The trip and stuff
Nov. 6th, 2002 08:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yendiFigured I'd write up a report offline, and send it when I logged in. Went a bit longer than I thought. If you want my report, click on the horrible joke below:
Instead of NaNoWriMo, wouldn't it be great if they had BaNaNoWriMo? Same thing, but with '80s pop lyrics. Or fruit. Whichever is more literary.
Anyway, while unpacking, I once again realized one childhood trauma that continues to surface in my adult life. As a kid, my Mom would never buy me Underoos, as she considered them a waste of money. I cried, yelled, screamed, through fits, voted Republican, but nothing seemed to work.
Flash forward to the present day: I packed six pairs of boxers for this trip: Spider-man, South Park (the only pair with Tweek, as far as I know), Spongebob, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Harry Potter, and Batman.
I really want to see a study of other Underoos-deprived children, and see if they, too, grew up to eschew grey boxers and jockey shorts in favor of licensed properties.
As for the trip so far, it's been pretty uneventful. Which was needed.
The quick update, so far:
Sunday, had no problems with the airport or anything, and Trish and I hit the hotel by 11 local time. I found out that since Alan (my boss) had used his credit card to reserve the room (instead of the Emory card), I wouldn't get the Starwood points (which sucks), but since he's an elite member of their club, I got a room upgrade, so that worked out.
Digression: The W has the single nicest set of bedding I've ever seen. I looked in the catalog they have, and the entire ensemble (bed and all) sells for $3200. It's like sleeping in heaven.
Anyway, after we grabbed a quick lunch, I crashed, as I'd been up all night the night before. Woke up at about seven, went downstairs, ate sushi (mmm, oyster shooter), went back up, checked email, checked in with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
shadesong, and went to sleep again.
Monday:
Trish and I were both up early (we're morning people, and with our bodies on East Coast time, it wasn't a problem waking up), so we decided to walk to the conference. It was about 3/4 of a mile, at the very far end of the River Pier.
Monday was the pre-conference class, and I took the first day of the two-day accelerated intro to administering Livelink. Now, understand, I entered this class knowing absolutely nothing about the product. Nothing. The only reason I was taking it was that OpenText was merging with Centrinity (who make FirstClass), and this was the best way to get a feel for what their product can do.
Everyone else in the class had been using the product for at least six months. Every one of them was older than me, and a "professional" IT person (as in, their degree was in IT, not English).
And every one of them was a fucking moron. They'd sit and ask questions like, "what's the difference between a folder and a document?" It's the same in Livelink as it is in the fucking real world. The entire program is about as intuitive as anything I've seen (which is not to say it's a great program), but these folks were the sort who could be told that 2+2=4, and then forget it two minutes later. It didn't help, of course, that in a room of 24 people, we're inherently limited to the speed of the dumbest person in the class.
Monday night, Carole still hadn't gotten into town, so after I calledshadesong and Elayna, Trish and I decided to blow our per diem on Harey Carey's Restaurant (hey, we're tourists!). But the wait was 45 minutes, even at 6:30, so we wandered, and found a nice place called Patterino's. It's in the theatre district, and was damned good. I had a scallop dish in a garlic and asaggio crust, and some damned fine profiteroles.
Tuesday, I'd originally intended to meet up withrollick. However, she was sick, and there was no way in hell I was putting myself through another day of that class, so I decided to walk the city.
Gods, I forgot how wonderful it is to be in a real city.
Cities have souls. Understand, atheist though I am, a real city still has an effect on me. A city begs you to walk the streets. It has a personality. It has hidden stores and treasures that jump out at you.
Atlanta, as a city, is the urban equivalent of a zombie. It's got nothing. No heart. No soul. Nothing but a strong desire to suck out your brains (okay, I'm taking the analogy a little too far).
Chicago is a real city. Hell, I'm not sure I've ever connected this quickly with a city -- not San Francisco, not DC, not even London (I can't judge NYC, of course, since I was born there). I literally just walked for hours, amazed at how wonderful this place was. I stopped in stores, of course (found a nice used bookstore where I picked up the first three Riverworld books for $6), hit a Starbucks or two, etc. But all I could think about was how amazing this place was. Which is not to say it was perfect -- aside from the rainy weather, there were the usual urban issues -- horrible drivers and the homeless being the most notable -- but it still felt about as close to being "home" as I have felt since leaving NYC.
Of course, much as I loved the city, having walked miles the day before in horrible shoes, and miles and miles in sneakers on Tuesday, I eventually tired, so I hit the local movie theatre, and caught Ghost Ship. Damned fun movie. Some amazingly disturbing moments, a plot "twist" that anyone should figure out within twenty minutes, and a solid cast. Good, fun cheese. Not as good as The House on Haunted Hill (the first movie from this bunch), but this movie, at least, doesn't foist Marilyn Manson's cover of "Sweet Dreams" on us.
