Road Trip. Part 1: California

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Day 1
These days, I'm quite the man about town, and most of the time I don't even notice I'm living away from home, but on the first day of the trip I was feeling strangely incapable - I felt like tourist the moment I stepped out of the door - British and awkward and distantly familiar. I wanted more breakfast, you see, and i didn't know where to get it, so ended up walking around in circles until i recollected where to grab some grub. When i went to the coffee stall to buy a coffee and bun, i stupidly said 'to go'. It was all to go - it was a cart in the street. It drew my attention to my accent and my bag, and she gave me a kind knowingly sympathetic smile. She kept on calling me 'sir' and other polite and respectful utterances and i could tell she wasn't like that with everyone, which was as nice as it was horrible, I thought.

All I had to do today was to get to San Francisco airport by midday, and pick up a hire car, meet Maria, and drive us to a hotel I'd booked in Japantown, San Francisco.

As I sat and waited for bus, a strange woman with piercing unblinking brown eyes came up to me. She must have been in her 40s, long brown hair and yellow-stained teeth "I split apricot on my jeans" she said in a high drawl. I looked down at her skinny legs, and having seen no sign of (recent) stain, looked at her face for clarification. she obliged "... when I last sat on that bench", indicating to the other side of the bench. In the curious conversation which followed, most of the details of which escape me now, she ascertained from me that I was British geologist, from London, going to Vancouver, and had lived in Santa Cruz since November. I ascertained from her that she had once lived in 'west Essex' when she was a teenager as a traveling musician, and that she'd been to Vancouver working in a 'camp'. It hard been a 'hard summer' she said, a 'real hard summer'. She was very childlike and her short simple utterances slurred, I initially thought she was mentally disabled but the more we spoke, it dawned on me that it was probably because she'd taken a lot of hard drugs in her life. She was obviously intelligent and 'with it', but she had the cold stare and demeanor of someone who hadn't looked after themselves for long periods of time. She got me thinking about America and all its variety.

My awkwardness continued onto the bus - I hauled my case on and threw my 4 dollars worth of quarters into the counting machine - the machine told me $3.50. This had happened to me before and I found out that time that the bus drivers couldn't give a 'rats ass' (his words, not mine), so why I found myself, schoolboy-like, assuring the driver that I had put the correct amount in I don't know. The driver, who hadn't even been listening, looked up and said something like "alright already". I stalled for a second and waited for a ticket - i KNEW he didn't give out tickets - what was wrong with me? It was like my brain had repartionned itself in the night, locking all the lessons I had learned in the last few months, foetus in fetu, into a part unaccessible by my operating system. I hadn't been sleeping, through excitement, for a few days and i had woken, like the past few days, as if i had been roused from a coma.

The rain sheeted onto the bus and the thought of the email i had read that morning from my boss came back into my mind - it had been a fatherly reminder to bring plenty of warm clothing, sleeping bags in case of snow on mountain passes. I had acknowledged the advice in manly fashion, but inwardly i had thought how ill-prepared i was. I had packed a blanket and a spare towel, some waterproof trousers. I had bought some waterproof boots. But the email left me wondering whether i needed a knife, gun, tyre chains, and all the other features of a journey through the Great American Wilderness. We were only driving to Vancouver, after all. Vancouver - the very name sings of icy winds and trawlers frozen in place by a 10m thick surface layer of sea. A pretty middle-aged woman got on the bus at Scotts Valley and my attention turned to an old man opposite me who was beaming in an aroused fashion at her - he smiled and stared at her as she walked past. He was about 10-15 years older than her and had a kind face. It was obvious he had fallen head-over-heels in lust. I thought it was quite cute, until i realised that HE had obviously managed to connect to the internet (the bus had a free wireless service) whereas I had not, and continued to be unsuccessful. I liked him less for this, but he did have great corduroy, a libido, a healthy lascivious smile and a Macbook, I thought, so I allowed him to stay on the bus. Oh dear, i had slipped into 'super bus man' mode - whenever I sit on the bus, I eye up other passengers and invent characters and voices for them - I assess each in turn and imagine conversations with them. I have the power to eject those whom I do not like, or who give me the wrong fictitious answers to my fictitious questions. I can occupy my mind for hours like this. I put my computer away, and spent the rest of the journey to San Jose looking out the window through a hole I had made in the condensation.

