Present Perfect

Thursday

The past few days in a nutshell. Left home at four in the morning. Was off to a bad start as there was a song on the radio that was beyond crap. The chorus went "Eso sera mi casa cuando me dice adios" or something to that effect, but sung in a wailing voice, pulling out all the stops, and using every trick in the book, including the "half-note-up" trick. To my horror I realized when the next song started that it was a complete CD of this crap. "Has creido en mis mentiras"

My plan for fighting jetlag this time was pretty simple - I'd start sleeping as soon as I was on the second leg of the trip between Milan and Boston. Sadly my plan was thwarted by some strike, causing a 4 hour delay in Milan. Not much point in trying to sleep there. Hacked a little. Got on the plane. Re-read through Code Complete again, but this time in one go, highly recommended. Proofread the GStreamer manual, making notes for later changes. Arrived after eight hours (including the just bearable Starsky and Hutch) Waited around for Ward (Logan airport had working free wireless, yippee), took a shower, stayed up too late hanging around waiting for dinner to get ready. Drive to Meg's place where we were dropped off to stay for the next few days. Sleep.

Friday

Ward and April had planned a Freedom Trail walk at 9 AM. It took us past John Kerry's house. Since we were in the neighbourhood I dropped by the FSF. Their work place looks like a warehouse storage room. I bought some T-shirts and some books. We went to have lunch in one of the greatest inventions ever: a Food Court. After discussing for fifteen minutes before finding it where to go eat, we found this place that allowed each of us to pick whatever the hell we wanted. I started off with sushi, then got myself another helping of honey-roasted chicken, yummy.

I love all the signs in Boston. I don't know if it's typical of Boston or the whole of the US. This is my favourite. You can just see the library council get together and say, "We need a time limit for people sitting on our steps. John is in favour of an hour. Rita says 30 minutes should be enough. What say we split the difference and limit to 45 minutes."

We took one of the tour buses because we talked the driver into letting us on at half the rate. Bostonian transportation officers seem to like ticket cutter machines. In the evening I dropped by Novell, and I realized they shared a building with Akamai. Fons, this shot is for you. I know you'll love it...

Said hi to the hackers still around, including Cave Dave. Got some sneak peeks at NLD and listened to the story of another one of Nat's beautiful pranks. That guy is totally nuts, in the best possible way. Went out for dinner where we got a mountain of pumpkin beer. Interesting.

After that, went to Flat Top Johnny's because that was where the GNOME 2.8 release party was, which after all was my entire reason for being in Boston in the first place. Good to see some of the hackers back. Especially nice to see Colin and John again too, they're interesting to discuss stuff with.

The party was really just shooting pool, drinking and hanging around. So after a few hours, time to go to the pre-wedding party at the house of three friends of April. As I entered some girl said "Oh my god, you really DO look like John Cusack. You are my new boyfriend !" And then she introduced me to her current boyfriend, explaining to him that he just doesn't have the look. OK ...

At 1, time to go back home with Meg - seven of us in a car that barely fits five. And that, as they say, was Friday...

Thursday The past few days in a nutshell. Left home at four in the morning. Was off to a bad start as there was a song on the radio that...