sf2003

San Francisco Journal

Saturday: The Long Haul

The day starts at 05:30, when my alarm fails to go off (my alarm clock has an amazingly dreadful user interface which does not include any visual indication of whether the alarm is set, but luckily Steve had set his alarm too). We breakfast efficiently and set off to drive to heathrow at 6:20.

I drive without stopping and briskly, and the traffic isn't bad (though there's more of it than I would have guessed for so early on a non- weekday morning). Despite a diversion at the M25 we arrive at LHR just after 8am and Steve drops me off. I check in and wonder how to kill the remaining three hours before my flight. I buy a book, have coffee, then go through the boarding process. The security guy has a look at the undersides of both of my shoes, which surprises me until I later remember the guy who got onto a plane with explosive-packed shoes a while ago (but since my last international flight I suppose).

We depart at 11:00, but because of the 8 hour time difference, at the end of the 10 hour flight we land at 1pm. Meanwhile I read "The Poet Game" by Salar Abdoh, a spy thriller not a million miles from the novel I'm writing, which is why I chose it. I had carefully made sure my laptop was fully charged, but after the first couple of hours of reading, I am much too tired to write. I do doze for an hour or so in the middle of the flight. The plane (a 747) has video-on-demand in the seat backs, and I wach a couple of short programmes but no films.

Immigration takes far longer than on any of my previous trips to the US. Once through all the hoops (and after a fair amount of questioning about the nature of my business here), I emerge and meet Jeffrey almost straight away. He doesn't recognise me, but I spot him easily enough. He helps me find the minibus which takes us to the Hilton, after some confusion about *which* Hilton - apparently there is more than one. Pleasingly my phone works fine here - Steve calls me less than half an hour after landing.

I relax for a while to recharge and chat to Jeff, and take a bath. But, wanting to adjust to Pacific time as soon as possible, I'm determined to keep going until the evening. So we go out shopping, as I've forgotten to bring my trunks but want to use the hotel's pool. In a nearby mall we see many music boxes which take kitsch to a whole new level that I never previously suspected existed (like the porcelain wizard casting a spell with battery-powered flashing lights overhead which when opened plays the theme from Chariots of Fire). The mall has many levels with a central atrium where people go up and down on escalators, reminding me of the seven levels of hell. The fact that my body firmly thinks it's after midnight but there is strong afternoon sunlight adds to the level of surreality.

We head up to the Castro on tram for coffee, and afterwards bump into a couple of Jeff's friends. By this time I'm just exhausted. Jeff kindly takes me back to my hotel before he heads home, where I get to bed at 9:30pm after 24 hours of being awake. I sleep OK for a while, then find myself wakeful between 4-5am, then sleep again.

Sunday: The Tourist

Unable to sleep any more after 8am, I head down to breakfast, where Jeff joins me again and has a coffee. Then we head off to Berkeley on the BART underground system.

We wander around the UCB campus, which is very pleasant with lots of trees and squirrels (unless it was just one squirrel who got around a lot). It's very hilly and has the famous campanile near the top (though not very impressively, the clock isn't working). At the very top is the greek amphitheatre where Jeff has worked.

Back down in Berkeley, we look in some shops, though I'm surprised by the lack of bookshops. We have a nice mexican lunch in a smart chain. The we catch the BART back to SF, and transfer to the MUNI over to Ocean Beach. We get a very nice coffee, and drink it walking along the beach. There's an onshore wind and the air is full of salt, but warm, and the Pacific is a strange pearlescent blue so unlike the North Sea back where I come from.

Next we take the MUNI back over to Haight and look at the Haight Avenue fair. I browse a bookshop and buy a few books. We don't stay at the fair very long, as it's very crowded and something gives me hayfever, which I haven't had anywhere else in the city.

