Airport hotel now, though I did manage to see this in Vegas. I had never thought I'd get to, so there you go:
http://www.cirquedusoleil.com/en/shows/love/default.aspx
Friday, July 31, 2009
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Arches National Park... or Mars? (picture)
In Firefox at least, it only shows you part of the picture. To see the whole thing, right click and choose an option that says something like 'view image' or 'original location'.
Sunrise in Monument Valley picture
In Firefox at least, it only shows you part of the picture. To see the whole thing, right click and choose an option that says something like 'view image' or 'original location'.
Old Faithful picture
In Firefox at least, it only shows you part of the picture. To see the whole thing, right click and choose an option that says something like 'view image' or 'original location'.
Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco picture
In Firefox at least, it only shows you part of the picture. To see the whole thing, right click and choose an option that says something like 'view image' or 'original location'.
Iron, lion
Arrived in Zion National Park today - did a hike to Hidden Valley this evening, which was great. We're going to do Angel's Landing tomorrow.
Oh, and I have pictures now...
Oh, and I have pictures now...
Monday, July 27, 2009
Brief update from the grand Canyon
I saw lots of little fluffy clouds this morning. I'm now in Arizona at the Grand Canyon, after spending the day (and night) with the Navajo Indians. I'd never just slept under the stars before, though a Hogon (hut) was also available.
I'm not going to write much now, as I'm at the Grand Canyon!
I'm not going to write much now, as I'm at the Grand Canyon!
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Enough for now...
I think I am now taxing both Burger King's patience, and our dinner deadline... will continue another time!
Day 5 - Swimming and swine
Day 5 revolved around a whitewater rafting trip - unlike many of the activites available, this was included int he cost of the trip. However, it had been the maximum cause of headaches when booking insurance. Trek America offer their own policy, but it costs way more than other policies that cover the same stuff. The problem, though, is in finding an equivalent policy. The comparison sites will only take you so far, then you have to go it alone througt he minefields of included, optional and additional covers available. Add to this the fact that several insurers trade under a number of different names, offering basically the same policies but at different prices, and I can see why most people opt to go for Trek's own insurance.
I eventually foudn a policy that offered more cover, plus cancellation cover (not included in the Trek policy) for a year at 70% of the price of Trek's single trip policy. Result! But wading through all the different categories of whitewater rafting, plus a moment of revelation when I realised that much of what we would be doing would count as 'walking at altitude' did take a couple of evenings. I should have kept count of how many evenings I spent looking for the best deals on flights, accommodation etc...
Right. So, the whitewater rafting. They asked for a volunteer from out group of 12 to go in an 8 man raft with 7 other people, while the other 11 went in a 16 man raft (with 5 other people, obviously). I wanted to do whitewater rafting, not whitewater 'sitting in the middle of the raft while big men show how strong they are', so I volunteered. This turned out to be a really good move - for a really surprising reason. Partway through, after a few splashes (and a number of whitewater rafting disaster stories from our guide), we were told 'the next mile or so is quiet, you can get out for a swim if you like'.
After another traveller had a go, I decided to take the plunge. Lifejackets are great. :-) (Mum, I got someone to hold my glasses for me.) And later on, I did it again. I've not been able to have a go at swimming since wrecking various shoulders (OK, I have only two, but it all adds up) so being able to doggie paddle around was great - especially if you consider that the guide had to throw water on the surface of the raft before we sat on it at the start, as it was such a hot day. I also wanted to justify the $5 I'd spent on hiring a wetsuit.
The rafting itself was good - though not as eventful as it would have been in June, where the river is really big due to it being the height of the snow melt on the Teats. No one fell out in our raft, though four people went over from the 16 man raft.
The afternoon was free time in Jackson (I looked for some shorts but found none at reasonable prices) and the evening was billed as a rodeo. Belatedly, we found out that it was the week of the town fair, and the rodeo was replaced by pig wrestling. I'll write that again. Pig Wrestling. There are two main rules:
Oh, and did I forget to say, the action takes place in deep mud encircled by a fence, which is livened up with additional water every now and then. Yes, and they throw mud at the pig (or rather, at one of a series of pigs). And anyone can enter. And that there's an additional costume competition for the participants?
To prove I've not made this up, here's the entry form and the results.
It was a bit bizarre - the pigs seemed to be OK with it on the whole (though there was some squealing when some fo them got picked up) but I generally came down on their side and was glad when they evaded their pursuers are were able to return, triumphant, to their truck. One team (the U14 winners) employed an excellent strategy of three people sneak up on pig, one waits by fence where it will run to when it spots the people and picks it up when it arrives, but the others were just a bit random.
Dinner was eating out, accompanied by silent footage of animals we hadn't managed to see in Yellowstone playing on a video screen, followed by drinks out, accompanied by silent footage of the Tour de France playing on a TV.
I eventually foudn a policy that offered more cover, plus cancellation cover (not included in the Trek policy) for a year at 70% of the price of Trek's single trip policy. Result! But wading through all the different categories of whitewater rafting, plus a moment of revelation when I realised that much of what we would be doing would count as 'walking at altitude' did take a couple of evenings. I should have kept count of how many evenings I spent looking for the best deals on flights, accommodation etc...
Right. So, the whitewater rafting. They asked for a volunteer from out group of 12 to go in an 8 man raft with 7 other people, while the other 11 went in a 16 man raft (with 5 other people, obviously). I wanted to do whitewater rafting, not whitewater 'sitting in the middle of the raft while big men show how strong they are', so I volunteered. This turned out to be a really good move - for a really surprising reason. Partway through, after a few splashes (and a number of whitewater rafting disaster stories from our guide), we were told 'the next mile or so is quiet, you can get out for a swim if you like'.
After another traveller had a go, I decided to take the plunge. Lifejackets are great. :-) (Mum, I got someone to hold my glasses for me.) And later on, I did it again. I've not been able to have a go at swimming since wrecking various shoulders (OK, I have only two, but it all adds up) so being able to doggie paddle around was great - especially if you consider that the guide had to throw water on the surface of the raft before we sat on it at the start, as it was such a hot day. I also wanted to justify the $5 I'd spent on hiring a wetsuit.
The rafting itself was good - though not as eventful as it would have been in June, where the river is really big due to it being the height of the snow melt on the Teats. No one fell out in our raft, though four people went over from the 16 man raft.
The afternoon was free time in Jackson (I looked for some shorts but found none at reasonable prices) and the evening was billed as a rodeo. Belatedly, we found out that it was the week of the town fair, and the rodeo was replaced by pig wrestling. I'll write that again. Pig Wrestling. There are two main rules:
- Teams of four take part.
- The pig is an appropriate size for the participants (the U8s... I'll write that again... U8s got a piglet, the men a 200 lb adult).
- The team has a minute to complete their task, which is:
- ... to pick the pig up, and place if, bottom first, in a barrel (the direction is important).
- Fastest time wins.
Oh, and did I forget to say, the action takes place in deep mud encircled by a fence, which is livened up with additional water every now and then. Yes, and they throw mud at the pig (or rather, at one of a series of pigs). And anyone can enter. And that there's an additional costume competition for the participants?
To prove I've not made this up, here's the entry form and the results.
It was a bit bizarre - the pigs seemed to be OK with it on the whole (though there was some squealing when some fo them got picked up) but I generally came down on their side and was glad when they evaded their pursuers are were able to return, triumphant, to their truck. One team (the U14 winners) employed an excellent strategy of three people sneak up on pig, one waits by fence where it will run to when it spots the people and picks it up when it arrives, but the others were just a bit random.
Dinner was eating out, accompanied by silent footage of animals we hadn't managed to see in Yellowstone playing on a video screen, followed by drinks out, accompanied by silent footage of the Tour de France playing on a TV.
Day 4 - Say what you see
Day 4 - Big Teats Park
After the luxury (or not... see showers comments) of two nights in the same place, we were ont he move again. First stop: Grand Tetons. Like so many items names in a foreign language, this doesn't sound so good when translated into English. Witness the likely conversation when chromosomes were discovered:
Mrs von Nägeli: What are you doing?
Karl Wilhelm von Nägeli (peering down microscope): I'm just looking at these cells I stained...
Mrs von Nägeli: Didn't you hear me call? It's time for your tea!
Karl Wilhelm von Nägeli (not really listening): Take a look at this!
Mrs von Nägeli (sighing, while peering down microscope to humour him): All I can see is coloured thingies.
Karl Wilhelm von Nägeli: Yes! Coloured thingies! This could be really important!
Mrs von Nägeli (impatiently): You can't really call them 'coloured thingies' though.
Karl Wilhelm von Nägeli: I wonder what the Latin is...
Mrs von Nägeli: Chromosomes. Right. Will you come for tea now?
Karl Wilhelm von Nägeli: S'pose so - all I have to look through this evening is that paper from Gregor about peas. He means well, but I wonder how I can break it to him gently that there's no future in it...
Anyway, that's a roundabout way of saying that Grand Tetons means Big Teats. Though to be fair, the mountains really do look like that.
After lunch, we spent the afternoon walking around in the area - with its massive lake and numerous hiking trails. The Teats themselves are too big and snowy to go up without a proper expidition and equipment, but the trail up to a waterfall, which continues to a viewpoint 7,200 ft above sea level, is nearly as good as I'd imagine that would be.
Our camping venue was Snake River KOA. Our guide explained that KOAs are like the McDonald's of camping - quite a contrast to the more rudimentary Yellowstone site. Grass, flushing toilets, showers, a shop, power outlets and wifi made for a more comfortable experience!
After the luxury (or not... see showers comments) of two nights in the same place, we were ont he move again. First stop: Grand Tetons. Like so many items names in a foreign language, this doesn't sound so good when translated into English. Witness the likely conversation when chromosomes were discovered:
Mrs von Nägeli: What are you doing?
