12th Mar 2006
White Russian Blur
It’s days after ETech, and I really should write a summary. On the other hand, Snapper helped my mixology skills by showing me the infamous White Russian. Ah .. Kahlua.
So much for my participation in the Attention Economy.
I’ll comment on San Diego though. It was an interesting trip that threatened to be fun. The day I got there, I decided I better get my laptop a charging. Little wisps of smoke issued from the skimpy wire off of the power supply.
Not good. Oh, this won’t do. Fuck. I only brought one. I have, like, access to 3 or 4 power supplies at home. Hmm, 3 days of conference ahead, and no way to charge. Double frick frack fuck.
But I’m an explorer, and have some twisted sense of accomplishment in being able to look at a trolley route map in a strange city and Just Get There. (I am guessing that one day, Tokyo will make me shut up on this one). For reasons best known to Apple, the nearest Apple store to downtown SD is nowhere near downtown SD. This would involve a transfer.
So anyway, I get to some place called Fashion Valley, aka Lack Of Character Forgettable SoCal Mall. I can poke fun at it, because I grew up in SoCal amongst all sorts of Interchangeable Retail. It took me about 150 seconds to walk in the Apple Store, get the power adapter, pay, and get out. I actually had more fun checking out the crowd on the Light Rail than I did in the mall.
On the way back, the thought occurred to me that I could just keep riding all the way to Tijuana. The next thought took the first thought out to parking lot and shook some sense into it. I was frikken alone, and it was getting dark, and nobody knew my location. I think I’d head to Vancouver B.C. at the drop of the hat to go have dinner. Tijuana’s a bit different.
So SD is not really a walking city. It’s scaled for cars. I stayed across from the Cruise Ship Terminal. I enjoyed watching them pull out with their horns at full song. It was a mile or so to the hotel where the conference took place, so I got into the pattern of walking along the waterfront … again and again and again. That was a good thing though, as I dropped some weight in the process. The thing I noticed about Downtown is that there is a familiar laid back SoCal vibe, but there’s also an Undercurrent of “keep alert” that I felt. Although I did walk around a bit at night, I’d have to say that I felt a little less wary in Manhattan than SD. It could be because there are so few peds. The buildings are ok. The architecture of the Santa Fe rail depot is really cool. The fact that the USS Midway was berthed along my walk was inspiring. Big, Intimidating Aircraft Carrier, that. I did a double take when I noticed a MiG up on the flight deck!
My impression of San Diego is that I should go back sometime when I have a reason, but it doesn’t seem like a destination for its own sake. It’s no San Francisco, or Portland, or Seattle. On the other hand, the next time I’m there, I’ll take a car and explore. It’s the only major California city that I don’t know.
