Attending O'Reilly's Emerging Telephony Conference this week

From Tues - Thursday, I'll be at O'Reilly's Emerging Telephony Conference at the SF Airport Marriott. It seems to be a mix of hackers and big companies geeking each other out on the future of communications. Tonight, some of my colleagues are hosting a Birds of a Feather session on Cooperative Mobile Service Ecosystems...think about a wireless world where you could surf the web seamlessly and use third party applications that worked on all handsets and via all service providers. Hard to imagine? Well...we half to start somewhere, right? Hopefully we'll get a good turnout tonight!

My only bad takeaway so far has been the audacity of a couple of guys to answer their phones and have a conversation while a lecture was in progress (evil stares from many towards both). I hadn't seen that in years. Lacking a camera, proper sousveillance of the infractions was not possible. Next time...

35 below...

My boss is going to Russia this week for work.

She received this email today:

Dear XXX,
please, take care: it is terribly cold these days in St.Petersburg and in Moscow, 35 degrees below zero (Celsius) is expected by the day or your arrival.

For us non-metric Americans...that is -31 Fahrenheit!!!! Hope she stays inside the whole time cause it is COLD there!

Gen X-er Memories

This morning, a co-worker sent me to a You might be a Gen X-er if... site and it sure brought back memories. About half of the list is true with me. One *lost* memory was Friday Night Videos. My friends and I would stay up for HOURS watching pre-MTV videos. What are some of your favorite memories?

Winter camping/snowshoeing in Sequoia National Park

Had a great, long weekend with my photographer pal Michael...(here are his flickr pics). We left for Sequoia National Park on Saturday morning and arrived at Lodgepole Village camping area in the early afternoon. After setting up camp (not too far from the car), we set off for Tokopah Falls and saw a total of five people on the whole trail. It being winter, the falls weren't all that spectacular, but I'm sure that they look incredible in the springtime.

Since the sun was waning, we didn't stick around too long and headed back to the campsite. Once there, we chatted and read for a bit and by 7pm popped open a bottle of wine and began to heat up some water...nothing better than dehydrated food when camping! By 9pm we were sound asleep.

Morning came (32 degrees in the tent...25 outside) and we woke up at 4am. The plan was to showshoe up to Moro Rock and take some sunrise pics. However, the weather gods were not with us, so we returned to camp. After breakfast, we headed over to Wuksachi Village to get some batteries at the lodge (the batteries for the digital camera that we purchased the day before were crap). We then headed back to the parking lot at the Giant Forest Museum and chilled for awhile til we got closer to sunset time. The weather kept changing...snow...wind...blue skies...snow again. By 2pm, we decided to shoe it on up to Moro Rock. An hour later we were standing on the shoulder of the Rock and Mike was ecstatic about the conditions. While he was getting in position and taking some black & white shots, I took some pics of him in action.

Unfortunately, we didn't have much luck. After about 20 minutes, the fog rolled in and only got thicker as we attempted to wait it out. After about a half hour, we packed up and headed back to the car.

We decided to head over to the Lodge at Wuksachi Village and have a beer before returning to camp. After a scotch, I took a peek at the menu and we quickly agreed that a steak dinner was much more desirable than another dehydrated meal. We both had a steak and I enjoyed a Sam Smith with mine...I hadn't had one of them in years...very very good!

Filled, we returned to our riverview campsite and were soon asleep (by 8pm or so). Mike set the alarm for 6am. His intentions were to drive down the road a bit and look for good light. By 5:15am, he was motivated enough to get up and go to the car (it was 14 outside and 20 in the tent). I learned that a 20 degree rated bag isn't the best to have in this situation. Next time, I'll have a 5 or 0-rated one. Mike was back by 9:20am and we, rather he, made breakfast and then we packed everything up and headed over to the General Sherman tree (the largest tree in the world) for some pics. Back on the road by 11:30, we made it to the Bay Area by 5pm.