We ride back to my hotel, and relax for a while and talk more for a bit of recharging time. Then we go out again, and get a taxi up to the Castro (I think I've now been on every form of transport SF has to offer, since I rode the cable car on my last visit). We have dinner at Jeff's favourite restaurant, La Mediterrannee, which is very good and authentically mediterranean (and even the Californian Chardonnay isn't too bad). By now I'm very tired again and need to head straight back to my hotel, though I'm pleased that I've made it through another day on Californian time. It wasn't really very difficult to adjust to. Jeff has been a star for taking me lots of interesting places and keeping up a stream of commentary, saving me from having to talk much. I get on best with people who talk more than I do. I get on fine with Jeff.

Monday: Hanging Out and Chilling

Once again I have a leisurely breakfast with Jeff, who has the day off work, and we spend most of the morning chilling out. By way of a more gentle introduction to seeing the important sights of SF (yesterday was a bit too much, considering), we go to the cafe at Borders bookshop (which is a Starbucks like everything else) and I have a Mocha. We browse books for a while then go out and sit in the sunshine in Union Square to talk. I spot large posters featuring two of the three stars of the forthcoming Charlie's Angels film. Surely there must be the third somewhere around? But we can't see it.

Next, we wander down to the Sony Metreon (whatever that is) Center, where I lust after palmtop computers - I've been plotting for a while that I might buy one at dollar prices while I'm over here. Behind it is the Martin Luther King Jr memorial, a beautiful and sensual monument featuring a waterfall with a walkway behind it, where you can read some highlights of his speeches (in English and translations in many other languages).

We have an excellent late lunch round the block at a cafe called Venue. I have a tasty green salad and an incredible strawberry and banana smoothie. Then we go back to Union Square and sit for a long time in the warm sunshine. We play a game of "that cloud looks like..." but only two small clouds actually turn up in the whole time that we're sitting there. Eventually we're forced to give up because of impending sunburn.

I go back to my hotel and Jeff heads home to do his dog-walking. I plan to try out the pool, but first I go down to the Moscone Center and register at Java One; then I make a long stop at a cybercafe, but completely fail to sign up with an ISP that I can dial up to from my hotel. They all want an address with a US zip (why? my credit card's good, what more do they need?).

By the time I get back to the hotel, it has clouded over and the pool's no longer tempting. Tired, I decide not to have a proper meal, just a bottle of Becks (sadly not quite as nice as in Europe) and some kettle chips, and get an early night.

Tuesday: The Java Biz

Having gone to bed early, I easily wake early, breeze through breakfast and walk down to the Moscone Center in time for the general session starting at 8:30. There's a cool electronic/trance group, various demos and an inspirational speech from Sun's ponytailed software supremo Jonathan Schwartz. The new Java logo and ad campaign are unveiled.

I'm one of the first hundred people into the Pavilion (commercial exhibitors), do some web stuff and collect some goodies, have a little lunch. Then I fail to get into my first chosen session (on Java Server Faces) because it's full. I attend a couple of sessions after this (an overview of the servlet 2.4/JSP 2.0 spec, and one on visual programming) but neither is especially revelatory.

With a while before the evening's BOF sessions, I go shopping and spend more than I'd intended at Macy's men's store. But I did get a *fabulous* Versace shirt that was 30% off (not to mention that the pound is strong against the dollar).

Running short of time, I get my main meal of the day at Lori's Diner. Hungry, I order deep-fried shrimp and fries with an "orange freeze", forgetting what diner food is like. Enormous quantities of battered shrimp and tasty chips with skins on follow, with salad and coleslaw and the orange drink is breathtakingly sugary. I finish neither and still consume twice as many calories in one meal than I had all of yesterday.

I catch three BOFs (one on tag libraries, two on JDO), which are more interesting than the formal sessions, ending a little before half eleven. By the time I've sorted through my stuff it's well after midnight and I crash out, asleep almost instantly.

Wednesday: Geekery and Sashimi

I wake unreasonably early due to the amazingly loud noises the hotel plumbing makes. I suspect it's mainly noise from the bathroom which is undoubtedly back to back with mine. I had already planned to skip the general session at 8:30, so my first session is at 11:00; so I take my time over my bath and somehow manage to make a continental breakfast last over an hour.

