Tag: long beach

Long Beach wrap-up or, it's good to be home.

Posted on By admin 5 Comments on Long Beach wrap-up or, it's good to be home.

I'm back home. It feels good.

Long Beach was, to put it bluntly, a complete waste of my time. It took 23 hours to get there and 16 to get back. The keynote talks were not all that hot-shit, though there were some good ones here and there. 14-hour days and too many parallel sessions meant that people got information overload and just stopped caring after a while.

The conference venue was sub-par and the town itself is not the shining beacon of California. This trip has confirmed some of my ideas about living in the US in the current sociopolitical climate. I got really fed up really fast with the friendly-but-fake service industry and people refilling my coke glass every 30 seconds. Maybe I'm just being grumpy because of lack of sleep, maybe not. I'm just glad to be home right now.

One conversation I had with a waiter at the convention center springs to mind during a morning coffee break:

me: excuse me sir, but do the cookies have nuts in them?
daw: <blank stare>
me: I'm allergic to nuts. Are there any nuts in the cookies?
daw: naw, (points to cookies) those are white chocolate, chocolate chip, pecan, and raisin.

So apparently, pecans aren't nuts.

Idiot.

Then there was the waitress at the starbucks:

me: excuse me, but does the chocolate mudslide cheesecake have any nuts in it?
daw: <great big smile> no, just chocolate cheesecake
me: fine, I'll have one.

Just as I'm taking the first bite, my fork hits something crunchy. On further inspection, there's a whole fucking layer of walnuts in the middle. As I point this out to the dumbass, she has the gall to say “well, what do you know, I never noticed that before”.

People just don't give a damn. They'll happily smile and take your money, but they really, really just don't give a damn.

So, you'll forgive me if I'm glad I'm home and I can go to my local pub where the waiting staff know my name and actually care when they ask me how I am and what I'm doing and tease me by calling me garlic-boy.

uncategorized

In other news

Posted on By admin

I wanted to go shop today. Turns out, Long Beach is crap for shopping. The “shopping plaza” consists of a Wall-Mart and a few low-budget stores. Cambridge high street has more charm and selection. Feh.

What annoys the hell out of me is that I wanted to get my grubby little paws on a Sony reader. It's only available in the US currently and there are no plans to release it in Canada, let alone the UK. The nearest Sony store is in west LA, which is a 65$ cab ride in one direction. I tried to order one online. They said that it might probably ship around the 21st of November, but there was no guarantee.

No e-book reader for me then.

This makes me sad.

uncategorized

If I wasn't scheduled to speak in this session, I wouldn't be here right now

Posted on By admin 1 Comment on If I wasn't scheduled to speak in this session, I wouldn't be here right now

Those were the first words of the first speaker of the moonlight session I was attending tonight. They perfectly reflect my frame of mind. You see, I was scheduled to give a presentation tonight, in the main ballroom of a conference where abour 3000 people are registered.

Unfortunately, or fortunately (depending on how you want to think of it), I was scheduled to talk at 9:40pm tonight. Yes, that's not a typo. The program organizers have been cruel and sadistic this year. The keynote sessions start at 8am and the final talk ends at 10pm. There were 20 people in the audience when I gave my talk. I work with 4 of those, and 5 others were the other speakers in the session. Still, more than 10 people stayed up to hear my talk. Freaks. I was stressing about it the whole day but it went well. In fact, it went really ok. I'd prepped some handwritten notes for my various slides, but I ended up not even needing them. No hangups, no real hesitations.

Apparently, it's always the case when I give a talk. I come across as a calm and composed speaker even though I'm shaking like a leaf inside. I got kudoses from my coworkers and from my big boss, which is always a good thing. They liked my slides and the content came across as slick and well presented. Me happy. I had a been with a random stranger who was interested in the project and now I'm adrenalined-out and I shall go crash forthwith and sleep the sleep of the righteous, for I have given my talk and not passed out. All is well.

uncategorized

HUPO day 1

Posted on By admin 3 Comments on HUPO day 1

My body is screaming for sleep, fluids and advil right now.

I had a good breakfast at the hotel (the breakfast buffet was a make-your-own waffle iron, how cool is that?)

The hotel is clean and comfy, but for unknown reasons, call it a gut feeling, I don't feel good about leaving Parsley in the hotel room so he's going to have an education in proteomics from my laptop bag.