Got back to the hotel, and caught up with Carole and Trish for dinner. Turns out we all had the same reaction to Chicago. And that's with three different backgrounds -- Trish was born and has always lived in Conyers, and Carole's from Rochchester, and moved to Atlanta a number of years ago. We all felt that this was damned near a perfect city. That spoke volumes to me.
We ate dinner at a nifty Thai fusion place. I had a seared scallop and shrimp dish with sesame oil over winter squash with apples. It worked wonderfully well. Trish had nice hot shrimp curry, and Carole had a nice citrus scallop curry. All three were yummy, and we split a passionfruit soufflé for dessert.
Not that food is my major obsession or anything.
Got back to the room at 8, and I realized the thing I hate most about Chicago. Unlike the west coast, which shows my tv shows at the "same" time locally, the Midwest shows the same feeds as the East Coast. So Buffy, it turns out, was on at 7. So I'll have to wait until I get back to catch it on Tivo.
I did catch Smallville, which had disturbing Hoyay scenes between toddlers. As well as the election results, in which I was ashamed to be a Georgian.
And now it's Wednesday. I'm off to shower, read some more James Alan Gardner over coffee, and then head to the actual conference. Our presentation is tomorrow, but Alan's got plans tonight (and doesn't arrive until 3 this afternoon), so I've got no idea when we're actually going to prepare it. I love winging things. Really, I do. Then again, given A) the business-oriented nature of the conference, and B) the fact that our presentation on Thursday is up against lunch, we may have no one in the audience, anyway. Such is life.
Anyway, I'm off.
Instead of NaNoWriMo, wouldn't it be great if they had BaNaNoWriMo? Same thing, but with '80s pop lyrics. Or fruit. Whichever is more literary.
Anyway, while unpacking, I once again realized one childhood trauma that continues to surface in my adult life. As a kid, my Mom would never buy me Underoos, as she considered them a waste of money. I cried, yelled, screamed, through fits, voted Republican, but nothing seemed to work.
Flash forward to the present day: I packed six pairs of boxers for this trip: Spider-man, South Park (the only pair with Tweek, as far as I know), Spongebob, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Harry Potter, and Batman.
I really want to see a study of other Underoos-deprived children, and see if they, too, grew up to eschew grey boxers and jockey shorts in favor of licensed properties.
As for the trip so far, it's been pretty uneventful. Which was needed.
The quick update, so far:
Sunday, had no problems with the airport or anything, and Trish and I hit the hotel by 11 local time. I found out that since Alan (my boss) had used his credit card to reserve the room (instead of the Emory card), I wouldn't get the Starwood points (which sucks), but since he's an elite member of their club, I got a room upgrade, so that worked out.
Digression: The W has the single nicest set of bedding I've ever seen. I looked in the catalog they have, and the entire ensemble (bed and all) sells for $3200. It's like sleeping in heaven.
Anyway, after we grabbed a quick lunch, I crashed, as I'd been up all night the night before. Woke up at about seven, went downstairs, ate sushi (mmm, oyster shooter), went back up, checked email, checked in with
shadesong, and went to sleep again.Monday:
Trish and I were both up early (we're morning people, and with our bodies on East Coast time, it wasn't a problem waking up), so we decided to walk to the conference. It was about 3/4 of a mile, at the very far end of the River Pier.
Monday was the pre-conference class, and I took the first day of the two-day accelerated intro to administering Livelink. Now, understand, I entered this class knowing absolutely nothing about the product. Nothing. The only reason I was taking it was that OpenText was merging with Centrinity (who make FirstClass), and this was the best way to get a feel for what their product can do.
Everyone else in the class had been using the product for at least six months. Every one of them was older than me, and a "professional" IT person (as in, their degree was in IT, not English).
And every one of them was a fucking moron. They'd sit and ask questions like, "what's the difference between a folder and a document?" It's the same in Livelink as it is in the fucking real world. The entire program is about as intuitive as anything I've seen (which is not to say it's a great program), but these folks were the sort who could be told that 2+2=4, and then forget it two minutes later. It didn't help, of course, that in a room of 24 people, we're inherently limited to the speed of the dumbest person in the class.
Monday night, Carole still hadn't gotten into town, so after I called
shadesong and Elayna, Trish and I decided to blow our per diem on Harey Carey's Restaurant (hey, we're tourists!). But the wait was 45 minutes, even at 6:30, so we wandered, and found a nice place called Patterino's. It's in the theatre district, and was damned good. I had a scallop dish in a garlic and asaggio crust, and some damned fine profiteroles. Tuesday, I'd originally intended to meet up with
rollick. However, she was sick, and there was no way in hell I was putting myself through another day of that class, so I decided to walk the city.Gods, I forgot how wonderful it is to be in a real city.