Karl Wilhelm von Nägeli (peering down microscope): I'm just looking at these cells I stained...
Mrs von Nägeli: Didn't you hear me call? It's time for your tea!
Karl Wilhelm von Nägeli (not really listening): Take a look at this!
Mrs von Nägeli (sighing, while peering down microscope to humour him): All I can see is coloured thingies.
Karl Wilhelm von Nägeli: Yes! Coloured thingies! This could be really important!
Mrs von Nägeli (impatiently): You can't really call them 'coloured thingies' though.
Karl Wilhelm von Nägeli: I wonder what the Latin is...
Mrs von Nägeli: Chromosomes. Right. Will you come for tea now?
Karl Wilhelm von Nägeli: S'pose so - all I have to look through this evening is that paper from Gregor about peas. He means well, but I wonder how I can break it to him gently that there's no future in it...
Anyway, that's a roundabout way of saying that Grand Tetons means Big Teats. Though to be fair, the mountains really do look like that.
After lunch, we spent the afternoon walking around in the area - with its massive lake and numerous hiking trails. The Teats themselves are too big and snowy to go up without a proper expidition and equipment, but the trail up to a waterfall, which continues to a viewpoint 7,200 ft above sea level, is nearly as good as I'd imagine that would be.
Our camping venue was Snake River KOA. Our guide explained that KOAs are like the McDonald's of camping - quite a contrast to the more rudimentary Yellowstone site. Grass, flushing toilets, showers, a shop, power outlets and wifi made for a more comfortable experience!
Day 3 - Bits and pieces
More than any day on the trek so far (I'm writing this up just past th halfway stage), this day was bitty. Very bitty. There's a lot to see in Yellowstone, and I could easily imagine spending a week letting it marinade. But we only had a day and a half, so it was a case of drive foe a bit, walk for a bit, drive for a bit, walk for a bit, all the time keeping an eye out for what our itinery calls 'BIG wildlife'. Setting off early to maximise our spotting chances, we stopped for eagles, elk and buffalo, piling out of the minibus to take photos like tourists being shepherded around Oxford's pleasant buildings. Our spotting didn't have to be that good, as we were often tipped off about animals close enough toIphotograph by the line of halted cars. I also saw what might have been a wolf (tryignt o look dignified while straining to do a poo between the road and a river) but we'd gone too far before I was able to alert our driver / guide.
The morning's walk culminated in a view of, and saunter along the rim of, the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. The name is basically an admission that it's smaller than the one in Arizona that everyone knows about, but it's still easily the most spectacular thing I've seen so far. The photos on Google Image Search don't really do it justice - there's a lot of variety with cred, yellow, grey... etc sandstone and other strata as you pan your gaze down the wall. The variety of different landscapes we encountered during a relatively short walk was also impressive. After the obligatory car park, we started with verdant green pastures with grazing buffalo. Buffalo are very big, and are kind of like a cross between a gorilla and an ox -with just enough gorilla to make you want to keep away, but just enough ox to keep them docile.) We swiftly moved through what was basically desert, to be met by a spectacular lake and forest, and finally the canyon.
In the afternoon, we went to 'Disneyland'. It was actually the part of Yellowstone which contains Old Faithful, but the series of shops and flocking tourists made it clear why out guide referred to it like this. A few of us decided to escape the crowds and do a short hike up a hill (much, much shorter than the one described on day 1!) for a better vantage point. Although there were no seats up there (unlike down at ground level, where rows upon rows of benches give visitors a comfortable wait - the geyser isn't completely regular) it was a good, uncrowded place to watch from.
The majority of the group headed for the shops, but that wasn't what I signed up for, and a few of us went round looking at the other geysers, pools, hot springs etc. That might sound a bit samey, but it's the structure and colour that makes it all interetsing. No two geysers have the same shape. Some of them have sticky out belly buttons (as mineral deposits have built up above the surface) and some of them have sticky-in ones, where the geyser comes from a hole in the ground. The amazing colours are partly provied by minerals, but mainly by the different kinds of bacteria that are able to survive different temperatures. At close to 100'C, no bacteria can survive - these areas appear clear and blue. Next out come the yellow ones (or at least the ones that produce yellow stuff when they metabolise), and then finally the red ones, which can outcompete the yellow ones at 50'C but are themselves outcompeted at lower temperatures.
The overall effect is rainbow-like, and when combined with structures, depths, etc, is fascinating. The other colour that adds to he unique atmosphere is white (OK, so I know it's not a colour really!). In some places this is down to salt, but in other places the trees next to geysers have been bleached white by eruprions (or had minerals deposited on them... I wasn't allowed close enough to tell the difference).
After two hot days of walking, a shower beckoned, but apart from the drop toilets and taps where washing was explicitly prohibited (see the bear stories described above) there were no sanitary facilities available. But when my 'sub team' were allocated to washing up (giving m free time while others prepared the food) and the guide mentioned something about swimming in a lake, a plan was hatched in my tiny mind. Where one can swim, one can also bathe - and shower gel / shampoo could be added to the mix. After double-checking that it woudl dilute enough not to attract bears, I went for it.
There are a couple of things I failed to consider:
By the time I'd realised these drawbacks, I was comitted to the plan and although I felt lovely and clean, my legs and arms got bitten and itched a lot. (Mum, I've been taking antihistamine since, and I'm fine!) On the bright side, I started managing to sleep OK in the tent - or at least getting more there than I did ont he bus!
The morning's walk culminated in a view of, and saunter along the rim of, the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. The name is basically an admission that it's smaller than the one in Arizona that everyone knows about, but it's still easily the most spectacular thing I've seen so far. The photos on Google Image Search don't really do it justice - there's a lot of variety with cred, yellow, grey... etc sandstone and other strata as you pan your gaze down the wall. The variety of different landscapes we encountered during a relatively short walk was also impressive. After the obligatory car park, we started with verdant green pastures with grazing buffalo. Buffalo are very big, and are kind of like a cross between a gorilla and an ox -with just enough gorilla to make you want to keep away, but just enough ox to keep them docile.) We swiftly moved through what was basically desert, to be met by a spectacular lake and forest, and finally the canyon.
In the afternoon, we went to 'Disneyland'. It was actually the part of Yellowstone which contains Old Faithful, but the series of shops and flocking tourists made it clear why out guide referred to it like this. A few of us decided to escape the crowds and do a short hike up a hill (much, much shorter than the one described on day 1!) for a better vantage point. Although there were no seats up there (unlike down at ground level, where rows upon rows of benches give visitors a comfortable wait - the geyser isn't completely regular) it was a good, uncrowded place to watch from.
The majority of the group headed for the shops, but that wasn't what I signed up for, and a few of us went round looking at the other geysers, pools, hot springs etc. That might sound a bit samey, but it's the structure and colour that makes it all interetsing. No two geysers have the same shape. Some of them have sticky out belly buttons (as mineral deposits have built up above the surface) and some of them have sticky-in ones, where the geyser comes from a hole in the ground. The amazing colours are partly provied by minerals, but mainly by the different kinds of bacteria that are able to survive different temperatures. At close to 100'C, no bacteria can survive - these areas appear clear and blue. Next out come the yellow ones (or at least the ones that produce yellow stuff when they metabolise), and then finally the red ones, which can outcompete the yellow ones at 50'C but are themselves outcompeted at lower temperatures.
The overall effect is rainbow-like, and when combined with structures, depths, etc, is fascinating. The other colour that adds to he unique atmosphere is white (OK, so I know it's not a colour really!). In some places this is down to salt, but in other places the trees next to geysers have been bleached white by eruprions (or had minerals deposited on them... I wasn't allowed close enough to tell the difference).
After two hot days of walking, a shower beckoned, but apart from the drop toilets and taps where washing was explicitly prohibited (see the bear stories described above) there were no sanitary facilities available. But when my 'sub team' were allocated to washing up (giving m free time while others prepared the food) and the guide mentioned something about swimming in a lake, a plan was hatched in my tiny mind. Where one can swim, one can also bathe - and shower gel / shampoo could be added to the mix. After double-checking that it woudl dilute enough not to attract bears, I went for it.
There are a couple of things I failed to consider:
- Dinner time is when mosquitos come out.
- Mosquitos really, really, really love to hang about on the shores of lakes.
By the time I'd realised these drawbacks, I was comitted to the plan and although I felt lovely and clean, my legs and arms got bitten and itched a lot. (Mum, I've been taking antihistamine since, and I'm fine!) On the bright side, I started managing to sleep OK in the tent - or at least getting more there than I did ont he bus!
Day 2 - Of geysers and bears
Well, after the luxury of the ranch, our next campsite was a wak-up call. Not only did we have to pitch tents in the dirt of a forest floor, there were no showers, sinks or flushing toilets. There's a good reason for this... we were in Bear Country.
Aside:
Q: How can you tell if a park guide is lying?
A: Their mouth is moving.
But is that always the case...?
American ranches / campsites / tours (based on an admittedly small sample) appear to be run by peopel who take great pleasure in telling the tour equivalent of the ghost story - the ranch / campsite / activity horror story. The background of this particular one goes as follows:
So after the simple tales of people getting eaten in their tents, it got more complicated. We heard about the guy who spat toothpaste out on the ground, then had a bear follow the trail to the tent during the night. That one didn't end well either.
The upshot was that two of the younger members of the party decided that they would sleep on the bus and refused to go in a tent. Unbelievable, especially as we were probably the most careful group on the site (toiletries, food, etc all locked away in the trailer that the minibus pulls around, spit toothpaste down the drop toilets, etc).
