I awoke in a haze of french fry fueled bad dreams at 5 a.m. which is just about as early as I can wake up over here for some reason. Hanging in the air was the smell of day old stale fries and spilled strawberry soda (on the floor under the bed hopefully they won't find it). I did feel better though, there is something about a good nights sleep, it just seems to help me get a good jump on the day. I got showered dressed, got everything packed up and grabbed my camera (the last day that I would be allowed to bring it into the conference) and I decided I'd read an article about how sunlight is a natural disease fighter in the San Francisco Chronicle. It was possibly the wrong move.
I awoke in a haze of newsprint at 6:30 a.m. wondering what had happened to the last 30 minutes and why I was staring at a larger than life picture of a very blurry and pixelated President Bush. I took the elevator and ran to get into the line at Moscone West. I knew I was in trouble, the line was most of the way around the back of the building and it was already moving. How many people had gotten in before me? Which overflow room would I be in. Why had I needed to read the paper? More importantly, why had I left my computer on the train yesterday keeping me from registering until today?
The line moved fast and I expected, at any moment for a security guard to cut me off moments from going in just to tell me that the keynote was full and I would have to wait for further instructions to get to the overflow room. I did get in though, and I got registered. I got some nice schwag including a new notebook bag and a t-shirt and was ushered into one of the most hectic and crowded lines in my life. Several people waiting in line were mooing as they crowded into a large banquet hall. The thought entered my mind that if someone wanted to take out the brain trusts of a bunch of fortune 500 companies all they would have to do is release the flu or something into the crowd and most of the attendees (who have never seen other people, let alone sunlight) would perish due to low immune systems. As if to accentuate my point I noticed a lot more people with the sniffles and coughs throughout the rest of the conference. I'm still not sure if I noticed this because of the thought or if I thought of it because of the coughs. I just hope it wasn't low grade telepathy at work. In line to the keynote (now on the second floor) I started talking to a guy named Chris from the University of Michigan and a guy named Mark from AccuWeather. We talked about networking and about me forgetting my computer on the BART. They both seemed to believe that I was one of the luckiest people on the planet. We were herded through a hallway and in the hurry up and wait mentality which seems to be a paean in situations like this we ended up talking for another 30 minutes before we were moved into the main hall. I got into the keynote. And I had wicked good seats too. I was in the first section in the middle. I couldn't have asked for a more perfect spot. You can download the keynote and watch it from Apple if you're interested. Actually, I figure, if you're interested you've probably already downloaded it. The Highlights, a $199 iPhone with 3G capabilities and GPS.
Here are a few of the photos I was able to get in slideshow form. The keynote was an amazing experience. Steve Jobs is a fantastic speaker. Due to an NDA this is the last data on the conference I can give. Though I did attend the OSX state of the union directly after the keynote. I didn't know what real pain was until the end of the state of the union. Well, ok, that's a bit dramatic. I guess what I meant to say was my computer didn't know what real pain was until after the state of the union. I was sitting on the end of one row and a man walked by knocking over my laptop case. He then stepped directly on one corner of the case and as I realized what he had done I grabbed my computer case out from under him. His only comment. "Oh, oops, sorry bro." then he moved on into the crowd like some hate-filled angry djinn. Oops? Sorry bro? what consolidation was that when I was faced with a newly recovered recently stepped on computer that I don't even own? It seemed thin to me. Luckily, so was the culprit. I didn't get a good look at him but he must not have weighed much because all he did was manage to bend my frame a bit making my machine a
little uglier. It is really a sad state of affairs when a computer has to go through so much in such a short amount of time. But here is a picture I took to show the damage on the computer. you can see how far distended the front part of the case is. The lid still closes as it was the bottom part of the bottom case that actually took the brunt and decided to crumple before anything else gave way. This is the only damage to the machine and as far as damage goes I must say this isn't as bad as it could have been. The screen and everything else on the machine seems to work just fine.
in the future I plan to carry a hard shelled case that is handcuffed to my person at all times to alleviate all of the issues that I've had on this trip. I'm thinking that a thin metal briefcase with a gold handcuff on it will send the right message. Sadly the right message in this case may be "cut off my hand because this case is filled with cash and jewels" oh well. I suppose that's the way that the hand-flesh crumbles. After several more conferences that are confidential (as well as some free welcome food) I headed back to the hotel room and crashed for the night. I had fond dreams of nothing happening to my computer the next day. Nothing did, but more of that in the next entry. For now I am going to try to nurse my computer back to health and preserve the battery life that I have left.
"Determine never to be idle...It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing."
Thomas Jefferson