So here I am in Austin, Texas. This is the first time I’ve been away completely alone. No Jen, no Gracie, not even a Dave or Mike. It’s weird being all alone in a hotel room. It’s so… quiet.
I just got back from the REAL World 2004 Keynote and Reception. Very cool stuff. I’ll probably write some detailed stuff later, but let’s just say there was a ton of stuff that will make my life easier. And Geoff Perlman did a great Steve-Jobs-style presentation, complete with “One More Thing” at the end.
The REALbasic mailing lists are very active. It’s nice to finally put faces with some of these names I’ve seen so many times. Some people don’t look at all like I imagined. Some do, for good or for ill. It’s funny. After you’ve been reading someone’s email messages for a long enough stretch of time, you begin to “hear” their voice, or what you would imagine it to be, inside your head, and you imagine what they look like. Reality so seldom matches up. But that’s a good thing.
And you can be very proud of me. I ate in a South American restaurant tonight. Yes, that’s right, Brad Rhine ate in a non-Italian ethnic place. So what did I venture to eat? I found a dish, whose name eludes me, that basically consists of two sirloin steak, smothered in grilled onions, and topped with two fried eggs. Yummy. Dr. Atkins would be proud. It was really very tasty, and made up for the “breakfast” they served on the flight: a package of Special K with lowfat milk and a banana with the stem removed (for security reasons?) so that I had to chew it open.
But both of my flights were good. On the first leg, from Philly to Houston, the seat next to me was empty. I was at the window, and there was some chick passed out in the aisle seat. “Great,” I thought. “Time to get some work done.” So I pulled out the PowerBook, and the people in front of me decided to recline so far back that at first I wondered if they had mistaken me for their dentist. So I listened to my iPod instead. I actually played the music quiz game for the first time. Pretty cool game.
Lotsa sirens outside all of a sudden. Whoa… the whole block is covered with police cars and fire trucks. Not good.
The second flight was very short: Houston to Austin. We spent as much time on the runway as we did in the air. Seriously.
The hotel is great. Hampton Inn and Suites. High speed Internet access in every room. Wireless in the common areas, supposedly. I haven’t tried it yet. There’s a swimming pool on the fourth floor. I have a great view of it from the window of my room on the 13th floor. If I could enough momentum to break through the window glass and make it about 30 feet past the window, I think I could do a killer cannonball. Oh, wait… “No Diving” sign. Forget that idea, then.
Dan wants me to pee on the Alamo, just to bug the Texans. I didn’t do that, but I did spit on Second Street, for whatever that’s worth.