Anyway, enouh of that, and the tremendous fuss that was made about what I thought was an extremely cute bat that was hanging in the toilets... Yellowstone is what we were there for! We arrived late afternoon after a mammoth 7 hour drive and, quite appropriately, went to Mammoth Springs (description | images, maybe). Some of Yellowstone is in the crater of an extremely old volcano, with magma as close as 5 miles below the surface. This leads to a whole array of springs, geysers, hot pools, and generally sinister bubbling water in a variety of guises.
In these kinds of areas, you get around on boardwalks, with periodic signs in multiple languages warning potential trespassers of the likely consequences, should they venture into the wrong area. The best part is a line drawing of a distressed child, whose foot has just been thrust into boiling water after breaking through a patina of soil. It's not an empty threat - some of the other group members saw a man with a very badly burned foot, where the heat had melted through the sole of his shoe after he'd strayed from the walkway.
I'll write more about hot water features in general in the next post; I liked them...
Aside:
Q: How can you tell if a park guide is lying?
A: Their mouth is moving.
But is that always the case...?
American ranches / campsites / tours (based on an admittedly small sample) appear to be run by peopel who take great pleasure in telling the tour equivalent of the ghost story - the ranch / campsite / activity horror story. The background of this particular one goes as follows:
- There are bears around.
- Bears have a good sense of smell.
- If you keep food or toiletires in your tent, they will take an unwelcome interest.
- If you drop food on the ground, they will take an unwelcome interest.
So after the simple tales of people getting eaten in their tents, it got more complicated. We heard about the guy who spat toothpaste out on the ground, then had a bear follow the trail to the tent during the night. That one didn't end well either.
The upshot was that two of the younger members of the party decided that they would sleep on the bus and refused to go in a tent. Unbelievable, especially as we were probably the most careful group on the site (toiletries, food, etc all locked away in the trailer that the minibus pulls around, spit toothpaste down the drop toilets, etc).
Anyway, enouh of that, and the tremendous fuss that was made about what I thought was an extremely cute bat that was hanging in the toilets... Yellowstone is what we were there for! We arrived late afternoon after a mammoth 7 hour drive and, quite appropriately, went to Mammoth Springs (description | images, maybe). Some of Yellowstone is in the crater of an extremely old volcano, with magma as close as 5 miles below the surface. This leads to a whole array of springs, geysers, hot pools, and generally sinister bubbling water in a variety of guises.
In these kinds of areas, you get around on boardwalks, with periodic signs in multiple languages warning potential trespassers of the likely consequences, should they venture into the wrong area. The best part is a line drawing of a distressed child, whose foot has just been thrust into boiling water after breaking through a patina of soil. It's not an empty threat - some of the other group members saw a man with a very badly burned foot, where the heat had melted through the sole of his shoe after he'd strayed from the walkway.
I'll write more about hot water features in general in the next post; I liked them...
Day 1 - Round and round... up and up!
The thing they don't plug on the Trek America website is the driving. Yes, there's a map and an itinery, but if your mental picture of the US is around the same size as East Anglia it doesn't quite click! Day 1 was basically 6 hours of driving (plus stops) from Seattle to Montana, which serves as a stop-off before reaching Yellowstone.
However, with early starts and most of the accommodation being camping, the drives are actually welcome opportunities to catch up on sleep. I've been making the most of this, as anyone who's travelled with me any distance in a car will attest to. The snoozes are only broken by toilet / petrol stops and bits of conversation when people aren't sleeping.
The early starts allow us to reach places while there are still several hours of daylight, and start exploring the day we arrive. We had a very gentle lead-in, checking into a ranch ont he first night and being fed a meal of ribs, cowboy beand and corn bread. I'm not sure how much actual ranching they do, and to what extent they're basically a step above a campsite but below a hotel, but it worked.
Earlier, we'd had the opportunity to go on a horse ride, but I'd given this a miss as I hoped to do some two-wheeled activities later on, and it cost $30. A few of us explored the ranch (and, as it transpored, did the same walk as the horses) then asked if we could head up the hill at the back for the view. Sure, just jump over the fence.
OK. The first thing I have learned about hills is that they are bigger and further than they look. The second thing I have learned is that when the guy at the front has been soloing round the world for the last 10 months, he's usually going to go at it rather quickly. The third thing is that although the steepest route is the shortest way to the top, it isn't necessarily the kindest on your shins, as unexpected undergrowth rears up. At least I made it to the top though - the other four who'd started with us fell by the wayside. (Mum, I'd taken plenty of food and water, and we were back well before it was dark and in time for tea. :-)
However, with early starts and most of the accommodation being camping, the drives are actually welcome opportunities to catch up on sleep. I've been making the most of this, as anyone who's travelled with me any distance in a car will attest to. The snoozes are only broken by toilet / petrol stops and bits of conversation when people aren't sleeping.
The early starts allow us to reach places while there are still several hours of daylight, and start exploring the day we arrive. We had a very gentle lead-in, checking into a ranch ont he first night and being fed a meal of ribs, cowboy beand and corn bread. I'm not sure how much actual ranching they do, and to what extent they're basically a step above a campsite but below a hotel, but it worked.
Earlier, we'd had the opportunity to go on a horse ride, but I'd given this a miss as I hoped to do some two-wheeled activities later on, and it cost $30. A few of us explored the ranch (and, as it transpored, did the same walk as the horses) then asked if we could head up the hill at the back for the view. Sure, just jump over the fence.
OK. The first thing I have learned about hills is that they are bigger and further than they look. The second thing I have learned is that when the guy at the front has been soloing round the world for the last 10 months, he's usually going to go at it rather quickly. The third thing is that although the steepest route is the shortest way to the top, it isn't necessarily the kindest on your shins, as unexpected undergrowth rears up. At least I made it to the top though - the other four who'd started with us fell by the wayside. (Mum, I'd taken plenty of food and water, and we were back well before it was dark and in time for tea. :-)
Going one day at a time
I have some free tims this evening. It's roasting hot but I've discovered that the campsite wifi can be picked up in the Burger King across the road. So in exchange for $1 I've bought myself some office space with a power supply and am about to do some mega-diarising...
Friday, July 24, 2009
Red (and) hot in Arches National Park
Will probably have the chance to write somethign tomorrow after mountain biking :-)
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
(Eaten) alive and in Grand Teton
Just a quick post to say that I'm still alive, though with a few more mosquito bites than the three I had in San Francisco. I may have more to add tomorrow when we have some free time - as long as I can locate my power cable.
Friday, July 17, 2009
Are you experienced?
Today was sublime - the kind of detatched but focussed absorption that I used to get hanging around in second hand bookshops working my way through their stock. The reason? My excursion to Experience Music. The downstairs has a good mix of physical exhibits annotated with cards with the right depth of information, plus headphone stations wher you could play with things like 8 track mixes of Jimi Hendrix songs. A whole history of Seattle music was laid out, from jazz, blues and Louie Louie to grunge.
Upstairs was awesome, with stations where you could do multi-level lessons on guitar, bass, keys, drums and vocals, plus single level lessons on mixing, beat matching and guitar effects pedals. After you'd had a go at all of these, there were numerous soundproof rooms where you could spend 10 minutes at a time putting into practice what you'd been leanring, either by doing more lessons or doing what you wanted. I kept coming away from stations with a silly grin on my face, and I WANT SOME DRUMS!
After a break for lunch, I went back in, to the Sci Fi museum which is in the same complex. I hadn't expected to spend very long there, but it's all laid out very immersively. They've taken a large number fo sci fi themes and traced their development through the history of the genre. As I'm someone who appreciates things more when I understand where they come from and how they evolved, I really enjoyed working my way round this.
They also had a temporary exhibition about Jim Henson's work. I hadn't realised that the Muppets had existed long before the Muppet Show, having starred in various advertising shorts as a result of his 'Sam and Frriends' show. They had lots of his sketches and storyboards, juxtaposed with the final versions - most notably his 9 minute file Time Piece, where stills of the storyboards played simultaneously beside the film itself.
All in all (including lunch) I spent six hours amusing myself there before finding dinner and coming to the hotel I'd managed to book in a sale with an extra voucher. So I'm currently sitting here in an en suite room larger than the 4 person bunk-bedded dorm I spent last night in, having paid less than I did for the dorm room. Oh, and I have UK proxying working so am able to watch ITV's Tour de France coverage. Result!
Tomorrow I need to be at a nearby hotel for a 7:30am start with Trek America. It's not clear what, if any, internet access I'll have for the next fortnight so it might be au revoir for the moment...
Upstairs was awesome, with stations where you could do multi-level lessons on guitar, bass, keys, drums and vocals, plus single level lessons on mixing, beat matching and guitar effects pedals. After you'd had a go at all of these, there were numerous soundproof rooms where you could spend 10 minutes at a time putting into practice what you'd been leanring, either by doing more lessons or doing what you wanted. I kept coming away from stations with a silly grin on my face, and I WANT SOME DRUMS!
After a break for lunch, I went back in, to the Sci Fi museum which is in the same complex. I hadn't expected to spend very long there, but it's all laid out very immersively. They've taken a large number fo sci fi themes and traced their development through the history of the genre. As I'm someone who appreciates things more when I understand where they come from and how they evolved, I really enjoyed working my way round this.
They also had a temporary exhibition about Jim Henson's work. I hadn't realised that the Muppets had existed long before the Muppet Show, having starred in various advertising shorts as a result of his 'Sam and Frriends' show. They had lots of his sketches and storyboards, juxtaposed with the final versions - most notably his 9 minute file Time Piece, where stills of the storyboards played simultaneously beside the film itself.
All in all (including lunch) I spent six hours amusing myself there before finding dinner and coming to the hotel I'd managed to book in a sale with an extra voucher. So I'm currently sitting here in an en suite room larger than the 4 person bunk-bedded dorm I spent last night in, having paid less than I did for the dorm room. Oh, and I have UK proxying working so am able to watch ITV's Tour de France coverage. Result!