I attend 6 hour-long sessions one after another, with no more than a half hour between any, except when I leave "Enterprise JavaBeans 2.1 Architectural Overview" early, unable to stand a description of the wonderful new ordering feature in EQL when it drags past 5 minutes. (It's modelled on the ordering feature that's been in SQL since 1977 "because developers know SQL" - great reason eh?) The others were on J2EE, Model vs Code, An MVC alternative and Grid computing.

I manage a few forays to pick up swag from the exhibitors (SAP's goody bag is especially impressive) and a couple of sessions on the web. I'm researching handhelds, somewhat tempted by the Sony Clies on sale at very keen prices at the Metreon Center).

After taking in the JSF BOF, I finally make it back to my room a little after 7:30, and spend a while on the phone to Mermaid and Jeff co-ordinating meeting them both.

After the second bath of the day, I head down to eat. I choose Kiku, the Japanese restaurant, and have a wonderful meal comprising cold shrimp and vegetable starters, mixed prawn and vegetable tempura, mixed sashimi and a superb chilled sake, followed by green tea ice cream and lots of hot green tea. Over tea I read a little from the Tao Te Ching. I return to my room serene and almost euphoric: how can life possibly be this good?

Thursday: Suffering in Luxury

I don't feel that way for long, as when the sake wears of I discover I've drunk far too much tea and spend half the night awake. Also very uncomfortable due to a respiratory infection which is making my throat feel like it's closing up. The cough started to trouble me yesterday and I've already bought some pills. I know it's not SARS but feel stressed anyway.

As usual I wake up too early as well, and get a bath in before breakfast. I have sessions all day from 9:45 - 6:15 but find it too punishing a schedule and skip two. The ones I go to are on Jini, JavaSpaces, Generics in Java 1.5, and document-driven programming; this one also finishes early giving me a two hour window so I go and look at SFMOMA which is just round the corner from the Moscone Center. Not as big as the one in NYC but a good broad collection.

By the time my last session (on PHP/scripting integration with Java) ends, my sore throat is really getting to me and I head back to the Hilton for a rest.

Jeff turns up at the hotel as arranged, and despite not feeling great, I can't bear to pass up the opportunity of a nice meal out; besides, I know a vodka will sort out my cough and throat. So I put on my posh shirt and, as planned, we head up to the "Cityscape" restaurant on the 47th (top) floor of the Hilton. It's already dark and the lights of the city, almost all of it below us, and the lights across the Bay Bridge are breathtaking. The vodka soon banishes my cough, and we eat a superb meal at window seats (they're all window seats at Cityscape) looking down on the dot people and toy cars 47 floors below. I'm glad to be with Jeff; this is something I could never have done with Steve due to his vertigo. He has stopped doing the continuous commentary thing that he did for the first couple of days and we can just sit in relaxed silence now and then.

So as not to interfere too much with my immune system, I limit myself to one glass of Sauvignon Blanc with my salmon. Back in my room I'm asleep within minutes.

Friday: Work Done

Once again, however, I don't sleep well all night, being semi-wakeful in the middle of the night and fully awake by 6:30. I thought I was doing well adjusting to the time shift for the first day or two, but this consistent waking up too early must be a body clock thing I suppose (unless it really just is the Hilton's noisy plumbing). I bathe and have a quick breakfast before heading back to the Moscone Center for the general session at 8:30. I get there just before 8:30 and the queue stretches right round the block.

It's Scott McNealy's keynote, and he continues on the theme of Java in phones and PDAs as well as reflecting on how vastly more successful Java is than .net (a pretty easy target really). But no major announcements. He's followed by a cross-industry panel which re- emphasises the huge opportunities opening up for Java developers.