The train was waiting for me at the platform in San Jose. I got on and settled in for an arduously slow and long journey - bugger, I was on the slow train which stopped at every station - roughly every 500m along between San Jose and San Francisco. I was relieved to alight at Milbrae, where I got the BART to SFO International Airport. I was regaining my travel savvy by now - I had even shown a native how to use the BART ticket machine, and people were asking me for directions in the airport. I have a genial face, I thought, and I was spot on with my directions which made me feel pretty cool. Maria's flight was 3 hours delayed, so I had enough time to have lunch, get the hire car, and drop off my bags. Oh, and change out of my damned boots into something more gentlemanly and urbane. They had to give me a car with Washington plates because it was a one-way rental and the car would stay up there. This couldn't have pleased more - Washington state plates! I took a photograph, did a merry skip, informed the guy that I wouldn't be back for a couple of hours - his response was petulant "couple of hours!" he said, and fell silent with my affirmative. I felt pretty good. Now the long wait for Maria to get in, and through customs etc.



She finally came through at 4pm. The preceding 2 hours was one of extreme excitement and agitation. I had to calm myself down by riding around the 'airtrain', which connects the terminals and parking lots, lots (see photo above). Waiting in airport arrival lounges isn't actually that bad, because of all the kissing and hugging people. It makes them about a quadrillion times better than departure lounges, which are just about the worst places on earth, except from UK motorway service station McDonalds. There was a good vibe coursing through the arrivals lounge in the airport, and lots of smily people. I waited dutifully. When she arrived it was like a bomb had gone off in my brain. I have never been so pleased to see anyone in my life. Her kiss was like what i imagine a shot of heroin to be like. We went straight onto the 'airtrain', jabbering all the way, into the car and out. The rain had cleared by now, and we had just a short journey into our hotel in Japantown.

The map showed that the route between airport and hotel was laughably linear. In practice, I managed to take a wrong turn, which forced me to exit the highway south of the city. What followed was a thrilling ride straight through the heart of San Francisco downtown. Steve McQueen would have been proud, but poor Maria must have wondered what hit her! I was trying to read the folded up piece of paper on her lap, which had a map with an unsuitable scale drawn onto it. I knew roughly where I was going. As we approached the hotel - literally, it would turn out later, feet away - I turned right, then turned left down a one-way street. I knew instantly something was amiss, but couldn't quite put my finger on it until a policeman was screaming at me "what are you doing!" - the nanosecond after seeing him, I realised what I had done. He ushered me over. He was there because there had been an accident there - there was no room, so I had to pull over halfway up the next street. He walked up the hill to me, all black uniform and gun and tazer and god-knows what else! After I apologised and informed him that I was British (i know - shut up!), he shone a torch in my eye and asked me if I was drunk. He was actually ok about it - quite paternal - he informed me that I had gone the wrong way up a one-way street, and to be more careful in future and look at the signs. A good indication, he added with no hint of sarcasm, was that all the cars were parked in the same direction. A couple of minutes later we arrived at our hotel, giggling and a little shocked. Hotel Tomo was pretty cool - we parked up in the hotel car park, checked in, and fell straight into bed on our anime-themed king sized room. Bliss.



Maria was very tired and fell asleep. She couldn't get up to go for dinner, so I ventured out to see if I could get a take-away bento box or something locally. No joy - there were only restaurants around full of convivial sophisticated people, and I didn't have the heart to bound in and ask for a packed lunch. So I came back and ordered a pizza. It was almost 9pm by now and I was absolutely starving. When the pizza arrived Maria woke instantly to help me enjoy it, and we fell into sleep. The journey hadn't started with a bang, but it was just nice to be together again. Oh, and the room with its murals was pretty cool too!



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Day 2
The day didn't start well - I had reached over from bed to see what the time was, moving the alarm clock into, and through, the large bedside lamp, shattering it into many pieces. We flustered for a little - they, like everything else in the room, looked expensive. Oh, and the shattered lamp was one of a pair. We would later learn the hotel had commissioned an Oakland-based artist to make them. Bullshit if you ask me, unless 'Oakland-based artist' meant 'Ikea', but I'll get to that.



We had a little time - we only had to get to Arcata today - 4 hours up the coast, so we decided to come back to the 'little problem in the bedroom' after breakfast. We both wanted a real hearty, big American breakfast. I saw in my guide there was a cool looking place a maybe 10 blocks over, in the Tenderloin district, so we set out to find it. We were both in convivial mood - Maria had recovered from her jetlag, and my memory of the 'wrong way' epsiode I could now laugh off. The cafe was closed, but we found a cool looking place not far away, called David's. It was actually the first time I had been in that part of town since my first visit to SF in December 2007. I had stayed in Union Square Backpackers - it was still there, and just as seedy-looking as ever, which was good to know. It was also good to remind myself that we would be staying in hotels all the way on this trip, which meant no wannabe rappers, sheets, no audible bed springs, no bed bugs, no sex screams (well, ...), and the like. Anyway, David's was wonderful - we sat at the bar, got top-ups of water, juice and coffee at regular intervals (one of the truly wonderful things about the usa), ate very well for a reasonable price (another truly wonderful things about here, and this will be a consistent theme throughout my log). On the way back to the hotel we decided we'd try to fix the lamp with superglue (I know - what were we thinking!), and buy loads of japanese treats for the car - poki-poki sticks, pea flavoured crisps, aloe-flavoured drinks, and the like.