Tomorrow I need to be at a nearby hotel for a 7:30am start with Trek America. It's not clear what, if any, internet access I'll have for the next fortnight so it might be au revoir for the moment...
Thursday, July 16, 2009
SciFoo writeup
Belatedly, I'm going to spend some time writing up SciFoo from my perspective. It's probably best to start off with the session I organised. As I was a newbie, I decided to go for a slot on the Sunday, to give me time to see what these 'unconference' sessions were like.
Well, they weren't "like" anything - in the sense that every session was different. Most people seemed to have some kind of slideshow, but there was an unspoken rule that it was Ok to interrupt with questions at any time. A couple of sessions were basically a free for all discussion.
Mine turned out to be a bit of both - my main problem was reigning in the vocal extroverts. I know exactly how to do that at school, but these vocal extroverts were generally older and more experienced than me. Basically, a lot of what I was saying in terms of the Head First way of doing things had already been dealt with in other sessions, for example the Jump Math session. The people there (well, the two loudest anyway) were, "yeah, we like the material, how do you get stuff like this into the education system?" As 'chair' all I could say was "if you have ideas then let me / O'Reilly know as that's exactly the question that O'Reilly are asking too."
With hindsight, I should have implemented some kind of "conch" rule (a la Lord of the Flies, where you can only speak if you have the conch) as there were a couple of quiet but passionate introverts who didn't get to contribute until I basically re-interrupted the loud people and said that it was someone else's turn now. Ironic, as we'd been talking about how every child needed an adult who believed in them - and I suppose that one of the ways I do that at school is to limit the floor-time for those who want to dominate and leave space for the quieter children, who usually have something good to contribute as they think with their brains first and mouths second. (Not that doing it the other way round is bad, it's just a shame when the 'mouth first' faction dominate.)
Before my session, I'd been at a very inreresting one reporting back on research where the hormone levels of city traders had been measured to see if there was a correlation between testosterone and risk-taking, and also cortisol and risk-adverseness. To cut a long story short it appears that there is, and though the sample of women studied was too small to draw firm conclusions it does appear that one of the factors at work in bull or bear markets is the fact that the majority of traders are men.
Working backwards, the Saturday evening was probably my favourite time. It was very laid-back, with a Foo Bar open and various things going on. Like the liquid nitrogen ice cream manufacturing, and the sodium acetate... look it's a liquid... no it's crystals demo. I'd done the latter myslf by accident in the lab once, when making up a stock solution that was too concentrated. Then the guitars came out... the centre of the large room had some tents and camp stools pitched in homage to the original Foo Camps, which were actually camps. It was basically a free-for-all with a few guitars and a djembe with people taking it in turns to suggest songs or swap instruments. As it was SciFoo, there was help at hand with the lyrics - essential for somethign like 'Halelujah' which has infinite different verses. (OK, not quite infinite, but having everyone doing the same thing helps.) I've hardly played at all for the last 18 months through fear of RSI coming back, but my hands stood up to it well. Oh, and I also won a puzzle... basically I got to that stage of tiredness where I doggedly get on with things and succeeded (with some input from a co-solver) in cracking the puzzle that had been in our goodie bags. The prize was another puzzle, which I still haven't solved.
The Saturday of SciFoo was very very long, with sessions through the morning and afternoon. I had a little break at 4pm, when I was interviewed by someone from Make magazine. Apparently the 10 minutes or so will be cut down to 2-3 minutes. They wanted to interview people talking passionately about things they were into, so focussed on the chess side of things - secretly I think they must have gone down the list of people, ranked us on weirdness, and I was one fo the lucky winners!
Sessions I went to were by someoen from Pixar discussing the physics behind their animation engines - basically they want the artists just to be able to animate and for all the physics to be done automatically. But they need to build in 'unreal' things, like in The Incredibles where some scenes see people subjected to accelerations of 100g, or else the engine goes nuts. Other things were making long hair look more than just a theoretical concept, reducing aliasing effects, and a cute story from Monsters Inc where Boo has to open a door at the end - and it turns out that she's not tall enough. So the engine had to make her grow (in engine space) as she walks away from the camera towards the door. She still gets smaller as far as the viewer is concerned, but not as small as she should - so she's able to reach the handle.
I also went to sessions on the mathematics of musicality, Ulam's role in all of the Paulo Alto stuff during WWII and then in a nuclear-powered rocket program, and a couple on science publishing / science in the media. One interesting one that I blundered into was about the Sunflower Project - which is basically to track bees. They post out sunflower seeds to participants, who plant them then count the bees that appear on them, report back and have access to a forum etc. It's a way of collecting masses of data - and the ability to post photos for identification helps to verify the identifications. You can produce all sorts of clever maps too, using postcode information from the participants, and do small educational things in fortnightly emails that you send out. It's really taken off in places like girl scouts, residential care homes and prisons, apparently, though the current project's main data collection process takes place during the school holidays.
Most of the session felt too short. Early on, it felt like everyone was just waiting for their turn to speak, without necessarily listening to what had come before, but later on people had relaxed and that happened a lot less. I think that most of the science actually took place where it does in research groups - in the coffee room. It was in between the sessions and at meal times that most of the productive discussion took place, with what was happening in the sessions more of a seed for that. It was fine to just sit down anywhere and start talking to anyone (unlike the research world, where you tend to sit with people from your group) but at the same time, with over 200 people there it meant that you didn't generally sit with the same people more than once, so it also felt 'bitty' at the same time.
All in all, kind of a cross between fresher's week and Nobel Prize Winners' Big Brother!
Well, they weren't "like" anything - in the sense that every session was different. Most people seemed to have some kind of slideshow, but there was an unspoken rule that it was Ok to interrupt with questions at any time. A couple of sessions were basically a free for all discussion.
Mine turned out to be a bit of both - my main problem was reigning in the vocal extroverts. I know exactly how to do that at school, but these vocal extroverts were generally older and more experienced than me. Basically, a lot of what I was saying in terms of the Head First way of doing things had already been dealt with in other sessions, for example the Jump Math session. The people there (well, the two loudest anyway) were, "yeah, we like the material, how do you get stuff like this into the education system?" As 'chair' all I could say was "if you have ideas then let me / O'Reilly know as that's exactly the question that O'Reilly are asking too."
With hindsight, I should have implemented some kind of "conch" rule (a la Lord of the Flies, where you can only speak if you have the conch) as there were a couple of quiet but passionate introverts who didn't get to contribute until I basically re-interrupted the loud people and said that it was someone else's turn now. Ironic, as we'd been talking about how every child needed an adult who believed in them - and I suppose that one of the ways I do that at school is to limit the floor-time for those who want to dominate and leave space for the quieter children, who usually have something good to contribute as they think with their brains first and mouths second. (Not that doing it the other way round is bad, it's just a shame when the 'mouth first' faction dominate.)
Before my session, I'd been at a very inreresting one reporting back on research where the hormone levels of city traders had been measured to see if there was a correlation between testosterone and risk-taking, and also cortisol and risk-adverseness. To cut a long story short it appears that there is, and though the sample of women studied was too small to draw firm conclusions it does appear that one of the factors at work in bull or bear markets is the fact that the majority of traders are men.
Working backwards, the Saturday evening was probably my favourite time. It was very laid-back, with a Foo Bar open and various things going on. Like the liquid nitrogen ice cream manufacturing, and the sodium acetate... look it's a liquid... no it's crystals demo. I'd done the latter myslf by accident in the lab once, when making up a stock solution that was too concentrated. Then the guitars came out... the centre of the large room had some tents and camp stools pitched in homage to the original Foo Camps, which were actually camps. It was basically a free-for-all with a few guitars and a djembe with people taking it in turns to suggest songs or swap instruments. As it was SciFoo, there was help at hand with the lyrics - essential for somethign like 'Halelujah' which has infinite different verses. (OK, not quite infinite, but having everyone doing the same thing helps.) I've hardly played at all for the last 18 months through fear of RSI coming back, but my hands stood up to it well. Oh, and I also won a puzzle... basically I got to that stage of tiredness where I doggedly get on with things and succeeded (with some input from a co-solver) in cracking the puzzle that had been in our goodie bags. The prize was another puzzle, which I still haven't solved.
The Saturday of SciFoo was very very long, with sessions through the morning and afternoon. I had a little break at 4pm, when I was interviewed by someone from Make magazine. Apparently the 10 minutes or so will be cut down to 2-3 minutes. They wanted to interview people talking passionately about things they were into, so focussed on the chess side of things - secretly I think they must have gone down the list of people, ranked us on weirdness, and I was one fo the lucky winners!
Sessions I went to were by someoen from Pixar discussing the physics behind their animation engines - basically they want the artists just to be able to animate and for all the physics to be done automatically. But they need to build in 'unreal' things, like in The Incredibles where some scenes see people subjected to accelerations of 100g, or else the engine goes nuts. Other things were making long hair look more than just a theoretical concept, reducing aliasing effects, and a cute story from Monsters Inc where Boo has to open a door at the end - and it turns out that she's not tall enough. So the engine had to make her grow (in engine space) as she walks away from the camera towards the door. She still gets smaller as far as the viewer is concerned, but not as small as she should - so she's able to reach the handle.
I also went to sessions on the mathematics of musicality, Ulam's role in all of the Paulo Alto stuff during WWII and then in a nuclear-powered rocket program, and a couple on science publishing / science in the media. One interesting one that I blundered into was about the Sunflower Project - which is basically to track bees. They post out sunflower seeds to participants, who plant them then count the bees that appear on them, report back and have access to a forum etc. It's a way of collecting masses of data - and the ability to post photos for identification helps to verify the identifications. You can produce all sorts of clever maps too, using postcode information from the participants, and do small educational things in fortnightly emails that you send out. It's really taken off in places like girl scouts, residential care homes and prisons, apparently, though the current project's main data collection process takes place during the school holidays.
