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Visiting the US – Occasional Report – pt11
Over a week late, but a final update.
Saturday morning, following the essential coffee I mentioned in the last update, was spent trying to get the used to framing photos whilst looking up. Since I knew the day was going to be spent on my feet I dawdled around Bryant Sq.
until the New Balance shoe shop opened so I could get a pair of the sort they sell to postal workers and other foot-bound workers. Then a little bit of wondering how you frame a building that doesn’t have consistent straight sides like
.
Lunchtime and it’s all the way downtown to meet up with Simon & Christophe. After a gumbo lunch on the waterfront it’s an afternoon spent wandering and photographing, with stops in the obvious photo-shops to see if there’s anything to tempt one into debt. Slowly but surely heading back northwards to the allure of the Apple store on 5th Avenue. Christophe took his leave of us at this point and then Simon & I wombled off in search of food. The main problem being I was staying close to Times Square so everything is pure tourist. So, after dropping my accumulated goodies from the day at the hotel we headed up-town to Simon’s neck of the woods to the Heights Bar & Grill for a bite, drink and natter.
Sunday, and gentle amble around until lunch, pausing to note the
Free Tibet demonstration in Bryant Sq. Then after a suitably chunky burger for lunch it’s time for the tourist trip and an open-top bus ride of Uptown. As much as anything this was a test of the dual camera approach, switching depending on which lens was needed. The necks straps definitely get in the way but I’d like to avoid an ‘oops’ moment so maybe some sort of wrist-strap and clip might be an idea. As usual, a selection of the captures are available in the gallery Items of note, we were brought to a stop for 15 minutes whilst in Harlem due to one of the lightning protests
following the verdict in the case against the officers who shot Sean Bell.
As for Monday, not a lot to say. It was raining and dull, so the Downtown bus trip was a chance to look at the ground floors of buildings through steamy bus windows. A very nice Cobb salad for lunch and then a very slow taxi ride to the airport (over an hour) before the tedium of the flight home.
And when do I blog next ? Who knows.
Visiting the US – Occasional Report – pt10
Saturday Morning, New York City.
The big apple stirs from slumber.
Still not sure why I scheduled things like this, but whatever. Red-eye from SFO to JFK was every bit as uncomfortable as I expected but I managed to maintain a rested pose even though, as is the norm, I don’t sleep. Not sure I even corrected the time on the phone correctly (I think I let the provider adjust) but I wasn’t sure it was right so fiddled, but it looks like it’s corrected again. Ah, technology, and the saving graces of someone slightly more awake than me.
Sitting in a coffee bar and contemplating the next cappuccino. I’ve finally sprung for some t-mobile day passes to let me connect, but the laptop is dropping in power so I’ll need to find mains at some point to continue the madness. With any luck by the time I finish the next coffee more things will be open and I can spend some time browsing and building a list for later acquisition. Anyway, the lure of caffeine is upon me again……
Visiting the US – Occasional Report – pt9
Well, that about wraps it up for Mountain View.
A week of attempting, in a mostly futile fashion, to build a full suite of certificate machines and perform full upgrades. Most of the grief has been trying to get the Java instances to behave in various combinations of virtual machines under differing hosts on some hardware that’s known to have odd characteristics (Dell 2950). But, in the end we have a set of notes of things that can go wrong and how to work around them. The upgrade testing will have to wait until I’m back in the UK later next week.
Next stop, San Francisco Airport to catch the red-eye to New York to visit Mr & Mrs Pride and perform east-coast toy shopping. I wonder how much more the suitcases can take.
Visiting the US – Occasional Report – pt8
Slow day, Sunday.
Spent a couple of hours in Starbucks sipping coffee and typing up Saturday’s exploits. Most of the time seemed to be spent fighting the lack of Google wireless. The huge number of wireless lans that are visible makes me suspect there’s an issue for anyone not willing to crank up the power.
For the afternoon I popped over to the Computer History Museum and hooked up on one of the tours. Whilst none of history is particularly unfamiliar it’s nice to hear the slant given over here. The various exhibits cover the entire electric computing age but despite the fact that they do restore some pieces of equipment to a working state (they’re currently working on a DEC PDP 1, and are moving onto an IBM 1401 later) it is sad that most of the kit is just dead metal.
The one aspect of the older kit that was amusing was the size of the consoles, the hoards of lights and switches, the intimation of huge power at the flick of a switch (never mind the huge amount of power needed to run the thing) with the huge desk area in front to keep the relevant reference and operations manuals open.
But the one thing, more than any other, that all these big-iron consoles kept reminding me of was the parody of the M$ Surface, it’s a big-ass table.
Visiting the US – Occasional Report – pt7
Weekend at last ! Second and last weekend of the business portion of the trip is upon me.
Visiting the US – Occasional Report – pt6a
Two days of follow-up to the IPA training with involvement in the daily support regimen chewed through the hours. That and some preparation for the in-depth next week ate up Thursday & Friday. Quite how one loses days that quickly still surprises me.
Finish the week realising that i’ve been trying to get the new Satellite machine synced for a whole week and that it’s still not complete. There is something seriously borked in the land of Denmark, though whether I can get anyone to take my complaints seriously remains to be seen.
clamp this
“Everybody remember where we parked the Imperial Star Destroyer !”
