Look at Daniel’s – I forgot the USB cable for my camera at home. Silly me.\
I did document several of the courses we had at L’Ermitage du Riou, which was, as usual, amazing. We’re winding down, and will end up closing down the joint as one of the last two working groups still meeting. We CSS folk just don’t know when to stop.\
I have more stories, but we’ve just had a breakthrough that when it’s implemented will change the way we write CSS. Gotta pay attention!\
This isn’t it, but if you’re a designer or use CSS, please please please go read the new Advanced Layout CSS3 module and post your feedback. This module is very important, and could change the way we build web products if we ever get the browser folks to implement it.
Category: travel
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Since I Can’t Put Up Photos…
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The Sin of Jet Lag Pride
I had a fool-proof yet self-destructive method for surviving radical time zone changes. Here’s how it goes:
- Don’t sleep on the plane. Not because I don’t want to, but because I can’t.
- Stay up until a reasonable bedtime hour in the destination city, eat a light dinner, take Tylenol PM and go to sleep.
- Second night, more Tylenol PM
- Repeat until returning home.\
I broke the pattern and didn’t take anything last night, which meant I didn’t sleep. There are few things as painful as arguing about punctuation in CSS for twelve hours on no sleep.
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Jonesing Nerds
Instead of providing its own network, the W3C decided this year to use the hotel’s network… which I don’t think was designed to handle a couple hundred nerds and their laptops all connecting at once. Connectivity has been spotty, and it’s been fun to watch a large group of people used to being connected all the time without that connectivity. I have a feeling that the waiting room at a methadone clinic looks about the same.\
Otherwise, my jet lag has been horrible, but the food is still lovely, and the weather is great. I’m looking forward to the next four days of meetings. -
Bonjour!
I’m in France!! This post would have a picture of Mandelieu at the top, but I forgot the USB cable for the camera (because I’m smart). Other than not sleeping at all on the plane (I tried, laws yes, I tried), the trip was fine. I met Molly at the airport after her flight from London and we shared a ride to the hotel. I’ve no driven in another country! It wasn’t all that scary, other than stalling the car a couple times (mushy clutch and the fact that I haven’t driven stick in months) and a mad rush to find change for the toll. We got off the highway too soon and ended up winding our way through Cannes, and then had a lovely drive along the beach until we saw the big R on the side of the hotel.\
I stayed up until 8:30, and woke up for good around 4:30. Now, I’m just waiting a little while until breakfast, and then it’s time for Nerd-a-palooza 2006! -
Lucky With Food
It’s been a good trip, both work-wise and, more importantly, food-wise. I’ve had some great meals this week at some of the coolest restaurants in Mountain View:
- Hobee’s – I love breakfast places, and Hobee’s is one of the best I’ve ever found. Great hashbrowns and coffee cake that will make you forget your troubles.
- Los Charros – Thanks to Kristin’s suggestion, I got the best carnitas I’ve had since leaving Tucson. Good carnitas (shredded pork, sometimes flash fried right before serving) are hard to find.
- Frankie, Johnny and Luigi Too – Good Italian food, and the dutch apple pie is to die for. If you go, get the sausage bread and the veal scallopini.
- Sylvia’s – On Castro street, wow, some really really good Indian food. Best butter chicken and lamb roganjosh I’ve ever had. I wonder if they’re open for breakfast…. I could go for a dosa.\
It’s on a plane this afternoon and home. My ankle survived the trip pretty well, although I’m not looking forward to the plane. My ankle needs a good session with ice and electrocution, which hotel ice is just not doin’. I stood too much yesterday while giving my two presentations (well, one with Arun) and now it’s pretty stiff. Oh well, I’ll know better next time.\
Oh, and I think I’m going to Hobee’s again for breakfast this morning unless I can find a Mexican place open for breakfast. I’m jonesin’ for a breakfast burrito.
