Doing tourist stuff

Stuff for sale, some really great stuff on display. More pics in the Picasa gallery after I get back.

I missed breakfast this morning after being wiped out by that early flight. Spent the whole day in the CHM, watching the talks, checking out the exhibits and shopping the marketplace. The need to fly back with whatever I buy is limiting my purchases, probably for the better. So far I’ve picked up only a limited-run Atari cart and an HP calculator power supply. Jason Scott showed clips from his upcoming documentary and spoke for nearly three hours on a variety of entertaining subjects, with the conversations following him out into the hall as the CHM shut down for the night.

Dinner was a two-part affair consisting of two stops at two different In-n-Out Burger locations. The first one wasn’t enough. We drove up and down Hwy 101, took a quick tour of downtown San Jose, and returned to the hotel early. After having only one real meal today, I’m going to make that breakfast in the morning.

I bought one of the white shirts. I’ve got a lot of black t-shirts.

Inspired by SETI?

Well we’re here in Mountain View, CA, after a long day of travel. Slept through at least half the flight, which helped. It was due to be early but ended up about 45 late because of heavy fog near the runways. Once safely on the ground things progressed as planned. Our rental car turned out to be the sporty Kia Optima. It’s really trying hard, I’ll give it that. It’s even got Tiptronic(-like) transmission!

Crossed the San Mateo bridge again (this time intentionally,) but that same fog prevented any view of the bay, so we crossed the smaller Dumbarton bridge to the south, which for some reason was not fogged up. A little exploration of the Mountain View area found us some lunch, then it was check-in time, just in time for a major nap. After a couple hours of nap and a couple more of recovery, it was back to Castro St. for dinner, which, despite the abundant choices, ended up being sub sandwiches brought back to the hotel.

And that’s the first day. The hotel promises a “full” breakfast (not a buffet?) every morning, and tomorrow’s speaker lineup at VCF means I’ll be staying the entire day.

Just a few days left ’til VCF! I’ll be spending a few extra days in the SFO area, so many photos should be forthcoming. I’ll try to update from the road when possible. Not looking forward to: flying, driving in SanFran, paying for parking. Other than that, it should be a good time.

Unfortunately, this will probably work for a long time.

Former AT&T Long Lines microwave tower, west of State Route 49, north of Valparaiso, Indiana

Here are the pics I took at VCF Midwest. I’ll like other galleries as I find them.

I’m all packed up, time to help the others get their stuff ready to go. Things went well. I’m coming home with about the same, or maybe only slightly more, stuff than I came with. Picked up a Mac IIfx and some random books and such. Unloaded some blank tapes and lots of copies of Windows 1.03. Got myself on the local news (link coming later) saying some embarrassing stuff under the glare of the video light. Saw some great hardware and met some great people. Got to show off some wacky hardware and educate people on how things used to be done and how much fun it wasn’t.

Due to hit the road in an hour or so, after a much-needed meal. Will post full pictures set tomorrow.