The three days of the convention were spent going to seminars, which I will write-up shortly, and wandering around the stands in the expo hall, talking to people who wanted to sell you their products, and trying to wangle free stuff. I did quite well on the last count - I got 37 pens (my boss got 43, and beat me), and a bunch of stuff like a coffee cup, a Rubik's cube, some lanyards, and so on. There were also two keynote speeches, the first of which was a marketing ad by Covad ("Convergence of Voice and Data" - actually quite exciting! A full-on provider of digital voice/data services. Convergence realised.), and the other which was
Having left South Africa on Sunday, spent Monday at the Smithsonian, and flying, the convention took up our Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. open source So, Californian toilets. They
I had to share a room with Petrus, which, I must confess, was not pleasant. He snores like a steam engine, and I have video footage to prove it. He also sets his alarm for 7am, so that he can get up and play Civilization on his new laptop. Now, maybe it's just me, but I think it's a bit antisocial to set an alarm when you're sharing a room, especially if you're only setting it so that you can play games.
We spent most evenings drinking Jack Daniels ($20 a bottle), and playing bridge, in Jac and Gideon's room. The hotel is a pleasant place, the indians who run it are really nice people. I enjoy hotels - the beds are comfortable, and the facilities are looked after, and you really just don't need to care about anything. You wake up, shower, and leave, and when you come back, the place is spotless, the bed is made, and you can roll into bed and pass out.
You wake up in the morning, and breakfast is made. In California, we had the choice of bagels and cream cheese (I really like this as a breakfast. A bagel is like a doughnut, but not sweet and soft - it's much harder bread. You can toast them and whack the cream cheese on. It's good), and cereal, and waffles, and cake stuff (Americans all eat cake for breakfast! What the hell?), and toast. And coffee. It's just really enjoyable. I suppose I've never really stayed in hotels before. I like it.
We stayed at another hotel in Washington DC, whose name I forget. This place was huge. It was a proper hotel, like you see in the movies, and all, yes? The beds had a little gadget you could use to adjust how soft/hard the mattress was! I mean, come on.
I bought a camera and an iPod Nano while in California, and I'm really pleased I did.
The Nano is the sweetest little device - mine's a sexy black thing, so small you could probably swallow it. It holds 4 gigabytes of music, and has really good quality sound. I also bought a sort of arm-band thing that you can put the Nano in, for when you go running, for example - I've tested it once, and it works awesomely.
My camera is a Canon Powershot A620, and I'm really pleased with it, too. I've started experimenting with it, and I'm quite pleased. I still haven't worked out where I'm going to put all my photos and how I'm going to organise them and stuff. We'll see.
... are not a patch on Western Cape girls. The OC lies! There were the usual complement of "hot" girls hawking wares at the convention, but they were actually really rather manky. The best looking girl I saw the whole trip was from Canada.
In fact, the whole of California, while very similar to the Western Cape (there were often times when we were driving, and I looked out of the window, and thought, heck, this could be Cape Town), is actually not nearly as nice.
Viva South Africa!
Claire picked me up from work on Friday afternoon, took me home, gave me a beer, and packed my bag for me. Then she took me to Cape Town, dropped me off at the Morreira's house for supper, and I met up with her and Adeline at Stones later, and we went to Cornerhouse till 4am. On Saturday morning, Adeline picked me up from the Morreira's, and took me to the airport, where I met up with my boss, Jac, and we flew to Joburg. Tim picked me up from the airport, and we went to his flat, where we had a braai and made cocktails with the Family Girls (represented by Megan, Noodle, Jess, Bronwyn, Laura, Toni). The cocktails were strawberry daiquiris, frozen margaritas, and mojitos, and were a great success. We then went to Tiger Tiger until 4 in the morning, which was awesome. Tim dropped me off at the airport the next day, and we went to America.
The flight was long. They only gave us three whiskeys and a carafe of wine. I watched three movies and slept a bit. We landed in Washington at about noon, but it was only 6am there. What's that all about? Can't Americans tell the time? I had a bagel and cream-cheese for breakfast, as seen on the OC. We then went to the Smithsonian Space and Flight Museum, which was excellent. We watched two iMax movies, and saw all the planes and whatnot. I saw the Enola Gay!
Finally, we got on the plane to St Louis (pronounced Lewis, not Looie, apparently?). It's very green and swampy. There, we caught a connecting flight to Santa Clara, California, where we arrived at about 9pm. We were picked up at the airport by the owner (manager?) of the hotel we were going to be staying at. He was a really lovely guy, an indian called Jay Shah, but known to us as "An' All" (or "En Alles"), due to his constant use of the phrase. The hotel was quite nice, too, although we never really made full use of the facilities it offered.
I'm going to California in two days time, for a week. My bosses and I are going to the ISP Convention.
I will attempt to blog about it all I can. I have a whole stack of song titles to use as blog-entry titles.
The song in the title is the theme tune of the show the OC. The show makes California look idyllic, and the lyrics of the song are:
We've been on the runCalifornia seems to be pretty much a dream destination. However, the funny bit is, I'm not especially excited. I'm keen to go and all, although I'm more looking forward to seeing Tim and the Family Girls, to be frank.
Driving in the sun
Looking out for #1
California here we come
Right back where we started from
...
California!
Here we come!
On the stereo
Listen as we go
Nothing's gonna stop me now
California here we come
Right back where we started from
Pedal to the floor
Thinkin' of the roar
Gotta get us to the show
California here we come
Right back where we started from
California!
Here we come
Getting an American Visa was actually quite easy - we filled in the forms, and went down to the American Embassy in Cape Town early on Tuesday morning. We had to go through metal detectors to get into the building, and then up to the seventh floor where the embassy was. They wouldn't let us in, however, we had to queue down the stairs while they took people in one at a time. These people were then searched and metal-detectored before being allowed in properly.
Now, I take my satchel with me everywhere, and it's got all sorts of things in it, that I might need. For example, it's got a toothbrush and toothpaste, a hat, a book, some strepsils, some deodorant, a can of liqui fruit, some oatbran, and so on. It's just stuff I have in my bag, I don't think about it. However, when we got to the embassy, they made me unpack the whole thing. I also have a pocket of the bag where I chuck the after-dinner mints I get when I go out to eat. So, there are about 70 after-dinner mints in there now. They unpacked every single one of them and scanned them all. Meanwhile, the queue behind me is huffing and puffing and I'm highly embarrassed.
They wouldn't let me take the liqui-fruit into the embassy (you know how dangerous fruit juice is), and they made me eat some of my toothpaste, in front of them, to prove that it wasn't anthrax, or something. I had to spray some of my deodorant on my arm, to show it wasn't Saren Gas, or something.
Anyway, I got the Visa, and I'm going to America. The Visa doesn't guarantee entry to the country, of course. It just means they won't definitely refuse you access. They can still turn you away when you get to the port of entry.
Land of the Free, Home of the Brave.