Most of the session felt too short. Early on, it felt like everyone was just waiting for their turn to speak, without necessarily listening to what had come before, but later on people had relaxed and that happened a lot less. I think that most of the science actually took place where it does in research groups - in the coffee room. It was in between the sessions and at meal times that most of the productive discussion took place, with what was happening in the sessions more of a seed for that. It was fine to just sit down anywhere and start talking to anyone (unlike the research world, where you tend to sit with people from your group) but at the same time, with over 200 people there it meant that you didn't generally sit with the same people more than once, so it also felt 'bitty' at the same time.
All in all, kind of a cross between fresher's week and Nobel Prize Winners' Big Brother!
Bike ride
Word for the wise: Make sure your map has contour lines on it before you start out...
http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=3010423
is what I did yesterday... it's the first time I've ever had my ears pop due to change in altitude when out on a bike ride (tick one of the 'elevation' options in the menu to the left). When I first crossed the Golden Gate Bridge, I looked up at some of the hills and decided I probably wouldn't go there, but I was seduced by the thought of seeing the redwoods - the tallest trees in the world - having decided to fly to Seattle instead of seeing more redwoods on the West Coast.
On the bright side, at least I got myself a proper map. The so-called map supplied by the cycle hire company is their brochure folded up - a cartoon elevation 'this map is not to scale' thingy with most of the roads missing. To be fair, what you are 'supposed' to do is climb up to the bridge, cross it, take a right round the coast then get the ferry back. But they really should put a disclaimer on their 'map' saying that if you want to go to Muir Woods / Muir Beach it involves significant amounts of climbing and requires a proper map to avoid getting hopelessly lost.
Rant over! I did say that I'd mention a bike shop in Sausalito in my blog for kindly oiling my chain. I'd had to get the bike rental place to tweak the brakes, put the right amount of air in the tyres etc - and had been so wrapped up with things I could spot while stationary I'd forgotten to check the drive system. Bah. However, there are several bike shops there and I'm not sure which one it was... sorry.
Mechanical and mapping niggles aside, it was a really really good day. Biking the bridge itself was... well... misty and on the way out it seemed that everyone in San Francisco had decided to do it on the same day. It was a bit like trying to navigate the towpath in Oxford on the day of a regatta. I still managed to get some decent photos through the mist, though it had turned to fog on my way back. The crosswinds were spectacular. All of this extreme weather is basically bridge-specific, though there were some strong winds as I wound my way up the valley on the way back from Muir Beach.
I wish I'd had a bit more time to spend in Muir Woods. The thing that really struck me, funnily enough, was the smell. It wasn't quite pine, but it was everywhere and really nice. I could have spent an hour there walking one of the trails they have marked out, but I didn't want to be left in a position where I was having to flay myself later on in the day to get the bike back in time. Instead, I took a detour round to Muir Beach - went up to one of the vantage points they'd used to defend the bay area int he gold rush days. Their cannons only had a two mile range, so they'd basically triangulated some positions so they could cover the whole shipping lane. Again, I wasn't able to spend that much time down on the beach itself, but the day was rwally about the journey rather than the destination.
I have to admit that the 2.5 hour ride back fromt he beach was tough. The two miles of climbing at the start saw to that, though compared to the Tour it was nothing - a mere 220 m in the space of 3.2 km, for an average gradient of 6.8%. And the descents were too long, steep, twisty and turny for me to feel confident in building up much speed - though I was passed by several cyclists on proper bikes - though none of them was overtaking cars like Cancellara was the other day when he punctured on a Pyrenean descent. I was also able to put into practice the 'look over your shoulder as you hear a car approaching' school of thought, which says that drivers leave you more room when you glance (or pretend to glance) at them. It seemed to work - the only time I felt that a driver came too close was when I was back in town and people were reticent to cross the centre line of the road even when there was nothing coming the other way.
All in all, a fantastic day and I'm not feeling too sore as I hang around in the lounge waiting for my washing to go through its paces before I get packed.
http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=3010423
is what I did yesterday... it's the first time I've ever had my ears pop due to change in altitude when out on a bike ride (tick one of the 'elevation' options in the menu to the left). When I first crossed the Golden Gate Bridge, I looked up at some of the hills and decided I probably wouldn't go there, but I was seduced by the thought of seeing the redwoods - the tallest trees in the world - having decided to fly to Seattle instead of seeing more redwoods on the West Coast.
On the bright side, at least I got myself a proper map. The so-called map supplied by the cycle hire company is their brochure folded up - a cartoon elevation 'this map is not to scale' thingy with most of the roads missing. To be fair, what you are 'supposed' to do is climb up to the bridge, cross it, take a right round the coast then get the ferry back. But they really should put a disclaimer on their 'map' saying that if you want to go to Muir Woods / Muir Beach it involves significant amounts of climbing and requires a proper map to avoid getting hopelessly lost.
Rant over! I did say that I'd mention a bike shop in Sausalito in my blog for kindly oiling my chain. I'd had to get the bike rental place to tweak the brakes, put the right amount of air in the tyres etc - and had been so wrapped up with things I could spot while stationary I'd forgotten to check the drive system. Bah. However, there are several bike shops there and I'm not sure which one it was... sorry.
Mechanical and mapping niggles aside, it was a really really good day. Biking the bridge itself was... well... misty and on the way out it seemed that everyone in San Francisco had decided to do it on the same day. It was a bit like trying to navigate the towpath in Oxford on the day of a regatta. I still managed to get some decent photos through the mist, though it had turned to fog on my way back. The crosswinds were spectacular. All of this extreme weather is basically bridge-specific, though there were some strong winds as I wound my way up the valley on the way back from Muir Beach.
I wish I'd had a bit more time to spend in Muir Woods. The thing that really struck me, funnily enough, was the smell. It wasn't quite pine, but it was everywhere and really nice. I could have spent an hour there walking one of the trails they have marked out, but I didn't want to be left in a position where I was having to flay myself later on in the day to get the bike back in time. Instead, I took a detour round to Muir Beach - went up to one of the vantage points they'd used to defend the bay area int he gold rush days. Their cannons only had a two mile range, so they'd basically triangulated some positions so they could cover the whole shipping lane. Again, I wasn't able to spend that much time down on the beach itself, but the day was rwally about the journey rather than the destination.
I have to admit that the 2.5 hour ride back fromt he beach was tough. The two miles of climbing at the start saw to that, though compared to the Tour it was nothing - a mere 220 m in the space of 3.2 km, for an average gradient of 6.8%. And the descents were too long, steep, twisty and turny for me to feel confident in building up much speed - though I was passed by several cyclists on proper bikes - though none of them was overtaking cars like Cancellara was the other day when he punctured on a Pyrenean descent. I was also able to put into practice the 'look over your shoulder as you hear a car approaching' school of thought, which says that drivers leave you more room when you glance (or pretend to glance) at them. It seemed to work - the only time I felt that a driver came too close was when I was back in town and people were reticent to cross the centre line of the road even when there was nothing coming the other way.
All in all, a fantastic day and I'm not feeling too sore as I hang around in the lounge waiting for my washing to go through its paces before I get packed.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Other people's SciFoo views
I haven't had time to write up SciFoo / do it justice yet - and am unlikely to before I go jetting off to Seattle for the Trek America (and low connectivity) part of my trip.
So here are some other people's impressions of SciFoo. Almost without exception, they've gone to different sessions from me!
http://singularityhub.com/2009/07/14/the-hub-goes-to-scifoo-2009-it-was-awesome-scifoo09/
http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2009/07/11/sci-foo-camp-day-1/
http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2009/07/14/sci-foo-camp-day-2/
http://duncan.hull.name/2009/07/13/scifoo-daytoo/
This afternoon's trip to the Exploratorium was a little disappointing - because 3 hours was definitely not enough to do it justice! I thoroughly worked my way through the mechanics and thermal parts - then realised this had taken two hours, and the remaining 3/4 of the exhibits remained unexplored. I had to do a quick dash round the rest of it. In summary, the Exploratorium is fantastic, and must have lots of great brains pooling together to come up with the hands-on stuff, but you really need a day to do it 'properly'!
So here are some other people's impressions of SciFoo. Almost without exception, they've gone to different sessions from me!
http://singularityhub.com/2009/07/14/the-hub-goes-to-scifoo-2009-it-was-awesome-scifoo09/
http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2009/07/11/sci-foo-camp-day-1/
http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2009/07/14/sci-foo-camp-day-2/
http://duncan.hull.name/2009/07/13/scifoo-daytoo/
This afternoon's trip to the Exploratorium was a little disappointing - because 3 hours was definitely not enough to do it justice! I thoroughly worked my way through the mechanics and thermal parts - then realised this had taken two hours, and the remaining 3/4 of the exhibits remained unexplored. I had to do a quick dash round the rest of it. In summary, the Exploratorium is fantastic, and must have lots of great brains pooling together to come up with the hands-on stuff, but you really need a day to do it 'properly'!
Loooong walk
Well, yesterday I did this:
http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=3004280
I had two things on my agenda - to check out Haight-Ashbury and go on the Alcatraz trip I'd booked a few weeks ago. Plus buy an alarm clock or watch en route (yes Mum, I know...) and take a look at Golden Gate Park, one of the places where I'm hoping to do some cycling on Wednesday. As often happens with open-ended excursions, i found other things too...
