Cafe Bucky

No, no pictures. Chinatown is a zoom blur in sound, in smell, and in real-life visual.

Am I imagining that San Francisco’s Chinatown is smaller than New York?

Daytime noon overcast, ped lost in thought. Stride. Amble. Keep a walking pace. No browsing. Blocks of Asian Impressionism. A New York wrapped inside another. Atmosphere volume knob high. Keep going, past fresh fish on ice, birds on string, pigs on hook. Lobsters and crabs wave hello from tanks, destined for really hot baths. Wafting steam. Fresh Jade. Ginger. Mary Ann. Rugged sidewalks. Yelled conversations across narrow streets. Thick dialects and hand scribbled signs; Cantonese or Mandarin? Some Vietnamese signs add to the mix. Sudden alleys, paths, leading who knows where – possibly the best restaurants of all? Old ladies with toothless smiles shuffle by. Toothful overseas beauties beam from magazine racks. Graffiti’ed trucks. Deliveries of fruit. Endless double parking. Add rain, night, drops of oil, and neon signs, and we’d really be there. Just a few blocks – all it takes for a blur to set in, sensory overload. Delightful urban buzz.

Someone drives their SUV the wrong way down a one-way. Traffic cop loses it, shouting “what the hell are you doing!”. Shamed SUV executes 12 point turn. Go park in a corner for an hour, bub. Streets a barely contained chaos. Any Chinatown, anywhere – faster to just walk.

One block to the next, natural compass steering me towards the Brooklyn Bridge. Suddenly I pop out, back to the rest of Lower Manhattan. Pace, volume, energy level drop off to normal (but still frenetic) levels.

Gotta do that again.

#7 Line grit. Screech and Spark. Grand Central tile floor compass, proclaiming the center of the world. Buskers – Michael Jackson’s doing Billie Jean upstairs from the #5 line, and has every move Down, like watching 20 years rewind. Bouncy schoolkid connecting hall echoes. The Broken Escalator means that you are going to get your workout Right Now, no matter what you thought your plans were. Up this platform, over that bridge, and back down to the track you want. It’s a maze, you’re the rodent, and the surveillance cameras amass content for the grand MTA highlight reel.

Adventure in J & R. Met a salesman who
actually sold me the wrong memory card for my Nokia 3650. Did the
Return Merchandise Tango, and am now in the “J & R owes me a favor”
club. Ok, they don’t owe me, but it’s fun to say. I love the
place. Geek Wonderland. I got a phone camera with 128 megs of memory,
and I’m not afraid to use it.

Pastrami done right. Wow and yum. I’m around the corner from a 24
hour deli. Yeah, you heard me. 24. This could be a good thing for
the tongue, but bad for the tum. Good thing it’s a walking city.
Heck, it’s a Jaywalking City.

Metrocard Monkey. Got me unlimited rides to the land of Knish, Poland Spring hydration, endless dogs and kraut. Land of crowded sidewalks, roving packs of mobile phone users nearly smashing each other in their version of Urban Ballet. Snatches of conversation that sound enticing, but I’ll never tell. Go to href="http://gawker.com">Gawker if you want scoops of dish.

If you melted all of the Town Cars in Manhattan together, it would be
a really comfy gas guzzler that gets 100 gallons to the block. So many tinted windows, so many deals being done, so many potholes to dodge.

New York tomorrow. Mind in full anticipation, and in constant Traveling Soundtrack mode. 5 weeks away. Big Trip.

Got everything ready to pack, but haven’t figured out what bag gets most of the equipment (cameras, power adapters, two laptops, a keyboard, and so on). I’ve traveled enough now to have a pretty good idea of what I will actually use. That’s the problem: being interested in photography and computing means power adapters and all sorts of bulky, heavy gear. I should have been a clarinet pro, or perhaps a Blues Harp (harmonica) musician. Less to pack.

A pox on the power adapter people! Every single one has to be heavy, bulky, and just a little tweak different from every other one out there. I have about 8 of them on this trip … It’s a conspiracy, I tell ya!

Oh, and it’s getting cold there. Jackets++

But you know what? Once I get there, unpack, get some sleep, and get out there, I think I’m gonna love it. All sorts of pilgrimages to take: The J & R store, Apple SoHo, B & H Photo, The MoMa, P.S.1, The Met, and others. Lots of photo/linux/blog meetings to get to as well. A main goal is just to get out there, every single day.

Gotta go pack.

So I’m pretty excited about going to New York for the month of October. I’m renting a room in Queens, right near the East River in Hunter’s Point. I was thinking today that I better get my flights all sorted out.

But then, I thought “well, why don’t I just drive there?” I could pack more, I could take my bike … I could take my main Linux box and monitor (this is, after all, a working trip)

And then the practical stuff kicked in. It’s an extra 3 or 4 days each way. I’d be solo. I’d run up a big hotel and gas bill, and I have a ton of frequent flyer miles I really should use. Heck, I went to the market today and got enough miles to get across the Bay!