I've registered at the conference venue and I'm going to sit in to a few talks this morning but the rest of the pre-meeting stuff this weekend doesn't really inspire me so I might play hookie and go back to the hotel. We'll see how things go. I have to say that I'm less than impressed with the session I'm in right now. The session chair and keynote speaker didn't bother to show up – always a good sign. The next speaker's hard drive crashed, the microphone isn't loud enough and the laser pointer doesn't work. All sorts of nice…

I need tea.

uncategorized

Are we there yet?

Posted on By admin 2 Comments on Are we there yet?

My day started very early and ended very, very late. My cab picked me up at 8am and that's where the travel hassles started. We had to go pick up a colleague 40 minutes away, but he didn't have either of us down as going to Heathrow, so that got sorted out and we were on our way.

The real fun started at Heathrow, where our direct flight to LAX had been cancelled because of mechanical failure of the plane so we were rerouted via Chicago with a 3 hour lay-over. That flight was 2 hours late taking off and was 30 minutes late arriving. I got selected for an enhanced security screen, which meant going through all my carry-on luggage and getting my boots and laptop wiped down and screened.

The flight itself was generally ok. I was able to watch 2 movies (Cars and X-Men 3) and a documentary about crossword puzzles. I'd made myself some grilled turkey breast wraps for lunch and dinner and I had a ton of junk food, so I had enough grub for all the flights (and as a side note, I found out there's a deli and grocery shop close to our hotel, so I should be ok for the flight back, yay!)

At Chicago, we had to pick up all our luggage from O'Hare arrivals and lug it across to the domestic departure terminal where we checked everything back in and went through yet another security check. I have to say, airport security is a big fucking joke. They're just going through the motions to make the sheep feel safer and in the process, waste everybody's time. When I arrived at O'Hare, there were signs everywhere that the department of homeland security would fingerprint and photograph everybody who comes from Europe. Apparently, that doesn't include me (probably because I have a canuck passport) cause they just grunted me through the checkpoint.

That flight was also one and a half hour late getting off the ground. I paid for a seat upgrade to premium economy cause at that point, my back was starting to kill me and those extra 4 inches make the world of difference. It was only 20 quid, so I didn't feel bad doing it..

A sign of the times: the seat I was in had been previously used by somebody that was so fat as to require a seatbelt extension. I'm not a small person by any measure, but with most airline seatbelts, I have about a foot or so belt that is still available to use. That person required a whole extra bit of belt…

When we landed at LAX, we picked up our bags (again). The poster tube I was carrying got broken (they didn't screw the cap back on when they opened it to inspect it so it got lost) and my coworker's bag got inspected by homeland security (they left a note saying they'd done it as a random spot check).

Getting to Long Beach was… interesting. I strongly believe our cab driver was hopped up on coke, weaving through 4 lanes of traffic in the freeway like a fucking maniac while trying to light his cigarette and playing bongo drums on his steering wheel to the beat of the (actually quite good but too loud) cubano jazz that was playing on the radio. When he got to Long Beach, he didn't know where the hotel was so he was driving around like he was using the force.

At one point, he asked another cabby for directions. The dialogue went something like this (and I am NOT exaggerating):

cab1: Hey, son of a gun! Where's the courtyard marriot?
cab2: fuck you!
cab1: fuck you too! courtyard marriot?
cab2: fuck you!
cab1: fuck you too! haha! courtyard marriot?
cab2: fuck you!

And it went like that until the light changed, where the other cab just peeled off and our cab driver starting complaining that nobody liked him in Long Beach.

By pure stupid luck, we found the hotel and checked in. Of course, something went wrong. The room was supposed to be pre-paid with the EBI credit card. Of course, no mention of that is on file. We'll figure that out in the next few days.

By that point, it was 11pm local time, 7am UK time. I'd been on the move for 23 hours and I was braindead. I gave Katy a quick skype call and went to bed.

uncategorized

The joys of jetlag

Posted on By admin 2 Comments on The joys of jetlag

Back in the UK. Even without taking into account jetlag and timezones, we've been physically awake for 28 hours now, and have spent 7 of those in a plane, 2 in a train and waaay too many of them just being uncomfortable. This week will be a bitch for both of us.

I need to prep my HUPO conference talk for next week and I fly to LAX this saturday (I think). That's going to be a 12 hour flight. Katy, lucky girl, is working this weekend.

Going to be fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuun.

uncategorized