[Update...here are the pics of the trip. Thanks Michael!]

Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom

I read this book over the New Year's holiday (recommended by my co-worker Jason). I like how a reputation system, using Whuffie, overtakes the money world we now live in. Living forever in a post-scarcity world also has its plusses. It 's a quick read...around 200 pages, so you can read it in 2-3 hours or so. Enjoy! Author, Cory, is one of the four boingboing bloggers.

Long weekend...

If taking off to either snowshoe/camp in Sequoia or explore Death Valley with my friend Michael. Will have an update of what we did in a few days...

Some good websites I saw this morning...

Enjoy!

• How to quiz a telemarketer
• A personal Annual Report
  
• Things learned by kids from watching children's films
  

New Years/Orange Bowl wrap-up

Friday
I landed in Miami around 4pm on Friday. We sat on the tarmac for about 15 minutes while waiting for an open gate to pull into. Tom called and let me know that our hotel room was crap/horrible/a shithole/etc…small, dirty, no carpet, but lovely linoleum and we were the only guests in the building. The room was located in an old, dilapidated hotel behind the hotel that we were supposed to be staying at. Apparently, our hotel, the Avalon Waterfront Inn, had purchased the Craptastic Motor Inn and was in the early stages of remodeling it. They also had decided to open it for reservations a couple of weeks too early.

While I retrieved our rental truck (we needed a big vehicle to truck everyone around and transport tailgate supplies), Tom spent a couple of hours speaking to the hotel front desk and Expedia. The net was that we got a new room (same building, but a room with carpet) and should we need to, an OK from both to move to another hotel. It being New Year’s Eve weekend, the odds of finding a hotel with an open room were not-so good. In the end, we decided to stay were we were and make do. Had we been traveling with significant others, this would not have been an option. The rest of the night included dinner, drinking downtown and upon return to the hotel, a swim in the pool WITH my clothes on. Thanks for the push Tom!!!

Saturday
In the morning, I noticed most of my clothes hanging from various chairs, table and the refrigerator. My phone worked (it survived the dunking), but my wallet was quite drenched. I got some breakfast and then made a call to Brady and we decided to meet him and his wife in South Beach.

It didn’t take long to discover that South Beach is lacking in parking; though we did find a garage a couple of blocks from Brady’s hotel. We walked around for a bit and then met up with Brady & Dana on the beach…just where he said they would be. After catching up with him for an hour, we went to get a late lunch and then hit the road back to our hotel.

Having had a grand old time the previous night, we opted for an easy-going NYE celebration and went to the Seminole Hard Rock Casino in Hollywood. It was a lot bigger than the casino in Vegas. We had dinner there, watched the Giants game on TV, people watched and then went to the lake to watch the fireworks display. By 12:15pm, we were back in the truck and headed home.

Sunday
The previous day, I had asked the front desk people if we could be moved to another room (now that the 31st had passed…it should be easier to get a room, right?). Our hopes were answered and they allowed us to move into the Penthouse Suite for the remainder of our stay. Normally, the phrase, “Penthouse Suite” comes with several preconceived expectations: grand, stately, big HD TVs, huge bathroom and plush beds. However, this being where we were, it just meant more rooms: 2 bedrooms, kitchen, dining room, living room and deck. Now we were to have a true frat-boy-on-Spring-Break dream pad…too bad we are roughly 15 years removed from those days.

While waiting for our new room to be cleaned, we hit the beach and there we saw the first wave of Penn State fans (in the end, we would discover that the Miami/Fort Lauderdale area would slowly be dominated with PSU fans) and struck up a conversation with them. They told us of a Penn State bar nearby and we decided to take Adam over there to watch the Steelers game after we picked him up.

After waiting and waiting to move to the new room, we had to wait some more and drove to the airport to fetch Adam. I mixed up his arrival time and we showed up an hour early (whoops), so got to check out the bar in Terminal 4 (only one showing football on TV) before picking Adam up.