The first session I wanted to go to, on struts/OJB, is full so I use the time to get on the net, using one of the array of Tadpole Sparc-based laptops. They're very bulky and presumably heavy, not very powerful, have a keyboard that's not a patch on my Portege and a truly dreadful trackpad, and they cost $3000. It's astonishing that they're still in business.

I go to a couple more sessions, bailing out of the one about Java logging after 20 minutes when the speaker gives a slide listing all the possible logging priorities and embarks on describing them one by one. If he said anything interesting later on I'll catch it when the slides come out.

I have a moderately nice prawn fajita for lunch (not at the Moscone Center, whose food is not great and whose coffee is truly awful) and go to one last session, about rule engines and J2EE. Dead tired due to lack of sleep, I skip the last session and go buy the Sony Clie palmtop I've been pondering all week. If nothing else its user interface is better than Palm's models, with improved navigation and the jog dial.

I go back to the Hilton and doze for two hours, the first time I've really done nothing for so long all week.

After showering, I go down and meet Mermaid who picks me up outside. We decide to get coffee first, and she drives me to the Mission district to a nice coffee house. It turns out we have a number of friends in common, both in the UK and the US.

We walk down Valencia and look at a number of restaurants, eventually settling on one called Herbivore. I have bruschetta and some spicy lemon noodles with roasted vegetables, which helps my cold a little - my sore throat has developed into a cough and cold which bother me from time to time.

After dinner, Mermaid drives me up to the top of Twin Peaks. It's dark (and a full moon) and the view is stunning - the whole of SF, and pretty much the whole of the bay, out to the Golden Gate bridge and way beyond Oakland, spread out before us as though we ware hanging above it in a balloon. The view from Cityscape was good, but from here you can see the lot, and it's pretty neat. Apparently it's very rare that it's this clear. It's chilly and windy, but I linger enjoying the view after Mermaid gets back into her car.

We try a TV bar called Asia SF, but it's full upstairs and too noisy downstairs, so we repair instead to Mermaid's favourite restaurant in SF, called Absinthe. I have a 15 year old Laphroaig and she has creme brulee, and we both enjoy it (her rather more, I think). Finally she drops me back at the Hilton to get a (slightly) early night.

Saturday: Group Safari

Finally I get a full 8 hours' sleep, and Jeff joins me for breakfast. My cough seems somewhat better (due to the herby thing Mermaid suggested I should take?) but I still have a cold.

I check out, somewhat appalled that the hotel has added on $20 per night in "taxes" to my bill over the advertised price, but apparently this is not only legal but normal in the US. Jeff and I go down to Fisherman's Wharf for tourist shopping and I get Ghirardelli's chocolates for presents (much constrained by lack of room and spare weight allowance for my baggage). We also look in the mechanical museum which is interesting - things like moving pictures from 1906 and 3D pictures of the 1920 earthquake.

We head back to the hotel and meet up with Mermaid, who takes us up to SFO to check in my suitcase. I upgrade myself to an extra-legroom seat by the emergency exit, definitely worth it even for $75. Then we drive off for lunch at a restaurant not far from the airport called the Elephant Bar, safari-themed and with a great view of the bay and SFO runway. The sun shines strongly over the water and we have nice food, snappily served (I have calamari and some of Jeff's chips). They are both really cool people and I'm so glad I met them both. Jeff, of course, I've known for five years, but in person we've got along even better than I hoped.

My colonial friends drop me off back at SFO and I walk straight through to board my flight home. Thanks to Jeff's drowsy-making Benadryl I manage to doze for several hours, more than I've ever managed on a plane before, but still not real sleep. Even this is only made possible by the extra leg-room; well worth it.

Finally it's London and sometime mid-morning and Steve meets me amid the sweaty and disappointingly pushy and impolite crowd of greeters which is almost completely blocking the way out. It takes him over 10 minutes to figure out where he parked, but at this point my brain is away in jet-lag-zone which I won't fully emerge from for several days; in fact restoring my sleep pattern to normal turns out to take five nights. Next time (Java One next year?) I think I'll stop over on the east coast.