/travel/usa/Two Bad Flights and a Haircut
Watched Flightplan; it wasn't superb, but it was better than I expected. I wish the preview hadn't given away a major plot turn, but it did. Flight attendants the world over are outraged.
There were lots of silly unnecessary technical errors, like having the lights dimmed during boarding, having flight crew wandering around during take-off, and de-icing a plan in Berlin (which barely goes below zero), and that sort of thing. But it was alright.
In other news, I shaved my head, at long last, after lots of dabbling nearer and nearer. I got it done at the hairavan that comes to work twice a week for 10USD, and then biced (well, gilletted) it when I got home after an evening at the pub. That didn't turn out as badly as you might expect. I have a more angular head than I thought. My favourite part is just above where a fatter person would have a roll...the skin is all woobly.
Time's been flying here..working a lot, and going out a fair bit. Went to SF last weekend with Seth and his wife and Keith-also-from-Dublin. Had disappointing clam chowder...if all these famous foods are that bad, I'd hate to see what normal meatatarian food is like.
I saw Carlos Olmeda at a house concert. He was pretty good, good stories and a sharp wit. Met some fun people and went out karaokeing by accident, since the only fun-looking bar in downtown Sunnyvale ("Making downtown Mountain View look positivily cosmopolitan for 20 years") happened to be having karaoke night. We sang Mr. Jones. Screamed, really.
And, finally, in reverse-chronological order, my flight here was...Murphy-esque. I got dropped off by Ian's parents (thanks much!) after they took me in on short notice for Thanksgiving dinner (thanks more!) and had their bums whupped by yours truly at Scrabble (ended the game with a 7-letter triple-score word..couldn't have planned it better).
I'm always a little nervous before I fly, but that time I was a bit more than usual. I guess I felt ill-prepared. For the first time in my life, the automatic checkin thingies seemed to work. But they flashed up where to take luggage for just a second, and I was putting things away at the time. I started wandering, and eventually asked some random Air Canada employee, and they said to go ahead through customs. I did so, but then it was clear I shouldn't have, so I had to wait in the stupid people line to get luggage stickers. I walked away, and left behind my flight/hotel info. The nice lady quickly caught up to me and handed it to me. So I put my luggage on the conveyor belt and went through to security.
I proceed to break a long, long, long streak of never setting off the metal detectors. I just completely forgot to empty my pockets. I always laugh at the people who have to be reminded. So I walked back through, and started emptying my pockets..money, camera, wallet, swiss army knife, etc. Yes, that's right, swiss army knife. Didn't even notice as I dumped it in there, but the security people did. $15 to have them hold it, or I could check another bag, or I could just leave it. I just got this knife back from my parents, though it wasn't the one that I lost, but rather a different one that my dad had lying around. Not too big of a deal, so I left it.
Then I went through, and grabbed some food, and proceeded to Gate P. Which turned out to be lounge P, serving several gates. Eventually our flight was announced, but I wasn't paying that much attention. There were two doors marked P, but I assumed they wouldn't be so stupid as to board two flights simultaneously through one logical gate. They were. I went through the wrong door. The flight attendants laughed at me as I crossed back in front of them.
Just as I was boarding -- nearly the last passenger, as is my habit, I heard them saying my name. I said "I'm Rob Ewaschuk", and they showed me a little piece of paper. "I think you might want this." It was my visa letter for getting back in to Dublin.
Finally, I sat down on the plane, and started talking to the guy beside me. He was reading a book in Hebrew, which I recognized a such, and asked him about. I proceeded to imply (accidentally) that little was written directly in Hebrew, and that he must be reading something translated from English. He didn't talk to me for the rest of the flight.
So yeah, bad flight. And I didn't solve my Sudoku, either.
New Albums from the Gallery
/travel/usa/Flying
Tonight: Bags. Passport. Immigrant card; visa letter. Flight and hotel details. Clothes, bike stuff, sharp things in checked bags, water, batteries. Cell phone charged, iPod has fresh music. Currencies: EUR, GBP, CAD, USD. Up too late, early alarm.
Tomorrow: Taxi to bus station; bus to Belfast; bus to Belfast Int'l Airport; flight to Toronto (stop in Halifax); bus to subway; subway to Greyhound terminal; Greyhound to Orillia.
See some soon, some later.
/travel/usa/Once More To Mountain View
(Yes, two blog postings in a row. I didn't want to ruin what I hope was a bit of creative writing in the last one. :-) )
So I'm going to Mountain View again, once via Toronto. It doesn't actually save me much money to do it, but it saves time and fuel, and thus assuages my guilt about excessive air travel.