We managed to get the glue everywhere but between the pieces of glass - the table, the fingers, our clothes, the bed sheets and towels. We eventually gave up, packed up, 'fessed' up, and left. We decided honesty was the best policy - besides, I'd booked us into the same hotel for a night on the return leg! We through our stuff in the car, and after another thrilling ride through the really hilly part of the city in the north, we crossed the Golden Gate Bridge on Route 101 North out of San Francisco



I was feeling pretty darned pleased with myself - it felt wonderful, more wonderful than I can describe, to be finally united with Maria, in a sleek Chevvie coupe driving through and out of San Francisco into Marin County. I haven't done much driving since I came to the states - just a couple of day trips here and there. This time I actually felt the freedom of the open road, away from work in a new place with the woman I love. I won't dwell on this but, dude, it was awesome.



Just as soon as we left the hotel it started to rain, and it didn't stop until the moment we reached Arcata, 7 and a half hours later. The 3.5-4 hour trip turned into a 7.5 hour trip not so much because of the rain - although, having said that, it was lashing it down. No, it was probably more due to the fact that, half way up, we decided we'd go via Mendicino, and Highway 128 through Navarro River and Van Damme State Parks. The terrain was mountainous, the trees were tall and dense, the road winding, and the rain relentless. It took us a long time - about 4.5 hours - to get to Mendicino. It wasn't worth it for the destination, but it was definitely worth it for the drive - the most thrilling and various of the whole journey - for the first time I got the feeling of passing through a big, dangerous countryside.



We poked around in Mendicino - not much to see, expect spectacular waves, pick-up trucks, and 'new age' hippie crap that's everywhere in California (I'm not a fascist, but I don't suffer charlatans). We had a great home-made burger in 'Mendo burgers', served to us by a very kind a friendly lady. While we waited we played checkers and watch a surfing video - I would have gone there just for that! It smelt of pine wood and sea salt. Wonderful. Maria needed a rain jacket, so I prodded her to buy a 'really oversized one' from the hardware store - it was called 'Frank the Tank'. It enveloped her and made her look cute. I told her so but I was in the doghouse for having taken too many of the precipitous mountain bends a little too fast. I admit I got carried away, and would later apologise profusely over sushi.



The poki-poki and 'shrimp chips' were almost gone, so we stocked up on loads of bags of nuts and left towards Fort Bragg, in the direction of Eureka. My plan of a gentle jaunt to Arcata, arriving in daylight, had gone out the window. The rain intensified as daylight fell, and we rolled into Arcata about 8pm, a little tired and dazed. Eureka looked a bit of a dump, as I had been told - an endless strip of chain fast-food joints and gas stations, and little else.

Arcata was much cuter. It's a college town (Humboldt University - named after the Bay it sits above) and famous for it's 'crow left of the murder' attitudes. It's the marijuana growing capital of the US (we could smell it from the road as we passed the fields!), and everyone in the town seemed a little high on either that or alcohol. In fact, I won't lie - even though it was a week night, everyone we met was pissed. I had booked us into Hotel Arcata, on the main square. It's the oldest building for miles around, and was decidedly creepy. It was the sort of place you'd expect Igor to pick up your bags when you checked in, and the door had a weird mechanism, like battling with some supernatural force. The town was small and shabby, but everyone was friendly. We went into a bar, and sat at the bar, in a bar that I would never go into in the UK, but it was a wonderful place. It sold a cocktail called an 'irish car bomb', was full of veterans in wheelchairs, and the whole thing was like a scene from Forrest Gump. After a 7 hour drive, I needed a drink, a band, and some food, in that order. And that's exactly what I got. The band was playing in a tiny 'social club' type place across the street - they were an old dad-rock band doing Led Zep and Hendrix covers, and a few blues/swing numbers, at which the dancefloor would get livelier and spritely young people would start throwing each other around in a 50s 'old skool' way. It was great to watch. Maria managed to get the last bottle of 'hard cider' in the place, stolen by the barman from the chef for her. It was an awesome spot, and we enjoyed the music and dancing for over an hour before our stomachs told us to search for food.