Cities have souls. Understand, atheist though I am, a real city still has an effect on me. A city begs you to walk the streets. It has a personality. It has hidden stores and treasures that jump out at you.
Atlanta, as a city, is the urban equivalent of a zombie. It's got nothing. No heart. No soul. Nothing but a strong desire to suck out your brains (okay, I'm taking the analogy a little too far).
Chicago is a real city. Hell, I'm not sure I've ever connected this quickly with a city -- not San Francisco, not DC, not even London (I can't judge NYC, of course, since I was born there). I literally just walked for hours, amazed at how wonderful this place was. I stopped in stores, of course (found a nice used bookstore where I picked up the first three Riverworld books for $6), hit a Starbucks or two, etc. But all I could think about was how amazing this place was. Which is not to say it was perfect -- aside from the rainy weather, there were the usual urban issues -- horrible drivers and the homeless being the most notable -- but it still felt about as close to being "home" as I have felt since leaving NYC.
Of course, much as I loved the city, having walked miles the day before in horrible shoes, and miles and miles in sneakers on Tuesday, I eventually tired, so I hit the local movie theatre, and caught Ghost Ship. Damned fun movie. Some amazingly disturbing moments, a plot "twist" that anyone should figure out within twenty minutes, and a solid cast. Good, fun cheese. Not as good as The House on Haunted Hill (the first movie from this bunch), but this movie, at least, doesn't foist Marilyn Manson's cover of "Sweet Dreams" on us.
Got back to the hotel, and caught up with Carole and Trish for dinner. Turns out we all had the same reaction to Chicago. And that's with three different backgrounds -- Trish was born and has always lived in Conyers, and Carole's from Rochchester, and moved to Atlanta a number of years ago. We all felt that this was damned near a perfect city. That spoke volumes to me.
We ate dinner at a nifty Thai fusion place. I had a seared scallop and shrimp dish with sesame oil over winter squash with apples. It worked wonderfully well. Trish had nice hot shrimp curry, and Carole had a nice citrus scallop curry. All three were yummy, and we split a passionfruit soufflé for dessert.
Not that food is my major obsession or anything.
Got back to the room at 8, and I realized the thing I hate most about Chicago. Unlike the west coast, which shows my tv shows at the "same" time locally, the Midwest shows the same feeds as the East Coast. So Buffy, it turns out, was on at 7. So I'll have to wait until I get back to catch it on Tivo.
I did catch Smallville, which had disturbing Hoyay scenes between toddlers. As well as the election results, in which I was ashamed to be a Georgian.
And now it's Wednesday. I'm off to shower, read some more James Alan Gardner over coffee, and then head to the actual conference. Our presentation is tomorrow, but Alan's got plans tonight (and doesn't arrive until 3 this afternoon), so I've got no idea when we're actually going to prepare it. I love winging things. Really, I do. Then again, given A) the business-oriented nature of the conference, and B) the fact that our presentation on Thursday is up against lunch, we may have no one in the audience, anyway. Such is life.
Anyway, I'm off.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2002-11-06 05:51 am (UTC)Sound like someone is eating a while bunch of seafood while they're on vacation...is this a symptom of fishdrawal?
Also, are you sure that the folder/document question wasn't deeper than that? Like "what is the difference between me and the universe" or something?
Mike
(no subject)
Date: 2002-11-06 06:31 am (UTC)I know what you mean about cities having personality. Though I have liked living in the country, I love working in the city, especially New York and Boston. Both truly do have personalities, and there is always something new and exciting to discover.
Besides, Jenny and I found new restaurants.
(no subject)
Date: 2002-11-06 06:54 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2002-11-06 07:14 am (UTC)and you're right, Atlanta has no Life to it.
glad you're enjoying yourself!!
(no subject)
Date: 2002-11-06 07:40 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2002-11-06 08:30 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2002-11-06 09:08 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2002-11-06 09:19 am (UTC)Of course, my favorite "cities" are still old continental European towns and British Isles villages. History geek? Moi? Whatever gave you that idea? :-)
(no subject)
Date: 2002-11-06 10:39 am (UTC)btw, I'm just going add you to my "friends" list.
(no subject)
Date: 2002-11-06 01:37 pm (UTC)Ok, now I have "Cruel Summer" stuck in my head, you Evil Man! *g* But that was really funny!
I'm glad you're enjoying your trip!
Bummer about missing Buffy, but at least you've got it recorded at home. And yeah, while California came out mostly ok, the national election results made me ashamed to be American. That whole California seceding from the US idea is suddenly looking rather attractive.