O’Reilly Diary – Saturday

So, here’s the first of seven days worth of entries from my time at the O’Reilly Emerging Tech Conference. Today… travelling to the USA.

1122 Zulu – Over The Atlantic
I’m in the air at 36,000 feet, flying over what the Laser Digital Display Map calls “the Celtic Sea.” I suspect they mean the Irish sea, but thankfully there don;t seem to be many Rangers fans here complaining.
Heathrow is ugly! Okay I’ve been though a few airports in the last year, but for the biggest airport in the UK, it’s cramped, everything is on top of each other, there’s no colour expect for white, and… yeuch. Give me Stanstead any day.
Russ recommended that I travel American Airlines, and I have to say so far that I’m glad I did. Even in “Moof’s Cattle Class” I’ve got buckets of room. Part of that might be I’m in a central block of 5 seats and there’s only three of us, but even sitting down there’s lots of room.
I can ask for complimentary drinks whenever I feel like it! I guess that’s the “Fly Easyjet / Ryanair syndrome. Here I get a lump of white stuff that tastes like chicken for brunch, and then a microwaved cake that was almost, but not quite, a mini-pizza for dinner.

2015 Zulu – Chicago O’hare.
I’ve come to the conclusion that Airport Security (of which I’ve now been through five and i’ve not even reached San Diego yet) get completely freaked out by the Psion Netbook. I get this strange look, the bag is pulled aside and a “we need to take a closer look at your… laptop.”
I suspect it’s because they see a screen and keyboard, but no hard drive, CD Roms, ports or other gubbins in an ‘IBM PC’ style laptop. Never had a problem in the UK or Europe with this. But it’s certainly getting predictable.

My watch is saying it’s half past eight at the moet, and I should be putting Eilidh to bed, but in Chicago it’s actualy half past two, so I’ve just had lunch. The plan is try and get through to a sensible bedtime in San Diego, and a longish lie on Sunday to get the body clock sorted out. So far, it seems to be working, as it does feel like it’s after lunchtime.

2100 Zulu – Still at Chicago
Aw bugger, I forgot the business cards.

2215 Zulu – Lost In America
Well, not really lost, but even if we were, i wouldn;t care. We’ve got the spirit of Chuck Yeager flying the Chicago to San Diego leg of the journey. Delayed on take-off becaise “we’ve jez got a little bit of darn pesky ice on our here wings” west american drawl – Tom Wolf in “The Right Stuff” wasn’t kidding.
0300 Zulu – The Marina Hotel
Time to set the clocks back from UK to…
1915 San Diego Time
…West Coast time. There we go. Actually that’s just for the narrative. I set all my clocks back to San Diego time the second I got on the plane at Heathrow.