The only place that looked open was the hotel restaurant. It was actually, weirdly, a rather hip looking sushi restaurant with a young and really drunk clientèle. The waitress told me that they'd actually stopped serving, but after I tried on my 'I'm British and starving' face routine (ask me - I'll show you some time), she melted, gave us a seat, and waited on us. The food was ok, the ambiance was convivial. We went to bed happy, even though the creepiness of the room probably meant we held onto our sheets a little tighter than normal that night.



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Day 3
The third day started in California and finished in Oregon. A 6 hour drive lay between us in Arcata and our next port of call, Newport. Arcata was even smaller in daylight. There wasn't really much off of the main square (below) where we stayed and had prowled last night. But there was the Big Blue Cafe, which - you'll get used to this - served the perfect 'american style' breakfast, in exactly the right atmosphere. Well, a dope town's gotta have good eatin', right?





Maria will be talking about this place for some time. The portions were big and reasonably priced, the food was filling but not greasy and stodgy - oh, I won't bang on - it was good, and friendly and cheap and everything eating in this country epitomises. We soaked in the scenery and continued to chat and catch up on the way up north. We stopped off at nearby Trinidad Bay - the short walk to the beach revealed a stunning sight



The drive was much drier and more pleasant. The features of the day were spectacular seacliffs, sea-spray, massive sand dunes and waves, and awesome '1 horse town' type places. It was real America - the sort that has not been exported so doesn't exist anywhere else - it was old fashioned. We saw horse ranches and elks and old-style 'main event' style billboards (one said - I just love this - 'Tonight - Johnny Cash'), loggers and big trees, landslides, casinos - you name it, it was great.





Day 3 continues in Part 2: Oregon. Stay tuned!

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Road Trip

Well folks I'm going on 'vacation' with my lovely lady Maria. We're driving from San Francisco to Vancouver, and I'm wetting myself with excitement! Stories, photos and the like when we get back - promise.

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The Blogging Dan

Offended
The thought that other people who are not me reading my blog (well, reading is probably not the operative word, as I'll elaborate) makes me feel guilty and ashamed. I guess it's a strange thing to say - of course, why else would I bother? But I don't think of it like that. I felt a little guilty because this blog is self-indulgent and uninformative. It made me question if I'm 'doing a good enough job' until I shelved those thoughts as ridiculous. I don't have to be meticulous.

Defensive
I struggle with this blog. That is to say, I struggle to write on this blog. That is to say, nowadays at least, I struggle to write coherent flowing sentences on this blog or anywhere else. I put it partly down to an extremely haphazard mind which allows me to burst utterances in snippets, but inhibits me to produce readable and interesting descriptions of what I do and think. Myself and my (blog-virtuoso sister) blues came from the same farm, but we must have been kept in different barns. I reason that it's why I take to twitter etc, also the reason why I like coding and links (I'm of the opinion that, nowadays at least, it is almost more important to keep an arsenal of hyperlinks in your brain to be able to retrieve information quickly than it is to store the information inside your brain). When I actually think about how I sound to other people, I often reach the conclusion that I must sound like a verbal scattergun, or random words caught by the listener on the other end of a very bad telephone line.

If this blog contained well-considered articles about my opinions on the events in the news, or well-constructed stories about my life, then it wouldn't be my blog. I'm good in other ways. I also know that my blogging 'ability' depends strongly on what I perceive as interesting for other people. Most of my time nowadays is taken up with my various 'projects', all of which involve computers:

1) learning Python, and recoding all my MATLAB image processing scripts
2) watching hours of underwater video of gravel moving around
3) developing a computer program to do face-detection and affine transformations (face warping - I know this has already been done, but its so much fun and a challenge to do an open-source one)
4) learning and using Canon Hackers Development Kit (CHDK)

Yes, America has turned me into a bigger geek than ever and, admit it, you're not interested in any of that, so what you get is pictures. All of which, as a parting shot to my perception of your flagrant and outrageous disinterest, are offshoots of my hobbies ;-). I'm a complicated guy. I'm also Kip from Napoleon Dynamite (and probably Napoleon Dynamite as well, come to think of it).

Offensive
Most of my blog posts are pictures and videos for a good reason - because I assume you, dear reader, are like me - you don't want to read words - you want instant gratification; a snapshot of my life. The eye can't help but look at a picture thrust under it, but it takes effort and time and a fresh mind to read (a statement which underlines the 'separate barns hypothesis' - see here). Also, images tell a much better story than I could ever tell.

The other thing is - man, this is sounding like one of my rambles, and a long sick note - my blogs (let's not forget Zesty) are a creative outlet for me. I need to create all the time. I constantly need to be doing something new. I finally got round to buying myself a guitar the other week - I've been playing for years, but ask me to play a song that you'll recognise and I'll struggle. That's not because I listen to or play obscure music, its because I spend hours and hours 'experimenting' with sounds. Don't get me wrong, I can play ok - I happen to think I'm a musical genius and I know that one day when I get bored of science, I can easily forge myself a career in entertainment. This blog is the write-up of an experiment which has no clearly-states objectives. However, I'm not sure if I'll change the way I blog, because this blog is about as me as I am.

