gave me a little whirlwhind tour of the Embarcadero 'n such. We went to Pier 39, but everything was closing there. Heck, we'd walk up to a store and they'd close the doors as we approached. Harumpf. Hoofed it on over to Ghiardelli
Swag...
There are 3 of us from my company in the booth, along with about 7 other folks. It's a 10x20 booth that CSC got. My company is part of the DIESCON team with CSC, so we get to have one end of the booth to show off our stuff. Two of the other folks, Kathleen and Theresa, are CSC employees whose job is pretty much to just set up booths at big shows and make sure the stuff being given out is always stocked. They're both pretty good at scoping out the coolest trinkets being given out by companies and are good at talking people into giving out the cool stuff they normally reserve for special customers. As a result, I've managed to find out where and how to get some nifty stuff. I guess it's a good sign for the economy that companies are starting to give out silly, nifty, useless, toys 'n things at shows, instead of just crappy pens with a logo on 'em. SOme of the big names have some downright nice things. Scored a nice little leather notepad and pen from Northrup Grumman, and a handy lil screwdriver set and a blinky pen from General Dynamics. NetApp gave me a 32meg USB flash drive that'll replace the one I lost a while back. Wednesday I actually won a little radio controlled golfcart from Booze/Allen, and Kathleen gave me one of the little stainless steel thermoses CSC had for special important customers.
Thursday Touristyism...
All that swag I got at the conference, along with the poster I got at a store, was never gonna fit into my suitcase and laptop case, so I went out this morning and packed 'em all up and shipped 'em off home. After checking out of the hotel, I left my bags at the bell desk and spent a few hours ambling around downtown. Rode a streetcar down to Pier 39 again and poked around, then rode back and wandered around downtown. After getting my bags back, I took BART back out to the airport.
Oakland again...
Welp, I'm way early for my flight. Kinda thought I'd get a beer while waiting, but the bar near the gate is packed. There's only one empty seat in there and it's at a table with 3 businessmen. I don't really feel like talking to strangers, so I'll do a little typing while giving the place a chance to clear out. Kinda stinks to be drinkin alone anyhoo. Shoulda brought that gay pigeon along with me.
THe trip's had ups and downs. I'd rather not have come out here for stupid work stuff. Kinda lousy timing for it too, with my having moved last weekend. Still, I got to spend some time with Sudonym and Ruwhei. Can't wait to get home and just flomp on the bed for a while. Still got a ways to go before the first flight even boards though. Think I'll check out the bar again. Maybe sneak in a little snooze at the gate area.
Oakland 6:18pm
Woo. Guess I should've made sure I'd eaten something befor getting that beer. Turns out a pizza place here also serves beer, so I went there and got one. I'm a cheap drunk, for the most part. One beer on a fairly empty stomach has me pleasantly buzzed. Kinda makes the waiting a little nicer. Still, I can't wait to get started on going home. From where I'm sitting,looking out the window over the apron, I can see The SF skyline, way off in the distance behind some rather impressive clouds. The only reason I know it's SF is because I can make out the spire of the Transamerica pyramid sticking up.
I'm such a equine-lovin loser. On my quest for beer, I was walking through the terminal and glanced over at a little gift kiosk and spotted a pair of horsey-looking ears on a shelf. Walked over and it's a purple beanie baby zebra named Vegas. Well I'm now the proud owner of Vegas. He's in my jacket pocket, with his head poking out. At least I've got a travel companion now. Good thing he's not a clydesdale beanie or he might've tried to get some of my beer. Of course, it's not like I need another silly stuffed equine. Oh well. He'll join the others once they're unpacked at the new apartment.