I have to make an admission first - I've discovered that I quite like walking the steep hills that punctuate San Francisco's landscape. With a grid-like street plan, it would otherwise be a relatively boring place to explore. But with no contour lines on the street map, you're never quite sure whether an enticing-looking sidestreet is going to rear up at 45'.
Anyway, It's fairly flat along Market Street with the Civic Centre (amusingly based on Russian architecture) and a UN building to take pretty pictures of. When you hit Haight Street, you start heading for the sky, past intricately-painted houses. I didn't want to take pictures of people's homes, but you can probably look at other people's on Flickr instead (see below).
I liked Lower Haight far more than Haight-Ashbury. Although I like the music from the period, I can do without the other sundries that go along with it, including the freaky artwork. The iconic Haight-Ashbury intersection sign appeared to have been stolen (I guess that, together with London's Abbey Road sign, this must happen a fair bit) but there were a multitude of shops where you could buy a cardboard replica. Counter-culture meets capitalism head-on, and capitalism wins.
After hills, heat and a lot of walking, I was glad to turn into Amoeba Music for its air conditioning and endless racks of CDs before finding lunch in Golden Gate Park. Despite its name, the park is not at the foot of the Golden Gate Bridge (though it does fall within the Golden Gate Recreation Area), so to do a little recce of where I hope to cycle, I turned North towards the Presidio Park part of the recreation area. Despite a map issue en route - an important junction lay below a textbox that explained that the scale of the map changed in that area - the grid-like nature of the streets and the fact that their names remain the same for miles ensured that I didn't get lost.
I also found an unexpected photo vantage point - a three floor shopping complex at the peak of one of San Francisco's many hills. The Best Buy panoramic view doesn't appear in any of the guidebooks, but it worked for me.
Presidio is very nice, with lots of opportunities for shots framed by trees and swooping branches. As I exited the park I was faced with miles and miles of Lombard Street - flat at first, rising to a sudden 45' peak - plus the bit on the other side that I couldn't see. I'm not sure if photos can do justice to just how 'epic' it feels when you're actually standing there.
At the top of the sudden rise, the road falls away even more steeply - so steeply that they've made a snake of hairpin bends to bring the cars down safely (it's a one-way street by that point). The cars have the added obstacle of gaggles of tourists swarming around at the bottom of the snake part fo the road, clamouring for the best angle to take a picture of the cars 'on parade' as they descend.
One of the topics discussed at SciFoo was doing clever things with automatic timestamps and geolocation data encoded by many modern cameras. It's made me think that I should go on Flickr find people who were there at the same time as me, and link to their photos instead of bothering with my own!
For example:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/25308556@N00/2776807783
Anyone who wants to play can do it via:
http://www.flickr.com/map/
The Alcatraz bit should come next - but I think I'll make that a different post, as it's where the looooong walk ended (I got the bus back'). I'll be off to the Exploratorium soon- I met a couple of people from there at SciFoo and it looks awesome!
http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=3004280
I had two things on my agenda - to check out Haight-Ashbury and go on the Alcatraz trip I'd booked a few weeks ago. Plus buy an alarm clock or watch en route (yes Mum, I know...) and take a look at Golden Gate Park, one of the places where I'm hoping to do some cycling on Wednesday. As often happens with open-ended excursions, i found other things too...
I have to make an admission first - I've discovered that I quite like walking the steep hills that punctuate San Francisco's landscape. With a grid-like street plan, it would otherwise be a relatively boring place to explore. But with no contour lines on the street map, you're never quite sure whether an enticing-looking sidestreet is going to rear up at 45'.
Anyway, It's fairly flat along Market Street with the Civic Centre (amusingly based on Russian architecture) and a UN building to take pretty pictures of. When you hit Haight Street, you start heading for the sky, past intricately-painted houses. I didn't want to take pictures of people's homes, but you can probably look at other people's on Flickr instead (see below).
I liked Lower Haight far more than Haight-Ashbury. Although I like the music from the period, I can do without the other sundries that go along with it, including the freaky artwork. The iconic Haight-Ashbury intersection sign appeared to have been stolen (I guess that, together with London's Abbey Road sign, this must happen a fair bit) but there were a multitude of shops where you could buy a cardboard replica. Counter-culture meets capitalism head-on, and capitalism wins.
After hills, heat and a lot of walking, I was glad to turn into Amoeba Music for its air conditioning and endless racks of CDs before finding lunch in Golden Gate Park. Despite its name, the park is not at the foot of the Golden Gate Bridge (though it does fall within the Golden Gate Recreation Area), so to do a little recce of where I hope to cycle, I turned North towards the Presidio Park part of the recreation area. Despite a map issue en route - an important junction lay below a textbox that explained that the scale of the map changed in that area - the grid-like nature of the streets and the fact that their names remain the same for miles ensured that I didn't get lost.
I also found an unexpected photo vantage point - a three floor shopping complex at the peak of one of San Francisco's many hills. The Best Buy panoramic view doesn't appear in any of the guidebooks, but it worked for me.
Presidio is very nice, with lots of opportunities for shots framed by trees and swooping branches. As I exited the park I was faced with miles and miles of Lombard Street - flat at first, rising to a sudden 45' peak - plus the bit on the other side that I couldn't see. I'm not sure if photos can do justice to just how 'epic' it feels when you're actually standing there.
At the top of the sudden rise, the road falls away even more steeply - so steeply that they've made a snake of hairpin bends to bring the cars down safely (it's a one-way street by that point). The cars have the added obstacle of gaggles of tourists swarming around at the bottom of the snake part fo the road, clamouring for the best angle to take a picture of the cars 'on parade' as they descend.
One of the topics discussed at SciFoo was doing clever things with automatic timestamps and geolocation data encoded by many modern cameras. It's made me think that I should go on Flickr find people who were there at the same time as me, and link to their photos instead of bothering with my own!
For example:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/25308556@N00/2776807783
Anyone who wants to play can do it via:
http://www.flickr.com/map/
The Alcatraz bit should come next - but I think I'll make that a different post, as it's where the looooong walk ended (I got the bus back'). I'll be off to the Exploratorium soon- I met a couple of people from there at SciFoo and it looks awesome!
Sunday, July 12, 2009
The scary bottom washer toilets
SciFoo is now finished... it's going to take me a few days to do it justice, but it qas definitely different, interesting, inspiring. It was also a bit dwarfing at the same time - realising how many people are doing Head First-ish things in game design, e-learning, maths programs etc, and the challenges in getting anything new accepted in an education industry where consultants in some countries have vested interests with particular textbook companies.
Where else but SciFoo could you get in an informal chat with the guy who was editor in chief for Scientific American for 15 years - then have him turn round and say "I picked up your book last night - I really like it." The big leveller is just having names on badges - and an atmosphere of mingling that makes it OK to sit down with anyone and start chatting (or start playing guitars and singing - more of that in another post!).
I'll write more as time goes on, with photos to be added when I'm back and have my camera cable. For now I'd like to write about something I've been unable to documents photographically. Google have relaxed their photos policy for SciFoo - pictures outside plus in the main foyer / reception area and the seinar rooms are OK (though if anyone is identifiable they've requested we ask their permission before posting them online). This means I have been unable to take live shots of the Googleplex's scary bottom washer toilets.
Imagine you've just sat on the loo, and the person using it before you was running a temperature while sitting there reading War and Peace for several hours. That's how warm the seat is. Casting your eyes around the cubicle, you see debugging newsletters tacked to the back of the door, and a strange control panel on the side wall. This toilet has a wall mountable remote control. Disturbingly, its buttons are labelled "Stop", "Rear cleansing" "Front cleansing" "Dryer" and "Oscillating". Fortunately, none of these modes are auto-activated (though it knows when to flush) and my natural button-pressing curiosity is somewhat tempered when sitting on a scary bottom washing toilet.
Gentle reader, I have searched for this toilet and though I respected the photo policy and took no images myself, I can now present to you several peopel who have reviewed this scary bottom washing toilet:
http://www.toiletsthatwork.com/toto-toilet-detail.asp?id=MS950CG&name=NEOREST&view=1&view2=seat#review
The best bit is this toilet's intelligence. According to the manufacturer, it can detect whether the toilet was used standing or sitting, and flushes with an appropriate volume of water.
Time for a snooze now, I think, before the tone is lowered any further.
Where else but SciFoo could you get in an informal chat with the guy who was editor in chief for Scientific American for 15 years - then have him turn round and say "I picked up your book last night - I really like it." The big leveller is just having names on badges - and an atmosphere of mingling that makes it OK to sit down with anyone and start chatting (or start playing guitars and singing - more of that in another post!).
I'll write more as time goes on, with photos to be added when I'm back and have my camera cable. For now I'd like to write about something I've been unable to documents photographically. Google have relaxed their photos policy for SciFoo - pictures outside plus in the main foyer / reception area and the seinar rooms are OK (though if anyone is identifiable they've requested we ask their permission before posting them online). This means I have been unable to take live shots of the Googleplex's scary bottom washer toilets.
Imagine you've just sat on the loo, and the person using it before you was running a temperature while sitting there reading War and Peace for several hours. That's how warm the seat is. Casting your eyes around the cubicle, you see debugging newsletters tacked to the back of the door, and a strange control panel on the side wall. This toilet has a wall mountable remote control. Disturbingly, its buttons are labelled "Stop", "Rear cleansing" "Front cleansing" "Dryer" and "Oscillating". Fortunately, none of these modes are auto-activated (though it knows when to flush) and my natural button-pressing curiosity is somewhat tempered when sitting on a scary bottom washing toilet.
Gentle reader, I have searched for this toilet and though I respected the photo policy and took no images myself, I can now present to you several peopel who have reviewed this scary bottom washing toilet:
http://www.toiletsthatwork.com/toto-toilet-detail.asp?id=MS950CG&name=NEOREST&view=1&view2=seat#review
The best bit is this toilet's intelligence. According to the manufacturer, it can detect whether the toilet was used standing or sitting, and flushes with an appropriate volume of water.