Dumbledore's Pensieve


Well, I couldn't leave without a picture ;-) Also, a good illustration of knowing where your knowledge is, but keeping your thoughts outside your brain to your benefit.

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Dan shaves off his beard in hirsute shocker ...

... and it was so momentous he had to have a record of it.

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Bedroom antics

It's possible to program your point-and-shoot camera. I've uploaded a script onto mine so the camera takes a snap when the scene changes. It is so sensitive it can capture lightning strikes.



Here's me 'making shapes' in front of mine a couple of minutes ago. Loads to stuff is possible. I'll be posting the details on Zesty Blogisty soon.

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International

A British man,watching a Korean chef sing American songs in a Japanese restaurant in California

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Public display of affection

Girl, you HUGE. I'm the luckiest man on the planet

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They pay me to do this - I'd do it for free!

This photo of me was taken by a colleague of mine as I fixed together a mounting to lower the camera in the water and take photos of sediment. That was after a long lunch at a sushi restaurant. I love my job *Smug*

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What I do when I'm waiting for my scripts to finish

I spend a lot of time waiting for computations to finish - some scripts I run take hours and days to finish, and whilst this goes on I generally look on the internet or read a book. Other times, I make pictures using other pictures I find. These are my a couple of recent efforts:



This one's called 'element' - its me in mine in Holland last summer, surrounded by computers.



This is what Maria says me when I'm down - it never fails to cheer me up!




Santa Cruz. OK, bored now - blog made. Back to the script ... I think it's done.

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Big Sur

... because words just do not do this place justice. Taken on a faultless last day of January 2009.

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Cruzing round my 'hood

I would just like to say this: Santa Cruz is a beautiful place. It's bank holiday weekend here (it being Martin Luther King Jr's birthday today) so I've taken time to really explore the place. In the last 2 days I've cycled around virtually the whole city - hills, suburbs, downtown, beaches, east side, west side, up the river - you name it! We're in the high 20s celsius here, and everyone's out in their shorts and shades and bikinis, on their bikes, boards or boats. The waves have been pumping, too. I get the feeling that when all this is happening, plus the general mood of anticipation on the eve of President Obama's inauguration, the soul of this place comes out. I haven't been going anywhere or doing anything in particular - just happy to idle along and people watching, happy to be out in the sunshine, going fast down hills and trying to avoid the uphills. People washing their cars or playing basketball in the street, kids on their skateboards hanging out and trying to be as cool as they possibly can, old dudes catching some rays, hippies sitting asking for money or conversation. Nothing you wouldn't expect - except, you almost get the feeling that 'laid back' was invented here, you know - everyone's jazzed.

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Is it really January?

Judging by these photos, it would be hard to guess it!



Fun and games on the water today

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A few words on ice hockey

There are a few things here that are different only because they haven't been exported yet - things like garbage disposal units, personalised credit cards, car sharing schemes, ATM deposit boxes, note-feeds on vending machines which actually work ... I dunno, there's loads of stuff. Other things will never export because they're about attitude, which is just something you can't export. I can't think of a better example than american sports. It sums up at least these american orientations: family, food, belonging/tribes, and money. American sport is virtually nothing to do with sport. You may argue that sport - american or otherwise - has got virtually nothing to do with anything, and that would be aside the point.

As recently mentioned elsewhere (much more eloquently, I will add, than any attempt made by me) yesterday I went to my first NHL game - San Jose Sharks versus Tampa Bay Lightning. Sharks won 7-1 - an absolute drubbing by ice hockey standards. The last time I went to a sporting event, the team I went to see (the Plymouth Raiders basketball team) were the best team in the league. I only choose the best of course - the Sharks were also doing pretty well (Pacific champions last year, on course for the same this).

Now, ice hockey is in the top 4 of 'all-american' sports, but it's by no means the biggest (football, baseball and basketball are all bigger - maybe if they changed the name to hockball ...). In addition, it's bigger on the east coast and in Canada than on the west and in fact, when temperatures in Santa Cruz hit 26C (! I know!) this week, it seems a little silly to even have an ice hockey team in San Jose. This all belies the fact that San Joseans are mad for it! Last night was not a particularly important fixture - a drubbing was always on the cards. It was also a week day. It was packed, and everyone wore a ($150!) shirt. The buses outside proudly displayed 'go sharks!' on their screens.