My leaning at the moment is that I am just going to fly. I do harbor some romantic, idealistic notion about driving across the country. Coming back in early November, not knowing how the weather will be … ehhh I’m going to punt on this.

I do want to drive across the country though. I just don’t want to do it in a solo blur of “gotta keep driving, on a schedule, don’t want to rack up a hotel bill”.

I did check out Amtrak for a moment. To get a sleeper room across the country was something like $1500. I put my dropped jaw back in place and nixed that right quick. We once took the train from the SF Bay Area (Martinez) to Seattle. It was a great trip. 20 hours. Had our own little room with a pull-down bed and a shower. Dined in the upstairs restaurant as we rolled along. ’twas cool. But cross-country, $1500 and several days … nah. not this trip.

I will do the drive, hopefully next year. My notion is to do as much of Route 66 as possible. I want to take some time, get a lot of photos, be with my family, and have a sense that I’m seeing the country, as opposed to dashing across.

A problem today is that I can think of a lot of things to write about, but they would all take some time to get into. I don’t get writer’s block. I get “what can I write that will get me in the least amount of trouble today?”

So all of you long controversial ideas, get back on the shelf! Go on now. I do have a few art/photo related snippets for the moment….

• If you have seen Alfred Hitchcock’s movie “The Birds”, then you have seen The Tides Restaurant in Bodega Bay, CA. Well, no, you haven’t really seen it… they remodeled the quaint, funky place into a generic tourist mass feeding zone. I liked it better the old way. They even made the food worse. But but but! None other than Tippi Hedren will be there next weekend to sign autographs and reminisce.
• I’m anxious to get over to the Marc Chagall Exhibit at SFMOMA.
• FlexiPhoto, my web-based photo db, is coming soon! I don’t want to post too soon, and put a bad impression out there. On the other hand, I want to get it out there so I can tell future employers “hey, here’s what I have been up to recently”. PhotoPlus Expo East is coming up, and it would be great to point some people (like small photo stock agencies) at FlexiPhoto.
• I want to combine travel and work somehow, and soon! I’ll be going to NYC at the end of October for PhotoEast, but would welcome a gig that would get me there sooner.

But not with boredom now, ye Clash fans…

I see London has topped 100 degrees for the first time ever

Hey, I’ll go! Wanna swap for a week? I’d rather spend a month in the sweltering Capital, than a week here in the shade. I know what it’s like when the Tube feels like a sauna. I loooove London. My passport has room for stamps. I’ll even eat mushy peas every single day, and won’t complain about the coffee – much.

The first time we went to London, in the Summer of ’98, we were up on the 4th floor of a small stuffy room overlooking Old Brompton Road (before we came to our senses and discovered Number 16, Sumner Place) The Swelter Arms was the site of the Drakkar Noir Plumbing Incident, but we won’t tell that tale today. It was nearly 100 then, and we purposely found extra things to do to avoid the long walk up the stairs to the Inferno.

But you know what? We have loved every single day we’ve ever spent in London, hot summer and freezing November alike.

I can find lots to do in London when it’s burning up like this. Some of the key words are “V & A Museum”, “Ale”, “Plays”, “Beautiful Italian Tourists Frolicking in the Trafalgar Square Fountain” and possibly “Royal Albert Hall”. There are some great underground passages that go on for blocks – shade is possible.

And yes, I’ve been stuck on a Tube underground on a hot train that didn’t move for quite a long time. It’s a checklist item. Annoying, but part of the deal.

Just Two London institutions they should pay special attention to: don’t let any Beefeaters pass out, and keep the Ravens cool. lest they escape!

Stiff upper lip now. You Londoners live in one of the greatest cities in the effing world, so don’t start whinging about a little heat. I’d trade places with you faster than you can say “brilliant”!

I should probably have some cool photo here of Portland, Oregon. Perhaps the fountain by the Willamette, or a collage of the ever-present “Smart Park” signs. Maybe something looking out over Pioneer Square from the Nordstrom’s Cafe.

No such luck.

I really enjoyed my visit there last week, even though I spent a fair bit of time dashing between the Mark Spencer Hotel (ratty, dodgy) and the waterfront Marriot (corporate, bland, but served its conference purpose)

The Red and Blue light rail lines fight it out in Fareless Square for moving bodies. Not to be confused with Red Vs. Blue. Portland has its transportation act Together. Seattle and San Francisco could learn a thing or three. Streetcars come when they’re supposed to. Punks get moved around. Bikes are hung. Everyone’s happy. Airport? $1.50, bub. What?! Too much for ya?

Go have steak and mushroom alfredo at Pizza Schmizza. No tourist place, this. Wallow in 70′s cheesy music. Have a beer at Paddy’s. If you’re still hungry, get their “beef on a weck”. Once buzzed, try not to jaywalk too much. I had two of Portland’s Finest give me the Glare for stepping into the street a full two seconds before Green. Duck into Powell’s book store, which is so huge they’ll never find ya. Hungry again? Go stock up at Whole Foods, a clean, well lit nirvana of a supermarket. Yeah, they do beer too.