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In Need Of Headphones That Travel
I tried earbuds from the iPod. I can’t keep them in my ears unless I’ve jammed them into my ear drums and the covers always come off. I’ve tried my old over the ear cheap-o headphones. Yeah, they’re small and portable, but the sound quality sucks. I have a pair of noise-reducing headphones, but they’re so large that if they’re in my backpack, nothing else is in my backpack (think old-school studio headphones).\
So, frequent travelers, what do you use? Have you found a good pair of (ideally noise-reducing) small non-earbud headphones that have good sound quality and are small enough to fit in a backpack side pocket with your iPod?\
Oh, interweb, help me solve my dilemma before I spend 12 hours in a plane! -
And So It Begins
Thus begins the Spring Travel Bonanza! It got off to a good start last night with dinner @ Taqueria Los Charros with my brother, Kristin, Jessa, Valerie (from AOL), Arun (also from AOL), and Michaela (yep, you guessed it). The food was great (mmmm, carnitas), and the company was excellent. Even though I’d spent 6 hours crammed in the window seat of a plane that apparently had no ventilation, it was a lot of fun.\
It’s been a great week so far. My appointment with Dr. Ankle went swimmingly. He says I’m doing “super” and am doing all the right things. He says my ankle looks good, and other than some knee pain (left knee, which he says is probably tendonitis from favoring that leg for the past 7 months or so), which I’m getting looked at next week, things are moving along nicely.\
Then, I got my annual review, which went even more swimmingly. I got a promotion! I’m no longer a Senior Software Engineer. I’m now a Principal Software Engineer, which is extremely cool. I already wrote about my standards story. I’m thinking of writing my AOL story, because it’s pretty crazy. I’ve been with the company almost 11 years, and that still shocks me every time I think about it. To think where I started, and where I am now (and where I plan on going – the triangle’s not the only thing I’m planning on turning on its ear), it still boggles my mind.\
Back to the Spring Travel Bonanza… I’m in Mountain View this week, then next Saturday, I leave for France to attend the W3C Tech Plenary, where I’ll get to hang out with Arun, Mr. Glazman and Molly (and all the rest of the CSS guys, hi guys!). Then, four days after that, it’s off to SxSW and then home for a little while. Then, it’s (probably) off to XTech, WWW2006 and then who knows?\
I like frequent flyer miles… -
Mountain View: Day One Recap
Yes, I am in Mountain View, and I really wish I had more time to see all my friends out here (I’m especially bummed about not having time to hang out with my brother, his wife, and Sam. It’s just a two day trip, and it’s chock full of meetings, all about this. We did a big presentation yesterday about it, what’s coming (shhhh, it’ll be cool), and how the world can join in. It was extremely gratifying to see geeks get really jazzed about it. It proves that even though I can’t explain it worth a damn, we’re headed in the right direction.\
I’m having a really good dinner last night at Nola’s in Palo Alto, and laughed our fool heads off. We rehashed the “good old days”, talked about geek energy and how to harness it, and what it feels like to be working on something we can truly be proud of.\
I was talking to Joe afterwards about stuff we’d worked on before, the old projects that still hold a special place in our hearts, and I thought about this silly fulfillment system I wrote when I first came out to Virginia to finally become a “real developer”. It was a maintenance system. People submitted tickets, filled in a bunch of detail about the affected system, the problem, the request, etc. Then, someone got the ticket, did whatever was in the request and then closed it. It ran reports, was extremely flexible in setting up types of requests, etc. I wrote it almost 6 years ago, and thought it was dead. I hadn’t touched it in about five years and figured people stopped using it and forgot about it long ago. Then, I got an e-mail about a month ago (and an IM yesterday) about it, asking who owned it, and if someone could add a feature to it. I was stunned. This thing that I thought was dead and buried has been used every day for five years by a couple different teams. No one’s touched the code, cleaned out the database or anything in five years and it’s still running like a champ, taking requests, running reports, etc. I thought the thing I was most proud of was what I did on AOL Search, but I think I may have a new winner. Almost everything I’ve ever written has a fairly short shelf life between versions. This tool is ancient and still going strong, which not only scares me, but makes my geek pride swell.\
Today? We’re talkin’ modules, modules, modules and javascript. Oh, and between all the module talk, I have to figure out how to create CSS blocks on the fly in Javascript. I’m really close, but man, does that spec need some work. -
Flying With A Flat Tire
We got back from Austin yesterday, so it’s time to rethink this whole traveling thing. The trip was great from a trip perspective. I got to eat good Mexican food, barbecue and hang out with the Browns. But, my ankle wasn’t real happy about spending time in the air (swelled up pretty good), standing in line or walking through the airport (pain and more swelling). I didn’t bring the Home Electrocution Kit with me, so I was left with hotel ice in ziploc bags to dull the throbbing.\
I have a full plate of travel coming up that I’m not about to cancel. But, this was a relatively short trip to a domestic destination. Being injured, and injured for a long time, sucks. Walking around the airport in the Velcro Terror was no fun.\
But, I got to hang out with the Browns, and Jen had a lot of fun. So, I guess it’s OK.