As far as is my impression of sport in the USA, no-one gets muddy, no-one gets cold, no-one swears, no-one drinks in excess or fights (at games), no-one need miss anything to feed or go to the toilet because they'll be an ad break any minute .... It was hard to follow the game through the constant stoppages (for change-overs, substitutions, penalties, advertisements). The 'competitions' and stoppages masked easily the skills of the players.

As was said elsewhere, I won't go again (especially now we have tickets to the Giants baseball team in San Fran - thanks sis!), but it was a great night and a fascinating - I won't say insight, but reminder - of a couple of aspects of american life. I don't follow sport, but, I dunno, and this may or may not surprise you, professional sport is only entertaining to me if its full of dodgy characters, or its painful to watch (like a good horror film). You shouldn't enjoy sport, you should endure it. Or it should be made amateur. Otherwise, where's the sport? I don't want to high-five the man next to me 6 times, and say goodbye to him at the end - it's too sanitised and bland. Roll on the baseball ...

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Planes, trains, the dangers of ones own company, and the pleasure of others

The reason for the lack of blogs recently is because the Daily Daniel, if you'd bothered to read the subtitle in attractive pink (but then, colour is so subjective isn't it?), is a daily snippet of a young British man and his life in Santa Cruz, California. Which can only mean one thing!

Well, that and I didnt have consistent internet access whilst away from Santa Cruz.

But now I'm back (da-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na!) it's time for a status update. And here it is: I'm back, tapped, happy and healthy! Oh, and full of beans! I had a lovely time away but a mixed time coming home, as I am about to disclose ...

It was about 3pm east-coast time, and I was standing in a queue of people outside Philadelphia airport, in the freezing cold, waiting for a bus to take me to a hotel. The hotel had been laid on by US Airways because my flight from Dublin had been delayed, meaning I missed my flight to San Francisco that afternoon. The next 2 flights that day were fully booked, owing to the US Airways policy of ALWAYS over-booking their flights, contributing to their general policy of causing maximum distress to their passengers. Previously, I had been standing for well over an hour in a queue, waiting for a rude woman representing US Airways to make me feel stupid, and prior to that in a queue which, after about 20 minutes, I found out I shouldn't be in at all. I was starving, tired (having hardly slept the previous night in my hotel room in dublin because I was worried the receptionist wouldn't give me my wake up call, and fuming that my 2 minute taxi ride had cost me more than 10 quid), and just wanted to get home. I had a belly full of excess, and a brain full of miss, now I had ears full of rude and skin full of chill.

He was on his way to Ottawa with a big bag of skis, and couldn't be more thrilled that his flight had been delayed and he was staying in a hotel in Philadelphia. And he was full of useful information - that the 'Comfy Lodge' (or whatever it was called) wasn't as good as the Ramada, but that both hotels would honour our hotel vouchers from the airline. We waited for the bus to the Ramada together, his face positively brimming, causing mine to slowly unfurrow because he'd been on the same flight as me, therefore we'd had the same experiences. When we got to the Ramada, after possibly the friendliest bus driver imaginable. No, I bet you can't even imagine how friendly this guy was, and I wish I had downloadable video cameras instead of eyes. My room was, even by American standards, plush. Massive, comfy, huge TV with good films on, internet access, you name it. It even had bellboys! I was thrilled. I never saw Mr Ottawa again, but if you're reading this, thanks!

My mood started to deteriorate when I scalded myself in the shower, causing myself to slip out of the bath and onto the toilet, hurting my knee. I then decided I'd call Maria from the hotel phone. I didnt get through but found out later by checking my credit card balance that the connection fee was 12 quid! Then the hotel restaurant had shut, so I couldn't get my free meal. I walked out of the hotel and it started to rain. I had to walk to the nearest restaurant to get some dinner, across a huge car park the biggest and scariest road you'll ever see, over a waist-high fence, across a mound of dirt, and another car park.

It was the most beautiful diner I'd ever seen - it was art-deco style, with loads of pink and blue neon strip lights marking out its form. The building was covered in aluminium sheeting. It had red leather cubicles and swing-doors with circular windows in them. The waitress who served me wore a red-and-white checked dress. Everyone knew each other, and the waitresses were either sisters or incesters. I ate a pastrami, cheese and pickle toasted sandwich, a side of fries, and a ginger beer. It cost next to nothing. It couldn't have been more American, and I thought it was wonderful. So I left with my mood again improved. I went to bed early and caught the bus to the airport at 4am to give me enough time to catch my 7am flight to Phoenix, Arizona.