I'm leaving October 5th; I'll be in southern Ontario from the 6th to the 9th inclusive, probably hanging out in Toronto on Sunday the 9th and maybe the day before. I'll be in Mountain View from October 10th to 25th, when I fly back to Dublin.
I doubt I'll come out to Waterloo, but maybe.
/travel/usa/Cycling to San Francisco
I biked to San Francisco this weekend. I went on Saturday with my friend Paul. We went to a hostel to find me a room, then for Italian food and to the Apple store, then he caught the CalTrain back to Mountain View. The ride was just over 50 miles.
The people
at the hostel were great. There were probably 10 or 12 people that I met.
Two of them were there for a while, looking for a flat in SF. They just
hung around the common room a lot and played card, which people gravitated
towards. We played a bunch of Cheat/Bullshit and Shithead (not to be
confused with Asshole. One gets the impression 16 year olds name these
games. ;-) ). As I was leaving, they were being hearts, so I asked to be
dealt in for one last round, and proceeded to Shoot the Moon/Take Control,
which was an amusing exit.
Phil (Montreal, in the sunglasses) and I ended up challenged to name all the states. I'm not quite sure how that happened. I think we got 46...not bad.
I also went
to the Conservatory of Flowers, in the Golden Gate park. The world's
biggest flower (Actually many flowers, according to the pamphlet) was about
to bloom, causing big lineups. Apparently it's quite stinky when it blooms.
The Conservatory was neat, and certainly better than the one in Edmonton,
but it had nothing on the Eden
Project.
The whole weekend was really 'positive' or something. I couldn't believe the support for cycling here, in terms of signage and shoulders and lanes, nor could I believe the number of cyclists out on Saturday and today. It was more than anywhere I've ever seen, which was a nice counterbalance against the raging car culture here. I had good food, good games, beautiful cycling, and met some great people. San Francisco really grew on me, too. It's such a wacky place, with so many things that don't make sense, and some aspects which are nearly chaotic, but it's all pretty cool. It bucks some sort of homogeneity trend. They had these cool "zero emission" buses that used the electricity wires like trams, but were on tires like busses, so they could weave in traffic. I got caught behind one and not blasted with hot diesel exhaust...delightful.
Put up a bunch of photos. I still have a backlog, but I may just give up on that for a while and keep things up to date with a gap.
Heading back to Dublin on Thursday, which is exciting. I'll be back just in time for Friday night outings. yay!
/travel/usa/Nine Powerbars™ and a Camelback™
It's a long weekend here ("Memorial day"), so I'm heading out cycling. I'm going with my friend Paul from Waterloo.
I've had a littlel flurry of spending here -- clipless (SPD) pedals (no platforms, unlike my other ones), a 3L Camelback backpack/bladder deal (with a hose that comes over your shoulder so you can drink without much effort, an iPod Shuffle (1GB), and a 60GB external Firewire harddrive (which turns out to be a bad drive, apparently.) The iPod replaces my iRiver, since iRiver failed twice to answer my warranty emails. Bastards.
So Monday's a holiday, then I work Tuesday and Wednesday, and fly out Thursday, arriving Friday back in Dublin. It's gone pretty quickly this time, what with having a more proper place to stay, and an imported social life -- I've been hanging out a lot with the others from the Dublin office, plus Seth who came to visit Dublin.
Looking forward to the cycling...Weather looks okay. I have no particular plans -- to San Francisco today, but then no idea. No accomodations books; hopefully I'll be able to find a hostel. We'll see if my experience arriving randomly in European cities transfers well to SF. I have in my head to go north along the coast from there, but beyond that I don't really know.
/travel/usa/The Dark Side
So work rented out a bunch of screenings of Star Wars. I ended up with 9pm tickets, no one to go with and no ride. Seth was going to the 8:30 show, and had to come into work, so I figured I'd catch a ride with him and sort it out from there. He and his girlfriend and I went out for dinner, then went to the cinema. Just as we were going in, I must admit, I turned to the dark side...I decided to try to sneak in to the wrong showing. Daring, I know. Shocked, you must be. We stacked our tickets in a pile, and handed them to the ticket ripper. She didn't notice, and we were in! Easy, this dark side stuff is.
But then, an unexpected problem! There was another ticket checker, just for that cinema. His job was to block people who were doing exactly what I was doing. I considered waving my hands and saying "These are not the tickets you are checking for," but instead I just held my ticket from afar and didn't give him a hook to stop me. Plus Seth had to fumble around for his ticket. It was genius.
