James' San Diego 2005 Travel Blog: 2005-12-07 (Wednesday, December 7, 2005)

2005-12-07T04:00-08/07:00-08

I continued in the same pattern: I went to bed very early, and then got up very early.

I did my finances, and then tried to sync my Palm. No dice—I must've nailed it with an ESD sometime without realizing it. I reset it and managed to restore it, but I couldn't get lucky enough to avoid the sync bug and get a successful sync/backup. I am not a happy camper.

2005-12-07T07:00-08/08:15-08

I spent so much time banging on my Palm that I wasn't able to get much additional sleep. I didn't roll out of bed until 07:45-08, so I had to skip breakfast and go directly to the first session.

I did wind up being 15 minutes late, but that's mostly because I had to sort out issue with my ID badge. Specifically, when I exchanged my (incorrect) TUTORIALS ONLY badge for the (correct) TECH SESSIONS badge on Sunday, they didn't give me the technical session tickets I needed. (The person who gave me my tickets said that this year they used temp workers to stuff envelopes, and that I'm far from the only person who didn't get the correct materials.)

2005-12-07T08:45-08/10:30-08

Opening Remarks, Awards, and Keynote.

2005-12-07T10:30-08/11:00-08

The morning break. Many assorted pastries were available. As the only thing I had eaten so far was some of my jerky, I found this state of affairs Most Acceptable.

2005-12-07T11:00-08/12:30-08

I tried to attend the Invited Talks: Network Black Ops session, but it was canceled postponed because the presenter didn't show. So, I went to the Refereed Papers session instead.

2005-12-07T12:30-08/14:00-08

Lunchtime.

I'm not sure if any of the remaining tutorials provide a lunch, but it doesn't matter, because my tutorials are done. No free lunch for me.

Rudy, Shlomo and I decided to head over to the Fashion Valley mall and eat lunch at Crocodile Cafe. (Grabbing something from the food court there would've been fine with me as well, but Rudy was running low on cash, and wanted to go to someplace that would take plastic.)

I'm a sucker for birds begging for food. (Unless they're pigeons, that is. Any bird that's too lazy to even bother to fly out of my way doesn't need any extra food.)

I had the homemade lemonade and the chicken stir-fry, sans the chicken. (I had plenty of protein last night, thank you very much.) Rudy and Shlomo had a cheeseburger and hamburger, respectively.

On the way back, Shlomo and I stopped at the Sprint kiosk to look at the Samsung Blade. It's small. It's sleek. It's purdy. And it's only available for purchase with a new line of service. Thank you, please drive through, fuck you very much.

Actually, I'm not really angry at them for doing this, considering that grown adults are fighting over this phone like a horde of pimply-faced teenage boys over a pile of Xbox 360s, and it's the holiday season. I'll wait 'till January and pick one up after the hype has died down.

2005-12-07T14:00-08/15:30-08

I went to the Refereed Papers: Configuration Management Theory session when I got back from lunch. Because I was a little late, though, I missed the first paper.

2005-12-07T15:30-08/16:00-08

The afternoon break. As far as I can tell, nothing was provided. Since I was feeling drowsy, I went back to my room and grabbed one of my stashed Dr. Peppers.

On the way back from my room, I heard a distinctive twittering that could only mean one thing: there was an ADD-afflicted member of the avian species around.

(If you're having trouble spotting it, look at the very tip of the plant stalk that's close to the center of the picture.)

I'm not sure what type of hummingbird this is. My leading guess is a Costa's Hummingbird (based on the coloration, the location, and the time of year), but an Anna's Hummingbird, a Calliope Hummingbird, and a Black-chinned Hummingbird are all possibilities.

2005-12-07T16:00-08/17:30-08

For the next session, I attended Invited Talks: What's a PKI?.

2005-12-07T17:30-08/18:00-08

Up next was the Exhibit Hall Mexican Fiesta and Meet the Authors session. There were BoF sessions that we (Rudy, Shlomo, and I) wanted to attend starting at 20:00-08, so we figured that we'd have enough time to go downtown, eat at the House of Blues (which is very near the 5th Avenue Trolley stop), and then catch the Trolley and be back before 20:00-08.

It sounded like a good plan...

2005-12-07T18:00-08/21:30-08

We took the Trolley downtown and got off at the 5th Avenue stop.

Our first snag: House of Blues had a concert that evening, and the place was packed. We decided that we'd wait for a patio table (which weren't in high demand) for up to 10 minutes before bailing. Ten minutes passed, and we were still waiting. We bailed.

We started to walk down 5th Avenue to try to find a place to eat. We found a fair number of possibilities. (At the very first location, G5 (Georges on 5th), the very nubile hostess chatted us up for a few minutes, thereby earning them Shlomo's designation of the place with the hot chick out front.)

After getting down close to the Gaslamp Quarter Trolley stop, we cut over to 4th Avenue and starting walking back up the way we came. Eventually, we decided on the very first place we had looked at after bailing from House of Blues: Georges on 5th.

(I assure you that this decision was completely unrelated to the hot waitress. Completely.)

dinner

picture of Wyatt Earp's wife

stumbled back

2005-12-07T21:30-08/22:30-08

swimming, hot tubbing

"The invited talk has been rescheduled."

Up tomorrow: more technical sessions. This time, I really want to attend some of the BoF sessions; I'll have to see what the schedule looks like.