I arrived way to early (as usual) but tried to redeem my meal voucher for breakfast, which worked. Now, I'll interject here because I've had a lot of experience with airports recently and I just want to say this: UK airports are embarassingly bad compared to American ones. The ones in the US are just as busy if not busier, and I'm sure the staffing ratio is about the same, but they're always so much cleaner, considerably cheaper, and the design is so much better thought out. Unfailingly. There's always free internet access, free water, somewhere to sit, somewhere to plug your laptop (or whatever) in. Anyway, I won't labour the point any more, but do something about it, Mr UKAirportMan! I had the biggest breakfast I've ever (bacon, eggs, fried potatoes) had for my $10 voucher, and a bucket of coffee. It was so big I couldn't eat half of it, which has never happened to me before and, to be honest, left me feeling a little odd. I saw a queue form at the gate I was supposed to be getting my flight, so thought I'd better join it. I eventually got the front (on the way, I perfected the skill of shifting your weight from one foot to the other - the key is to do it faster than you'd think, and your outward momentum carries you back in, like a perpetual motion machine) . When I arrived I said to the woman, as British as you like and with a huge grin on my face "I can't see a queue form and not join it, what do you need to know". It was returned with a blank face, a look exactly like the one a teetotaller would give to a 6 foot bottle of gin, and a slow drawl: "I didnt understand a word you just said". Hardly containing my mirth, I enquired if I need to check-in. A lack of affirmative saw me shift off to my seat to play with my laptop, although the experience made it worthwhile (along with my human pendulum cleverness, with which I was very pleased with myself).

We sat on the plane which was poky and crap, and (as usual) I'd been given the middle seat with the least room. I am a terrible flyer - I hate sitting in the same place with no room. It's more tiring than running, like walking around shops is more tiring than walking the same distance straight at a pace dictated by you, not the idlers in front of you. Once we'd all piled on, there were delays whilst the attendants tried to check people's bags in the hold to free up some room. Then there were delays . We sat on the runway for close to 2 hours before we finally got in the air. The flight time between Philly and Phoenny should be about 3 hours. We took 5 because we were flying straight into strong winds the whole way. So in total i was on that plane, with no leg room and no sleep, for 7 hours. Being a 'short' domestic flight, there was no food, and you had to pay for your own drinks after the first round. Now, another little bitch: any decent airline, staffed by human beings, would offer freebies of some descriptions. Not US Airwallys (or Ryanair for that matter, but I woun't get started on them!) Of course, by the time I eventually got to Phoenix I'd missed my connection again, and quelle surprise! I joined a very long queue to be reassigned.When you travel alone, its not just the conversation you miss (I always chat to people on planes, and I always learn a thing or two), its the security, and being able to get your travelling companion to hold your place in the queue whilst you eat and relieve yourself into porcelain. Halfway along the queue, I was desperate for a wee, so I asked the woman standing behind me if she'd hold my place in the queue whilst I quickly went to the 'restroom'. She was delighted by my British accent, and agreed with so much enthusiasm it made me feel uncomfortable. I came back, thanked her, and we got chatting. She was great - a real character. Again, she was so positive about the whole experience (she'd also missed 2 flights) but she wasn't going to let a little thing like inconvenience inconvenience her! It was really the organisations on this trip that was letting me done, and individual people picking me back up again. And it's infectious. Even when boredom and physical exhaustion are 'harshing your buzz' (thanks Blues) if someone's really friendly to me, i'll be friendly to others. It's a cliche but it came home to me more than ever on this trip. Phoenix airport was situated in the middle of a desert in the blazing sunshine. As soon as I saw the sandy plateaus after we'd poked below the clouds, I could well believe that it'd taken us 7 hours to reach here. The airport had a fantastic 70s feel to it. It reminded me of that Pink Floyd album cover where the 2 guys are shaking hands, and one is on fire. It was brown and beige and patterned and kitsch and over-sized and brilliant. I had been reassigned on a flight to Reno. Since leaving Dublin, I had been travelling for more than 35 hours already, more than 30 of which I'd spent awake. I was so tired I couldn't read any more. I sat in Starbucks in Phoenix airport in a state of over-tired bliss, giggling to myself and scribbling notes.

