Orange County and San Francisco, September 2006
DAY 1 – THE LONGEST DAY?
It’s now 4AM and I’m still sitting at my desk in InfoLab 21. In three short hours my taxi will arrive to whisk me off to Manchester Airport. As usual before a big trip, I haven’t slept. Instead, I spent most of the night debugging the miniaturized demo installation and packing. Hopefully I’ll sleep on the plane….
I’m now several hours into my flight, a couple of hours out of Chicago. My flight has been good so far, though that hasn’t been case for everyone. Some poor guy had a problem with one of his eyes. All of the capillaries must have burst because the whole eye has turned blood red. The stewardess even braved the cliché and shouted "Is there a doctor on the plane?". Worryingly, BMI have a special eye-pressurizing machine, so it must happen quite often!
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Another jump of several hours. I’m now writing from my hotel room at the Ramada, Newport Beach, which is nice, if a little soulless. I arrived around 8PM at John Wayne Airport, which has a 30ft statue of the man himself near baggage claim. As I expected, U.S. customs inspected my case but only inflicted minor damage on the demo installation, which I’ll repair as soon as I find a hardware store. I began my Spurlocking tonight with Del Taco. I had two ½lb bean and cheese burritos, which were lovely, along with cheese nachos. Overall I’d rate it a solid 9/10 and now… I haven’t slept in over 48 hours, so it’s time for me to crash. Night all. |
Is that You John Wayne? |
It Begins - Del Taco
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DAY 2 – THE SUMMER STRUMMER FESTIVAL
I’m now sitting on Amtrak’s southbound ‘Surfliner’ train cruising through the California night between Los Angeles and Santa Ana. I’m feeling tired but happy. I’m on my way back from the ‘Summer Strummer’ festival in Santa Monica. The sun was hot and the bands were great. What more could you ask for? I missed out on the UK festivals this year, so when I saw there was an indy/punk festival in south California during my stay, I had to go. It meant a two hour train and bus ride, but it was well worth it. Unfortunately, I couldn’t stay for the whole thing - I needed to catch the last train out of LA, but I managed to see: The Spores, The Diffs, American Eyes, Mandy Perkins, The Briggs, Ronnie Day and Dead to Me. All of which were fantastic, especially The Briggs. I think I’ll buy one of their CDs from the Tower Records down the street.
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Dead to Me |
The Diffs |
American Eyes 1 |
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American Eyes 2 |
The Briggs 1 |
The Briggs 2 |
The Summer Strummer was different than other festivals I’ve been to. The weather was better, more of the bands played my kind of music and the food was fantastic. On the negative side, the stages were small and just a little too close, so that during the quiet parts of a gig you could hear the other bands. The worst thing though was that they caged the beer!! You had to go into a special enclosure to drink and to make matters worse, at one point the door monkey even asked why I was back so quickly!
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It felt weird passing by LA’s big sights (down-town, the Hollywood sign, walk of fame) without stopping to shoot some photos, though I have seen them all before. All that remained after my trip to Santa Monica was my evening Spurlock. I went for Taco Bell. While I tried TB on my June trip to New York, it didn’t seem as good as I remembered from my ‘02 trip to California - perhaps the lack of Mexicans in NYC? Either way, I thought I’d give it another shot here in Orange County. I had a cheese and rice burrito, bean burrito, nachos and mountain dew. It was great! Tied with Del Taco at 9/10 I think. |
Taco Bell |
DAY 3 – NEWPORT BEACH
I spent this morning walking around Costa Mesa, Newport Beach and Balboa. First, I walked south from my hotel in Costa Mesa, down towards Newport Bay, a long and thin inlet crowded with boats that sits between the thin strip of land holding the famous beach front and the mainland. Costa Mesa is a sprawl of low-rise chain stores and hotels that fade out into non-descript suburbia towards the north-west. As you walk down towards the bay, this sprawl gives way to little houses, small holiday homes and apartments that run the length of the bay. Much like LA, Orange County is not designed for pedestrians and you often find yourself dodging SUVs and Hummers when the pavement disappears.
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Newport Bay From Costa Mesa |
Newport Bay |
Towards Costa Mesa |
The weather was beautiful: 90 degrees and sunny but with a cooling breeze. As I walked along the bay towards Balboa I tried to decide whether I like Orange County. On the one hand the scenery is beautiful, but Newport it’s too built-up to really appreciate that. The little houses that cover Newport are individual and the beach is lovely at the same time it manages to be crowded and homogeneous. The sidewalks are also empty – nobody walks and there’s no real center to Newport… I think I prefer European-style cities.
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Newport Beach-Front |
Balboa Harbor |
Beach of the Bay |
After returning from Newport Beach, I set up the demonstration installation. Everything important seems to have survived the flight, so I should be all ready for the demonstration’s debut tomorrow. I’ll provide photos of any other cool demonstrations I see. Anyway, I’m hungry… time for some fast food I think… Today’s Spurlock, was provided by Jack in the Box. I had Egg Roles, Stuffed Jalapeno Peppers, Curly Fries and Root Beer. The food was great, but after a bite of the egg role I realized they contained chicken, for which I’m docking Jack in the Box three points – 6/10.
DAY 4 – DEMO DAY
I’m currently watching the Ubicomp keynote address which is being given by Bruce Sterling, a science fiction writer. For those of you who don’t speak fluent geek, ubiquitous computing is the idea that everyday objects should be augmented with computer technology. The conference oozes style and fun, though with an acceptance rate of just 13%, it’s a serious event. Back home Phil is also presenting our work to the All Hands Meeting. It seems like everyone is interested in our project, which is cool. This keynote speaker is interesting, though a little, um, high-level for me. He’s covered everything from the role of ‘magic’ to the ‘language of Ubicomp’. Anyway, he’s wrapping up now, so I should head on over to the demonstration area and set up.
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Bruce Sterling |
View from Conference Centre |
Our Installation (Bring a Poster) |
Phew! That was a long day, but the demonstration went very well and it seems that we may have generated some avenues for future collaboration… which I suppose is the point of flying me half way around the world with a suitcase full of hardware! I did my Spurlocking duty of course, trying Subway’s take on Mexican food: jalapeno bread, spicy jack cheese, lettuce, fresh jalapenos peppers and mustard. Sounds good eh? Well, it was crap, maybe 3/10. Perhaps that’s why I forgot to take a photo. In lieu of that you can see some photos of other Ubicomp demo installations below:
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The GridStix Demo |
Biblioroll - Hand-Held Library |
Flotsam – Augmented Trash Can |
DAY 5 – ‘GETTING’ NEWPORT BEACH
Today, during a break from the conference I went down to the beach. I write this entry as I sit propped against a post watching the surf and the surfers, all the noise of the world drowned out by the pounding waves. There’s nothing as far as the eye can see except sea and sand. Right now, I don’t know why I’d want to be anywhere else except Orange County. Unfortunately I committed the cardinal sin – I didn’t bring my camera.
I write this entry from the departure lounge of John Wayne Airport. I’m tired and my head is fuzzy from the conference dinner last night (which for me consisted mostly of wine). After dinner and drinks a few of us hopped a cab to the peninsula. Unfortunately, or rather fortunately from today’s perspective, you can’t get into a Newport bar without government ID, which I didn’t have. I’m planning to hit Stinky’s Peep Show in San Francisco tonight. Hopefully a couple of liters of Mountain Dew will revive me sufficiently!