Time for a snooze now, I think, before the tone is lowered any further.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Jet lag and first impressions
I have to admit that I never really believed in jet lag before. The furthest I'd been time zone-wise before this trip was to Boston (5 hours difference) for the Head First training - which was so intense that I got through on caffeine and around 6 hours sleep per night - so I expected to feel a bit funny with that kind of schedule.
In California, I'm 9 hours out from what my body's expecting. The main way this is manifesting itself is through early waking, and feeling like someone wrapped my brain in a big wooly sock. I gaze upwards at my fake canopy and reflect on the bizarreness of it all.
Here I am, at a conference with "200 really smart people" as they said in the intro thingy last night. When you talk with someone you're never quite sure whether they're going to be the editor of a Nature publication, a maverick blogger, a poet who's working on a cipher so that he can encode a poem into bacterial DNA then have the bacteria write a different poem back again when they transcribe it, a neuroscientist (lots of them about), someone who generates immersive interactive experiences (big storylines that encompass all sorts of media), a bioinformatics lecturer from Manchester, a physics guy from Cambridge, etc. Oh, and me.
It's a really interesting social environment. It's like wandering around in Fresher's Week asking people what A levels they did, except that the questions are different. "What do you do?" is one way of starting things off, "why do you think they invited you?" might be another. Last night was basically a major mingling time, plus an intro to the format, which ended up with a swarm for pens and extremely large and sticky post-its and an instant schedule.
The idea is that you have a 1 hour slot (in competition with around 12 other 1 hour slots) to start and facilitiate an interesting discussion with a whole load of smart people. Now, during school time I spend every week working out how to take a 1 hour slot and facilitate an interesting discussion with a whole load of smart people, but it remains to be seen how doing this with much older people and no demo board will work out.
Socially it's been interesting. I think I already implied it, but there's definitely a high proportion of extroverts here. It might be the tendency to invite interesting bloggers (scienceblogs.com has turned up more than once in conversation) but when you're feeling like someone wrapped your brain in a wooly sock it can be a little bit much. :-)
Fortunately, there have been some interesting diversions. They had the latest Google Street View thingy on display outside - a trike that will let them do Google Path View. "Can I have a go?" (OK, so maybe I am a little bit extrovert after all). I've never ridden a trike before, and I think it will be a useful example in my session tomorrow... If you have any skill whatsoever in riding on two wheels, you have to unlearn everything that was ever useful that you didn't know you did. The thing has an unbelievable turning circle, very sensitive steering and a tendency to violently oversteer. But when that happened, everything in me that knew how to ride a bike was 100% convinced that I was going to fall off. The first couple of times I just put my feet down, then I started trying to lean into the curve, as you would to rescue an over-tight turn on two wheels. But of course you can't steer a trike by leaning.
The key "I get this" moment came when I did something that would have been completely crazy on a bike - yank the handlebars violently in the opposite direction from the turn. On a trike, you actually steer by moving the bars violently - you can feel the force come through the front wheel - then you have to battle to hold them straight as the tendency is for them to turn. Completely the opposite of a bike, where a sudden movement like that would lead to a crash and the tendency is to go straight unless you lean. Oh, and you have to remember you have big wide wheels at the back and not run over anyone's foot!
Anyway, one of the things I'll be mentioning in my session is that you eventually get to a point in most activities - whether passing physics lower down via memorisation, or winning chess games by setting up one move checkmate threats - where the approach that worked previously no longer works against harder questions or a more skilled opponent. In fact, everything that was useful earlier on becomes a hinderance. I'd have picked up the trike much more quickly (and avoided questions from onlookers about how much I'd been drinking) if I'd never ridden a bike. And the key moment is when you realise that you have to unlearn - and working out how to make that into a positive experience rather than a brick wall you never get through.
In California, I'm 9 hours out from what my body's expecting. The main way this is manifesting itself is through early waking, and feeling like someone wrapped my brain in a big wooly sock. I gaze upwards at my fake canopy and reflect on the bizarreness of it all.
Here I am, at a conference with "200 really smart people" as they said in the intro thingy last night. When you talk with someone you're never quite sure whether they're going to be the editor of a Nature publication, a maverick blogger, a poet who's working on a cipher so that he can encode a poem into bacterial DNA then have the bacteria write a different poem back again when they transcribe it, a neuroscientist (lots of them about), someone who generates immersive interactive experiences (big storylines that encompass all sorts of media), a bioinformatics lecturer from Manchester, a physics guy from Cambridge, etc. Oh, and me.
It's a really interesting social environment. It's like wandering around in Fresher's Week asking people what A levels they did, except that the questions are different. "What do you do?" is one way of starting things off, "why do you think they invited you?" might be another. Last night was basically a major mingling time, plus an intro to the format, which ended up with a swarm for pens and extremely large and sticky post-its and an instant schedule.
The idea is that you have a 1 hour slot (in competition with around 12 other 1 hour slots) to start and facilitiate an interesting discussion with a whole load of smart people. Now, during school time I spend every week working out how to take a 1 hour slot and facilitate an interesting discussion with a whole load of smart people, but it remains to be seen how doing this with much older people and no demo board will work out.
Socially it's been interesting. I think I already implied it, but there's definitely a high proportion of extroverts here. It might be the tendency to invite interesting bloggers (scienceblogs.com has turned up more than once in conversation) but when you're feeling like someone wrapped your brain in a wooly sock it can be a little bit much. :-)
Fortunately, there have been some interesting diversions. They had the latest Google Street View thingy on display outside - a trike that will let them do Google Path View. "Can I have a go?" (OK, so maybe I am a little bit extrovert after all). I've never ridden a trike before, and I think it will be a useful example in my session tomorrow... If you have any skill whatsoever in riding on two wheels, you have to unlearn everything that was ever useful that you didn't know you did. The thing has an unbelievable turning circle, very sensitive steering and a tendency to violently oversteer. But when that happened, everything in me that knew how to ride a bike was 100% convinced that I was going to fall off. The first couple of times I just put my feet down, then I started trying to lean into the curve, as you would to rescue an over-tight turn on two wheels. But of course you can't steer a trike by leaning.
The key "I get this" moment came when I did something that would have been completely crazy on a bike - yank the handlebars violently in the opposite direction from the turn. On a trike, you actually steer by moving the bars violently - you can feel the force come through the front wheel - then you have to battle to hold them straight as the tendency is for them to turn. Completely the opposite of a bike, where a sudden movement like that would lead to a crash and the tendency is to go straight unless you lean. Oh, and you have to remember you have big wide wheels at the back and not run over anyone's foot!
Anyway, one of the things I'll be mentioning in my session is that you eventually get to a point in most activities - whether passing physics lower down via memorisation, or winning chess games by setting up one move checkmate threats - where the approach that worked previously no longer works against harder questions or a more skilled opponent. In fact, everything that was useful earlier on becomes a hinderance. I'd have picked up the trike much more quickly (and avoided questions from onlookers about how much I'd been drinking) if I'd never ridden a bike. And the key moment is when you realise that you have to unlearn - and working out how to make that into a positive experience rather than a brick wall you never get through.
Friday, July 10, 2009
No longer on the book giveaway table
http://www.amazon.com/Theo-Grays-Mad-Science-Experiments/dp/1579127916/
http://www.amazon.com/Geek-Atlas-Places-Science-Technology/dp/0596523203
http://www.amazon.com/Nudge-Improving-Decisions-Health-Happiness/dp/014311526X
http://www.amazon.com/Make-Technology-Your-Time-18/dp/059615769X/
http://www.amazon.com/SuperSense-Why-We-Believe-Unbelievable/dp/0061452645/
http://www.amazon.com/Academic-Stimulus-Package-Higher-Deeper/dp/0972169547
http://www.periodictable.com/Posters/PosterLenticular.mov
Oh, I have another bag...
http://www.amazon.com/Space-Tourists-Handbook-Where-Prepare/dp/1594740666/
http://www.amazon.com/Statistics-Nutshell-Desktop-Reference-OReilly/dp/0596510497/
http://www.amazon.com/Best-Instructables-Do-Yourself-Projects/dp/0596519524/
Nature notebook
Google pen
And last but not least, The Science Foo Camp Maze from www.pavelspuzzles.com
It's OK - my rucksack expands from 50l to 70l at the flick of a zip!
All 12 copies of Head First Phycics went; three people got me to sign it.
I'm currently signed up to do a session on Brain-friendly learning at 10:30am on Sunday. I've basically pitched it along the lines of: real-life learning involves making mistakes. The session explores ways of engineering this in academic learning. We'll see how many people decide they want to join in - it's in competition with 12 other sessions running at the same time!
http://www.amazon.com/Geek-Atlas-Places-Science-Technology/dp/0596523203
http://www.amazon.com/Nudge-Improving-Decisions-Health-Happiness/dp/014311526X
http://www.amazon.com/Make-Technology-Your-Time-18/dp/059615769X/
http://www.amazon.com/SuperSense-Why-We-Believe-Unbelievable/dp/0061452645/
http://www.amazon.com/Academic-Stimulus-Package-Higher-Deeper/dp/0972169547
http://www.periodictable.com/Posters/PosterLenticular.mov
Oh, I have another bag...
http://www.amazon.com/Space-Tourists-Handbook-Where-Prepare/dp/1594740666/
http://www.amazon.com/Statistics-Nutshell-Desktop-Reference-OReilly/dp/0596510497/
http://www.amazon.com/Best-Instructables-Do-Yourself-Projects/dp/0596519524/
Nature notebook
Google pen
And last but not least, The Science Foo Camp Maze from www.pavelspuzzles.com
It's OK - my rucksack expands from 50l to 70l at the flick of a zip!
