Driss-A-Blog

Ann Arbor must be getting to me. I'm waiting for the green "walking man" to show up so I can cross a street, and there isn't a car in sight. I'm waiting, and desperately trying to resist going. I was pretty good on the first day. Always waiting for the man. But I'm starting to lose it.

Today started with a reorganization of my bags. They give you a notebook computer bag every year for WWDC, and it's invariably filled with goodies. Yesterday I lugged around two bags, far longer than it took me to realize what a mistake that was. So I trimmed my working set down to my Tom Bihn bag, my camera on my shoulder, and my notebook in my hand. Put on my spiffy Apple jacket and I'm ready to go.

Meet up with Chuck. He's found some place where he's getting signal. So I try. No dice. One of the networking guys comes over and explains how they're adjusting the antenna locations to improve TiBook reception. He wants me to try a few network commands to see if things are improving. When I do get reception I'm dropping a good 60-70% of the packets, which isn't good. He drags the PowerBook over to him and the carpet catches the two back rubber feet and pulls them out. We put them back in, but I lost the back right one later. Ugh.

I didn't go to many sessions today. One in the morning, but then I went down to the labs to talk to the engineers. First was Java, where within half an hour I had both problems solved. Then I went to the DTS lab where I worked with Rich Kubota for a while. We didn't get very far so I'm going to go back on Thursday to try to catch Quinn.

And at the lab end of the hall is an Airport Base Station. Sitting on a table. Plugged into an outlet. So now I have a spot to sit, plug in, and actually go online. It's about time.

Today I got to eat lunch at WWDC. (Yesterday was salad at Adobe.) I was wandering the tables trying to find someone to ask for a kosher meal, and Jay W called me over. We talked a bit while we ate lunch, and I realized that there was a sticker on the box specifying its source. Aha! So I left the Metrowerks lunch presentation a bit early, got online, and mapped the store. So after the session, Jay and I went to go buy food.

San Jose's public transportation is a bit odd. They have both buses and light rail (trolleys in name only), but the tickets aren't quite compatible. The store was too close for a trolley so we hopped the first of two buses. One hitch: there are no transfers, so it's best to just buy a day pass. So we did. We got to the store, Willow Glen Kosher, which is a small store with two tables up front, some wire racks with products down the side, and a meat counter in the back. I called back to the hotel to get a fridge, and ordered some deli sandwiches for dinners. It's the first time I've been able to expense Tam Tams.

I also mentioned that I needed a place to stay for Shabbos, and the guy behind the counter gave me a card of a shul. By the time we got back to the convention center, there was about half an hour left until the last session of the day, so I emailed some people and left a message on the shul's answering machine about Shabbos. I have yet to see what will happen.

Met up with Keith Stattenfield after the CFNetwork session. His term for the new blue busy cursor in the new OS X: the "Aqua Orb of Angst". He's quite the wordmeister.

On Tuesday night are the Birds of a Feather sessions. I guess I'll have to go next year since tonight was when Sabrina, our Apple rep, decided to take us out to dinner. She was able to dig up a WebObjects guy for Doug, but no networking guy for me. Minor bummer. But I was able to be reasonably sociable with everyone involved, so that's a good thing. We got back rather late, so the only thing left was the Stepwise BOF, and there wasn't much there for me. I stayed for a while but left.

The fridge showed up so I dropped the sandwiches in there. I've started to fill out an expense report. The only items on there so far are the sandwich bill (corporate AmEx) and the bus fare (cash). I never seem to have complicated reports.