I went to Jax’s on 2nd a couple of times. Try the Bridgeport IPA. Say hi to “Shiloh”. They have a spin on the word “Quesadilla” – good but different, in a BBQ sort of way,

The word on the street is “Bento”. I’ve never seen an American city with so many places to get it. Maybe Seattle is like this too, but I just never noticed. Bento Bento Bento.

Picasso lives on at the corner of 4th and Yamill, if you look at the right patch of sidewalk:

“Ah, good taste! What a dreadful thing! Taste is the enemy of creativeness”

– Pablo Picasso

I walked over the Hawthorne Bridge a couple of times, to pay a visit to the excellent folks at MacForce (emergency PowerBook keyboard swap). If it’s lunchtime, the Hawthorne Bridge turns into a Nike ad. Joggers a plenty. I waited about 5 minutes one time for the bridge to be put back together. It’s a drawbridge of sorts, except that the entire center section lifts up horizontally. Wild!

Portland is a series of one-way streets, in search of a downtown. It’s a much more exciting place than, say, Salt Lake Patheticy. It’s no New York, but then, it’s not supposed to be. On the one hand, it’s clean, somewhat homogenous (as in “really white”, compared to SF), is very environmentally conscious, and is a laid-back metro, with a large contingent of 60′s – 90′s hippies. Driving seems to be sane, although I couldn’t help but notice that seatbelts seem to be optional (Darwin, anyone?) There aren’t many boom cars, heard and felt from blocks away, which is a very good thing. Perhaps there’s some sort of “don’t be a friggen idiot in public” law they have there?

On another hand, some Portland disaffected youth do their best to show
us their angst. It could be a case of nice warm suburban bed at night, and practiced attitude downtown by day. Doesn’t ring true somehow.
Much more interesting to watch the chess matches at Pioneer Square.

Any hipsters? Nah. The only person wearing black in Portland
is Randal Schwartz :-) This ain’t the Village. This ain’t SOMA
in 1999.

Not to be confused with wannabe punks are the truly economically
down and out. There’s a lot of folks downtown that make up the 8%+
unemployment rate, and they’re not one bit happy about it. There’s
an edge to the Portland air that says “watch out, this City is teetering,
and things could get pretty bad in a year”. Although I rave about
how clean it is, and how cool the light rail is, and so on, there’s still a “should
have been here a couple of years ago” vibe. The “Port of Portland”
warehouses by the airport are both redundant in name, and up for lease.
There’s a number of prime business spots up for grabs. One
wonders which side of the seesaw will go up.

I really liked Portland, and want to get back up there to get to know
it better. It’s urban enough, a 3 hour drive from Seattle, has more
great beer than I could ever check out in a year, and is the most
wireless city in the country. I love the friendly people, the tech
leanings, and the civic follow-through that it must have taken to get
the infrastructure nailed so well (except for all of the ugly parking
garages… they’re supposed to be Underground, people!)

Can’t wait to go back.

Happy Fourth of July to fellow Yanks. I was going to write
something about how I am glad about our freedoms. I was
also thinking of writing something along the lines of
“you can’t outsource me” (because, as a 3rd generation
American, I have insight into our culture & society, and
blah blah blah).

But I decided to be quite non-lofty today. I’m surrounded by
Zip-Loc bags and all manner of gear. No, I don’t label the
bags. It’s just enough to know that my gear isn’t going
to get into some colossal spaghetti fight in the Cargo Hold,
where I am frightened by the ensuing mess when I get to
my hotel. Looking into the gear bag, in my best Indiana Jones voice:
“Snakes. Why did it have to be Snakes?”

Go ahead, throw all of your stuff together in your suitcase,
all intertwingly. I guffaw in your general direction!

Many Power adapters. Cables. Mice. A few Zip disks. Laptop #1 (borrowed
PowerBook). Laptop #2 (Toshiba, my “Plan B”). Nikon D1. Nikon 950.
Holga. Batteries. Palm Pilot. USB hub. CF Cards. A power strip. Braun coffee maker. Lava lamp. etc.

Ok, not the coffee maker and the lava lamp. I’m between lava lamps
at the moment.

No, clothes don’t get the same attention. Then again, they
don’t turn into self-organizing systems in my suitcase. They
behave (as I cast a glaring eye at a basket full of gear).

So anyway, my task next week is to write, write some more, and then go
back and write about how the writing went. I’ll be making daily
entries in my O’Reilly
weblog. I’ll be focusing on:

• PHP
• Day to Day Productivity (Eclipse, WebDAV, Jabber)
• Trends to Think About

I’m bearing in mind that others will be covering things like
Perl and Java pretty well. It’s a big conference, so
I’ll be constantly reminding myself to not go off in
too many directions (I love Perl and Java too, and I want
to learn Python, and, and … there’s only so many hours
in the day)

I’ll leave off with yet another mention of the OSCON Semi-Unofficial Wiki, and with a nod towards the more Perl-centric page. See some of youse there!