James' Santa Clara 2007 Travel Blog: 2007-06-17 (Sunday, June 17, 2007)

2007-06-17T07:30-07/09:00-07

After getting up, showering, getting dressed, et. al., I went down to grab some breakfast at Tresca, which is the house restaurant. I opted for the buffet.

The buffet consisted of pastries, various meats (bacon, sausage, et. al.), cereals, frittatas, and scrambled eggs. It was good, but it cost a whopping $18. I checked the breakfast menu on the way out, and the buffet was the most expensive item on the menu. Hell, the buffet was more expensive than anything I could have ordered via room service.

My guess is that the buffet is there for people who don't have a lot of time for breakfast, and are willing to pay a premium in order to eat quickly. While I might have to do that some mornings, I'm definitely going to explore the rest of the breakfast menu.

I headed over to the convention center, picked up my materials, and went to the tutorial session.

2007-06-17T09:00-07/10:30-07

Tutorial S1, morning session 1.

2007-06-17T10:30-07/11:00-07

The morning break. Bagels and tea were available. I grabbed some Earl Gray.

I still can't think about Earl Gray tea without hearing Computer: tea, Earl Gray, hot in my head.

2007-06-17T11:00-07/12:30-07

Tutorial S1, morning session 2.

2007-06-17T12:30-07/13:30-07

We broke for the tutorial lunch.

Today's lunch theme was Asian: citrus noodles, fried rice, vegetable curry, pork ribs, wontons, and egg rolls. It was ok, but nothing to write home about.

By sheer chance, I was sitting next to Rik Farrow during lunch. He asked me if I was taking pictures of my food because I was counting calories. I explained that my "food blog" was more popular with my coworkers than my actual conference notes; we both had a chuckle over it. ;)

I was able to partially charge my laptop, but not enough to last through both afternoon sessions. For the second afternoon session, I'm going to have to find an AC outlet, even if it means I wind up sitting waaaaay in the back of the room, as there are only 4 outlets in the middle of the room; all of the rest out of the outlets ring the conference room...

These posters are in some of the elevators.

Hi. Do I get a discount for beta-testing your hotel?
What?
Nevermind...

2007-06-17T13:30-07/15:00-07

Tutorial S1, afternoon session 1.

2007-06-17T15:00-07/15:30-07

The afternoon break. Cans of assorted soft drinks were available, along with chocolate chip cookies.

Unfortunately, by the time I came back from the restroom, all of the food was totally gone. :(

Here's the view from the balcony outside the tutorial suites. You can see the rides from the Great America theme park in the background, as well as mountains in the far distance.

2007-06-17T15:30-07/17:00-07

Tutorial S1, afternoon session 2.

Now I'm sitting alone towards the back of the room, in order to feed my laptop...

2007-06-17T17:00-07/19:30-07

After the tutorial ended, I spent a few minutes chatting with the presenter, then headed back to my room to finish charging my laptop while catching up on email.

2007-06-17T19:30-07/20:00-07

An insert in the Usenix program mentioned restaurants that, while not necessarily adjacent to the hotel, were within easy walking distance (no more than a mile or two). Since there are never any BoF sessions on the first night of the conference, I decided that tonight would be a good night to go out to eat.

After studying my options, I decided to go to Mercado Santa Clara, a complex that includes an AMC Theatres complex and multiple restaurants.

Even though the roads (Great America Parkway, Tasman Drive, Mission College Boulevard) are all at least 6 lanes wide, they are surprisingly friendly to pedestrians; they have continuous sidewalks, and crosswalks with cross buttons at every single intersection. It only took me about half an hour to walk there and find the complex.

Along the way, I passed this owl area.

You know, if the dog were small enough, the owl would probably just eat the dog...

Alas, I saw burrows, but no owls.

2007-06-17T20:00-07/21:00-07

After I found the Mercado Santa Clara complex, I had to decide among the various dining options.

I finally decided on the Mexicali Grill, for two reasons: first, it was more of sit-down restaurant than a fast food joint; second, one would expect that Mexican cuisine would be done right in this part of the country.

I couldn't resist ordering the house special margarita, the Mexicali bullet Margarita. (Yes, it was full when they brought it to me; I didn't remember to take a picture until I had already knocked off about half of it.

My server recommended the sweet corn tamales. (Two Homemade tamales, topped with fresh roasted tomatillo sauce and crème mexicana.) They were very tasty, although almost a little too sweet—I wondered (but didn't ask) if they had any added sugar.

I had a choice of soup or salad with my entrée. Although I was tempted to benchmark their tortilla soup against Fajita Grill's, everything else I ordered was a hot item, so I opted for the salad (with homemade cilantro vinaigrette dressing instead). Tasty.

I ordered the enchiladas mariscos as my entrée. (Two corn tortillas rolled with crab, shrimp and prawns covered with fresh roasted tomatillo sauce. Topped with sour cream, avocado slices and cotija cheese. Served with rice and refrito beans.) This was excellent.

The fresh roasted tomatillo sauce was what pushed both of these dishes from good to excellent; it was the perfect combination of tangy, spicy, smoky, and salty.

Alas, I was already full a few bites into the enchiladas. The problem is, even though there's a mini-refrigerator in my room (in the cabinet that houses the television), I have no microwave or utensils. So, even though I could have my leftovers to go, and refrigerate them properly, I wouldn't be able to reheat them.

But since I have a very difficult time throwing out otherwise perfectly good food (which is what happens to anything you don't eat in a restaurant and don't take with you), I hate to not clean my plate. So this puts me in a predicament: stuff myself, even though I'm already full, or let food go to waste?

Alas, the urge to not waste food was just too powerful, so I cleaned my plate. Hopefully the long walk will burn off some of the calories. (That's my rationalization and I'm sticking to it.)

2007-06-17T21:00-07/21:30-07

After eating, I walked back to the hotel at a brisk place. (Since I knew the way this time, it didn't take as long.)

I took this picture looking back at the Mercado Santa Clara complex. I like the juxtaposition of the setting sun with the moon.

2007-06-17T21:30-07/22:30-07

I spent some time trying to debug the suspend-to-RAM problems I've been having with my laptop, but failed to find any quirks settings that helped. It's a royal PITA to have my laptop hang every time it comes out of a suspend. I threw in the towel.