WWDC Plane Back Blog

Great last day in SF

Wow did my foot ever hurt like an ornery bastard today. The tendon on the top of the bony part of my foot that is connected to my big toe creaked audibly when I wiggled my toe today.

But that didn't stop me from hopping on a bus and going uptown to Golden Gate Park off of Haight St.

What a beautiful place. We just walked around and watched people flying kites and riding bikes. Then we heard a group of drummers and went to check them out. We came up on a group of people who just seemed to be a haphazard collection of random percussionists who found each other and decided to just start playing. That's how it seemed, but of course you know they were probably all practically professional musicians who did that very thing every day. They managed to keep up their beat for hours, as we just hung out in the park playing frisbee and dancing to the music and talking to people and just lying on the grass looking into the sky. We ended up sticking around there formerly the whole afternoon.

There were all sorts of people there, from the twenty-something techies on their cell phones to the aging hippies who were probably there during the sixties.



It was great to have my iPod on me today, I thankfully had a grateful Dead show that was recorded in San Francisco on a new year's eve.. So it was sort of like closing my eyes and traveling back in time.

There is only 40 minutes between this plane arriving in Toronto and when we have to get on the flight to Charlottetown. That's 40 minutes to go through security, clear customs and get on that shuttle bus that goes between terminals. Not gonna happen. Oy.

Didn't do too much else since the conference ended. Last night Eric and Zach and I walked around the city for quite a while, watched some kids play soccer in a park, checked out some quirky little stores we came across. We ate supper at this really great little Ethiopian restaurant where they serve you the food on a big platter with your choice of dishes on top of fermented flatbread. You just tore off a chunk of bread, hoisted up some of the veggies like split lentils or cabbage and potato and ate it with your hands. It was a totally communal experience, like eating pizza only more so.

This morning I discovered the joy that is the breakfast burrito, and I am beginning to wonder why it is San Franciscans know a hundred times as many ways to prepare potatoes than PEIlanders do. That's quite an embarrassment in my opinion.

Just before getting the cab to the airport I accompanied Eric to the Apple store, and like the good little cultist I am I pushed him into getting an iPod mini. Their $50 incremental pricing scheme really is diabolical. Bastards.

And no sooner did we get back to the hotel than did Zach decide to go and buy an iPod for his wife. This is a disease I think. But I have to say I'm loving the plane ride with it, so it's not without its usefulness.

Staying humble moment of the day: when I realized my brand new water bottle from Apple wasn't exactly water tight, and I discovered a little bit of the lemonade I had stashed in there this morning was leaking into my bag. Thankfully these spiffy new tote bags Apple gave all of us have separate laptop compartments and the PowerBook was untouched. (I'm totally in love with this little laptop, and it's not just a friend thing, either, I'm starting to be physically attracted to shiny small things now.)

I'm going to be Mr. Apple when I get back, even worse than before, just from all the knowledge they infused into my head over the course of all the sessions I went to and the times I was feverishly laying down my inspirations in the labs or that great night when we all worked on some code in the hotel room. We would all rotate in and out to the screen, pick the thing we were each good at and work on that part, as well as look up the proper documentation and function calls while the other person would work. I am totally convinced in the idea of making software now, just experiencing the way it is supposed to be done, and being around so many smart and talented people and hearing them talk about how they do things.

I'm going to start to ramble again if I don't shut up now, so I'll save this and upload it when I get a net connection.