My flights into and out of Reno were both delayed, of course. God knows why - they didnt even bother to explain this time. The man next to me on the flight to Reno was in a cowboy hat, which he kept on for the entire journey. He told me he'd brought his camera 'this time' so he could photograph 'some land' he owned 'from the sky'. When he said the word 'sky' he shot me this half-crazed look i'll never forget.The most wonderful fruity Dolly-Parton style voice came over the tannoy on the plane to San Francisco. It was a great big slow southern accent. It was so lovely beacuse you hardly ever hear accents like that, especially this far west and this far north (Reno is in northern Nevada, not that far from San Francisco). The plane was tiny - even tinier than the Air Wales plane I got from Exeter to Cork a while back, which was about the size of some of the bigger cars in Santa Cruz. But the stewardess was enormous - she was over 6ft, and hefty. She spoke with a nasal librarian's voice - in fact, she looked a lot like a librarian, even down to the strings on the glasses and impressive jowels - it was most incongruous (this is the other lady, not the one with the southern accent). Reno airport was exactly as you'd expect - bars, and slot machines. Couples of a certain age pushing money into slots as if they were their coin-operated hearts. For the first time on this trip, I had a beer. I don't usually drink when I fly (only before, ba-doom chi!) 'cos it 'gives me gip' and dries me out ("I swear I saw a little man in orange robes burst into flames"). It was like any american beer, but it reminded me of that scene in Shawshank Redemption when the inmates are drinking beers on the roof in the sun. If I don't drink any more beer for the rest of my life, it wouldn't matter, 'cos I've had THE beer now. It was just something to do with that REM song on repeat in my head, the cowboy hat man, the other characters I'd met on the journey, the free nuts, the thick serviette, and mostly the sleep deprivation.

For my last lift into San Fran I had to change carrier to United (shame). The plane was the biggest, emptiest, and least delayed. It was the shortest flight. Damn! In San Fran, I'd arrived but my bag hadnt. I joined the 'lost baggage' queue. There's something about people in navy trousers who stand up behind desks that I don't like. What is it again, oh yeah, they're RUDE and IGNORANT! You know who you are, lady. Anyway, I left without my bag, waited an hour for the train in the cold, and an hour for the bus. By the time I arrived home I had been travelling for over 53 hours, with 5 hours sleep. The bit between landing in SF and arriving home had no saving graces. It was hard, boring, and best forgotten about.

Right, travel bug bitten, posterity preserved, base touched, tickets scanned, Google Earth KMZ file made, and a few more bits of information released on the world. And if I ever have a son, I think I'm gonna call him, Bill or George anything but Sue! I still hate that name! Goodnight ladies and gentlemen.

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Take another little Pika my heart

The delights of Pika-Pika photoshop in Japantown, San Francisco have been blogged about elsewhere, like here and here

I'm sorry, but I love my Pika-Pika set far too much not to share them with you!!! Of course, they are in a GIF. Everybody after 3, - 1-2-3:

oh GIF-off!

Enjoy!

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Gif Slideshow 4

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Gif Slideshow 3

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The Holiday Lights Train

Well the festive season is nearly upon us, and my goose is getting nice and fat. We wanted to go on an old train ride through the woods, but that was off so we had to settle for this instead - the santa cruz holiday lights train!! So we rode on the train through the city streets (with a hundred kids and their parents!!), sipped our hot spiced apple juice, sang christmas carols, and I made a little video.

I was once humiliated by a primary school teacher for saying "turn on the lampshade" rather than "turn the lampshade on" (he thought the former implied rotating whilst on top of the lampshade), so to him I say this: "I am the moon", and this: "TURN ON YOUR SPEAKERS" ha ha ha ha! (*manic grin*). Anyway, apologies in advance - I'm busy so it's a little rough and ready, and goes on a bit, but you get the jist. Happy holidays!!!!!!!

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Some cool stuff from The Tech

The Tech is a museum in San Jose, right next door to Silicon Valley. It's dedicated to technological advances. I must say! With The Tech and the Aquarium (see previous post) in the same weekend, I couldn't be more impressed. Ok, well we all know writing isn't my forte, so here are some cool pictures!!!

One good thing about the Tech is that as you go around, you can save stuff you do to a filespace online. Obviously, I loved it. Here's a webcam photo of my mum and I sitting at a computer uploading stuff onto our filespace (nice growwwl, mum!):



Ok, here's me and my mum at the Tech - 360-degree panoramics, in Cartesian and Polar coordinates! (I'm the one who looks like a gentleman scientist ;)





Next, views of a 3D laser scan of my head!!






That was my favourite bit. Here's us in an earthquake simulator (it was really violent, promise! That kid was glued to the floor):




Finally, here's a view of us in a thermal camera:



A fun day all round. Until next time ...

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Monterey Bay Aquarium

Last weekend was spent sightseeing with my mum, who was visiting all the way from Londonengland. On Sunday, I got in my zipcar and drove us south on Highway 1 to Monterey. At the end of Cannery Row, and countless souvenir shops selling stacks of Harley-Davidson and John Steinbeck memorabilia, sits the best aquarium I have ever been to - well recommended and everything an aquarium should be. Here's a little video I made of some of the tanklife on offer, so turn your speakers up and enjoy the relaxing fish and, my personal favourite, jellies!



Look out for more vids and photos from my weekend ... coming soon!

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