The movie was quite good. I found it intellectually and ethically engaging. I had read some of Lucas's discussion about how he had studied the failure of democracies in making the film, and I think that showed. The political storyline seemed authentic, and only incidentally topical. The prescient (presumable) coincidence with assassination attempts leaving people deformed was striking. The plot holes weren't gaping, and the writing was only occasionally weak.
The problem with the dark side is that it fails to account for a wide swath of externalities. It's pretty clear that under true cost accounting, embracing the Dark Side just doesn't make economic sense.
/travel/usa/Lost Phone
Grr. I lost my phone. Which sucks. A lot. And the SIM in it was a work SIM, which also sucks. I have a month-old backup of the data, but I won't be able to put that on 'til I get home and get a new phone.
My Irish phone number won't change, since I still have that SIM (AFAIK), but my number while I'm in MV will probably change.
It was clipped to the top of my shorts in its holster, and fell off while I was cycling.
/travel/usa/California Summer
Owie! So I needed my
computer this weekend to a bit of work, but when I got home I realized I
didn't have the power adaptor. I called Seth, a co-worker who was in Dublin
a while ago and lives near here, and asked if he had a spare one I could
borrow. Indeed he did, so I threw on some sandals, my helmet, and some
lights, and hopped on my bike. I got through the little busy bit near where
I'm staying, and then on a quiet street, started fiddling with my lights to
try to make them visible -- they're just little clip-on lights that I
borrowed from my boss.
Then, suddenly, there was a car right in front of me, parked against the curb. I noticed it rather too late, and we had a little run-in. I don't think I did any damage to the car, but I skinned my hand and shin a little, and twisted the handle bars of the bike. They were fixed easily, and off I went.
Conclusion: safety lights are dangerous! :-)
I've been busy working and going out occasionally. There's only two pubs in Mountain View, and they're about 10 minutes from here on foot. People seem to head there on Thursdays, and this week I had a rousing political debate with a couple of co-workers, one of whom was more like my brother-in-law than anyone I've met before.
I've got a nice running route here -- it's not far to a lovely path that twins the highway -- but I've only done it once, which is pretty weak.
Not too much going on. Going to San Francisco tonight to sample a crêum;pe restaurant. Next weekend I'm not sure what I'm doing, but the one after that is a 3-day weekend, and I'll be going cycling, with any luck. Not in the dark, though.
/travel/usa/Leaving California
I'm sipping a glass of spicy V8 juice, gently procrastinating packing up my stuff. I have to check in tomorrow at 09:00 for my flight to Dublin, starting in San Francisco and going via Atlanta. I arrive at about 09:00 Friday, Dublin time. (16 hours travel + 8 hours time difference.)
Packing makes me nostalgic, though I'm surprised my brief stay in Cali and minimal luggage has induced that.
After an unpleasant first few days, and besides certain obvious factors, I've enjoyed myself here. It's not a place I'd want to stay in long, but it has notable benefits.
For the first few days, I was taxiing to and from work. My co-worker leant me a bicycle to ride, and showed me a path to work. I twinned a highway most of the way, but given that it was remarkably pleasant. It reminded me a lot of the Meewasin trail in Saskatoon. It had the same growthy green smell that the Meewasin trail had at the best time of year. I was generally working late, and the ride home at night was very reminiscent of biking home from here or there when I was young.
Despite the fact that I'm headed back here sometime soon for more training, I feel like finally, finally, I'm going back to Dublin to be settled. My stuff has apparently arrived, including my speakers, and I have a laptop and a phoneline, and maybe sometime soon even some broadband.
It took me a couple weeks to get a place. Then it took a week before I took "possession". Then I called to have a phoneline installed, which took a week. Then it's taken nearly two weeks for them to test the (new!) phone line to make sure it's good enough for broadband. Now I have to wait another week or three to get broadband actually installed. And even then, it's high-contention, low-bandwidth, asymmetric, and has bandwidth caps. Ugh. On the other hand, it's also needed for my job, and thus a perk. So I should stop complaining.
Much of this talk of settling is targeted at a particular issue: I've been rather remiss in keeping touch with people. Hopefully phonecalls, emails and IM conversations will all become more frequent.
On an unrelated note, steve has started putting some notes from this summer's cycling trip on my wiki. They probably mean little or nothing to anyone else, but they might be entertaining anyway -- it's hard for me to guess.
So that's where stuff's at.
/travel/usa/In Case Of ...
I just noticed that the sign on my hotel-room door about fires and such has an "In Case Of Earthquake" clause.
I've never seen that before. I've never been in an earthquake, either. I must admit, it sounds interesting.