After picking him up, we moved into the new suite and then headed to the local Penn State bar and met Chuck the Fuck (a gregarious, self-named, 68 year old alum), who took a liking to Tom. Yeah…a new friend! Later, we met up with another PSU friend, Kristin and her law-school buddy, Dawn. We decided to head back to the hotel, ordered some pizzas, drank some beer and then walked back south to the complex we hit up the first night. At one of the bars there, some old football alumni had rented out a bar, so we entered and celebrated/danced with several of our kind. On the walk back (along the ocean on the beach), we were slowed by the sand and then al the guys decided to jump in the ocean for a swim. That didn’t last too long and then we were back to our hotel, but the pool beckoned. It was VERY warm and I think we were messing around in it for a good hour or so. By 3am, we were all soundly asleep on the various beds and couches.

Monday
Monday was our shopping day, so after a pancake breakfast at one of Adam’s favorite haunts, we went to Target, Home Depot, Party Store and Publix to get the supplies for our tailgate (there were 70 RSVPs). We filled the Expedition full of food, beer, water and a grill. This project took us a good 3 or 4 hours. Back at the hotel, we unloaded the frozen items and waited for Brian to arrive.

This was to be an semi-easy night and we headed back to the Penn State bar, met up with another college buddy (Rich) and drank and mingled with Penn Staters. Rich drove us back to the hotel and we got a good night’s sleep before the big day.

Tuesday
Adam’s dad arrived a little before 11am, and we loaded up and headed for the rendezvous point (5 cars were to caravan into the game together to set up the tailgate). While driving into the stadium parking lot, we quickly saw that the PSU/FSU fan ratio was something like 8:1. Man do we have spirit! Yeah…and a lot of pent up bowl demand from not having been to one since 2001. This was our first BCS bowl…and for FSU, their 6th in the last 8 years. We were also #3 in the country and 11-1 and they were #22 and 8-4. It shouldn’t be a surprise that we would outnumber them…but I didn’t think it would be to the degree that it was.

A little after noon, we were parked and everything was set up (chairs, coolers, grill, tables, stand up JoePa and Lion and our flag). Over the next 7 hours, we would drink, eat, explore the other tailgates and have a grand, ol’ time. By 7:30, our tailgate was mostly packed up and all had headed into their respective seats. Tom, Mark and myself headed for our section (241), which, YEAH…is right behind Florida State’s band…deep in the heart of enemy country.

Our section-mates were friendly and ~40% PSU. The three of us decided to lead the cheering in our section and screamed “We are, Penn State” throughout the game. The Seminole Chop never seemed to have much effort in the stadium, mostly because the write-ups the next day said that over 50k of the 77k fans were rooting for PSU.

After 5 hours of back and forth football and 3 OTs, we finally prevailed, 26-23. The game wrapped up at 1am and we returned to the hotel at about 3am. My flight was at 7:15am, so I packed up, cleaned my face, set my alarm and went to sleep.

Wednesday
When I awoke (it was light out), I panicked. Looking at my watch, I saw that it was 7am. I scrambled out of the room, into the truck, gassed it up, dropped it off at Avis and found at 9am, that yes, indeed…I had missed my flight. All flights were booked for the rest of the day; my best bet was to fly standby the following day.

This brought me to the Miami Airport Hilton, but they wouldn’t have a room ready until the afternoon, so I had some breakfast and then found the pool and a couple of blankets and went to sleep on a lounge chair. Once checked in, I found that I had lost my voice, so my work capabilities were limited to short phone calls and catching up on all of my emails. The night ended with watching Texas upset USC in the BCS championship.

Thursday
I was able to make it to the airport easily the next day and successfully made it onto both of the legs of my flight. My voice came mostly back by Friday.

Aftermath
Can’t wait til the next Bowl Game!!!!

[Update - my camera is back and I now have pics from gameday.]