All 12 copies of Head First Phycics went; three people got me to sign it.
I'm currently signed up to do a session on Brain-friendly learning at 10:30am on Sunday. I've basically pitched it along the lines of: real-life learning involves making mistakes. The session explores ways of engineering this in academic learning. We'll see how many people decide they want to join in - it's in competition with 12 other sessions running at the same time!
Bus with a bike rack, bed with a canopy
No doubt there will be more updates over the weekend, but it's worth popping up now with a few observations.
First of all, I travelled on a bus with a bike rack today. This guy just came along, unfolded the rack, secured his bike and hopped on the bus. You could just about see the handlebars through the bottom of the windscreen. Brilliant idea or what?!
Secondly - more bike-related stuff - I've found live urosport audio, which should let me listen to the finishes of the Tour de France stages as I get going in the mornings. There might well be TV coverage in the US, what with Lance Armstrong making his comeback, but the audio will do me for now.
Thirdly, the bed in my room at SciFoo has a completely gratuitous canopy. You can't let it down or anything, it's just a canopy across the top. It's the first time I've been in a room with air conditioning too (call me a luddite).
Finally, street names. When I first arrived in San Francisco a couple of ays ago, I must have looked like a right wally craning my neck to search in vain for street names on buildings. Nope. In this town, the first set of street names I found are on lamp posts in the middle of the road, like election candidates. They also don't have the full name of the street, just Mason and Powell and things like election candidates. The second place I eventually found the street names is written in the concrete at pedestrian crossings - in the pavement itself.
First of all, I travelled on a bus with a bike rack today. This guy just came along, unfolded the rack, secured his bike and hopped on the bus. You could just about see the handlebars through the bottom of the windscreen. Brilliant idea or what?!
Secondly - more bike-related stuff - I've found live urosport audio, which should let me listen to the finishes of the Tour de France stages as I get going in the mornings. There might well be TV coverage in the US, what with Lance Armstrong making his comeback, but the audio will do me for now.
Thirdly, the bed in my room at SciFoo has a completely gratuitous canopy. You can't let it down or anything, it's just a canopy across the top. It's the first time I've been in a room with air conditioning too (call me a luddite).
Finally, street names. When I first arrived in San Francisco a couple of ays ago, I must have looked like a right wally craning my neck to search in vain for street names on buildings. Nope. In this town, the first set of street names I found are on lamp posts in the middle of the road, like election candidates. They also don't have the full name of the street, just Mason and Powell and things like election candidates. The second place I eventually found the street names is written in the concrete at pedestrian crossings - in the pavement itself.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Mount Ventoux vs Mason St.
I've managed to get wireless internet access working from the hostel. Not a particularly eventful morning / afternoon - after stocking up on bagels, I prepared my presentation for Science Foo. I'm still not sure if it's along the right lines but hopefully it's open-ended enough to turn into a discussion if that's what people want to do. I might post it up here at some point.
As late afternoon came around, I decided to go out wandering int he general direction of Fisherman's Wharf. It was around 10 minutes into this endeavour that I discovered that they don't put contour lines on the streetmaps. The road just suddenly leaps up at around 45', amid signs tellign cars to park at 90' to the pavement lest the parallel component of the gravitational force win vs the handbrake. Going up is fine, but coming down is a little harsh on the old knees.
I have plans to cycle across the Golden Gate Bridge and do some exploring when I'm back after SciFoo, but have made a note to hire a bike from a place by the shore. I wouldn't want to cycle that hill in that traffic in either direction. At least anyone who learns to drive there will be a monster at hill starts!
Fisherman's Wharf consists of shops on one side and sea on t'other. The shops differ from UK pierside shops in that they sell more expensive tat rather than cheap tat. I'd hoped to pick up a cheap watch or alarm clock, but prices started at $20. To my surprise (this evening) this is only 12 UKP - I'd no realised the exchange rate had gone back up so much. There's also the rather interesting Pier 39, which is basically a big souviner shopping mall, but with a series of sealion rafts down one side. Yes, sealion rafts. There were tens and tens of sealions basking in the sun - but their spatial awareness could have been better. Instead of giving themselves room and spreading out across all available rafts, they's all piled onto around three.
It was a lot colder than I'd expected - colder than it's been int he UK of late, and with a biting coastal wind. I regretted the shorts for a bit on the way back to the hostel, until the hill warmed me up again. Another highlight was seeing Head First Physics on display in Barnes and Noble - and as of this afternoon it's facing cover outwards rather than spine outwards. I wonder how long that'll last...
I'm still jet lagged / tired - 10pm now is 6am in the UK and it really does feel like it! I'm still catching up with my 32 hour Wednesday, but I'm off to Silicon Valley tomorrow and will appreciate the extra space - both metaphorically and physically - in my queen size room (all paide for by Google / Nature / O'Reilly, that's the life). I also had an email from the editor if O'Reilly's MAKE magazine, who'll be interviewing people at SciFoo for something they're doing. Anyone interested in a sweepstake about how many times I yawn in the final cut?
As late afternoon came around, I decided to go out wandering int he general direction of Fisherman's Wharf. It was around 10 minutes into this endeavour that I discovered that they don't put contour lines on the streetmaps. The road just suddenly leaps up at around 45', amid signs tellign cars to park at 90' to the pavement lest the parallel component of the gravitational force win vs the handbrake. Going up is fine, but coming down is a little harsh on the old knees.
I have plans to cycle across the Golden Gate Bridge and do some exploring when I'm back after SciFoo, but have made a note to hire a bike from a place by the shore. I wouldn't want to cycle that hill in that traffic in either direction. At least anyone who learns to drive there will be a monster at hill starts!
Fisherman's Wharf consists of shops on one side and sea on t'other. The shops differ from UK pierside shops in that they sell more expensive tat rather than cheap tat. I'd hoped to pick up a cheap watch or alarm clock, but prices started at $20. To my surprise (this evening) this is only 12 UKP - I'd no realised the exchange rate had gone back up so much. There's also the rather interesting Pier 39, which is basically a big souviner shopping mall, but with a series of sealion rafts down one side. Yes, sealion rafts. There were tens and tens of sealions basking in the sun - but their spatial awareness could have been better. Instead of giving themselves room and spreading out across all available rafts, they's all piled onto around three.
It was a lot colder than I'd expected - colder than it's been int he UK of late, and with a biting coastal wind. I regretted the shorts for a bit on the way back to the hostel, until the hill warmed me up again. Another highlight was seeing Head First Physics on display in Barnes and Noble - and as of this afternoon it's facing cover outwards rather than spine outwards. I wonder how long that'll last...
I'm still jet lagged / tired - 10pm now is 6am in the UK and it really does feel like it! I'm still catching up with my 32 hour Wednesday, but I'm off to Silicon Valley tomorrow and will appreciate the extra space - both metaphorically and physically - in my queen size room (all paide for by Google / Nature / O'Reilly, that's the life). I also had an email from the editor if O'Reilly's MAKE magazine, who'll be interviewing people at SciFoo for something they're doing. Anyone interested in a sweepstake about how many times I yawn in the final cut?
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
32 hour Wednesday
I wonder whether the best way of preparing for an 8 hour time difference is to wreck your body clock before you go? I had a pretty good shot at that trying to finish off Water Technology Markets - or at least get it all into InDesign - on the couple of days before I flew. I suppose it had the effect of making me so tired that I zoned out watching movies on the first leg of the flight, then slept for five hours during the second.
The new kit has definitely been up to the job. The ability to zip a daybag onto a rucksack was most welcome when getting from the airport to the hostel. The usual alternative is to do the 'double tortoise'. On the down side, the ATMs defeated me. It turns out that the trick is to slide the card in - and out - really fast. If you slide it too slowly, it lets you enter your PIN, go through all the menus, etc, only to tell you it's an invalid transaction at the end. Shame I spent a fiver on the phone to the bank making sure my card hadn't been blocked before I worked that out.
I learned a new word though - when asked what drink I would like on the plane I went for the interesing mix of cranberry and apple that I'd seen in the in-flight magazine. The attendant looked confused. "Ohhhhh, cre-an-e-apple," she said, as it dawned on her what I had asked for. Took me a few moments to realise that 'cranapple' was the word.
Now, I have a problem when I learn new words - I often get them muddled. Fast forward to a few hours later, on the next plane. "Hmmm, I could do with that refreshing mix of cranberry and apple," I mused. But the only word that came to mind was "crapple". I couldn't bring myself to ask for crapple, so I had to go through the whole "ohhhh, cre-an-e-apple" thing again.
The new kit has definitely been up to the job. The ability to zip a daybag onto a rucksack was most welcome when getting from the airport to the hostel. The usual alternative is to do the 'double tortoise'. On the down side, the ATMs defeated me. It turns out that the trick is to slide the card in - and out - really fast. If you slide it too slowly, it lets you enter your PIN, go through all the menus, etc, only to tell you it's an invalid transaction at the end. Shame I spent a fiver on the phone to the bank making sure my card hadn't been blocked before I worked that out.
I learned a new word though - when asked what drink I would like on the plane I went for the interesing mix of cranberry and apple that I'd seen in the in-flight magazine. The attendant looked confused. "Ohhhhh, cre-an-e-apple," she said, as it dawned on her what I had asked for. Took me a few moments to realise that 'cranapple' was the word.
Now, I have a problem when I learn new words - I often get them muddled. Fast forward to a few hours later, on the next plane. "Hmmm, I could do with that refreshing mix of cranberry and apple," I mused. But the only word that came to mind was "crapple". I couldn't bring myself to ask for crapple, so I had to go through the whole "ohhhh, cre-an-e-apple" thing again.
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