phik

Happy New Year. 2003 was a blur. Another irreplaceable chunk of a finite and rapidly passing lifetime.

I have made some resolutions, in no particular order.

• I will try to average fewer than 80 hours of work per week.
• I will try to find a wife, or some reasonable approximation thereof.
• I will try to stay in better shape; two years ago I was in great shape, and it’s gone steadily downhill since then.
• I will take a vacation.
• I will see more of my grandparents, who will not be around forever.

There are a few more.

My monkey-strong bowels are girded with strength like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo … dung.

It’s like the words I use don’t have any meaning at all. Typically, jwz has already been over this.

There’s a huge snow storm in Chicago today, so I will in fact be spending more waking hours here than either of my origin or destination cities. Four flights to Boston are cancelled.

Jacob has been in this situation a few times in the last year, and by this point in the process I think he has basically no chance of getting where he wants to be.

Normally I forget about priority standby as one of those unused perks that they just use to pad the list. Boy. United is truly rewarding my loyalty today by getting me home.

(Aside: I think the “guaranteed reservation, even on sold-out flights” thing is pretty cool, but then again, I’m not the one getting bumped.)

Zach reminded me of a funny story about me being angry.

There’s one extremely common operation, ls, which performs very badly in Lustre 1.0.x. Many people might not notice on their little systems if they don’t do it at the wrong time, but it has led some of our customers with enormous file systems to say things like “I’m not sure how much data I wrote, but I scheduled an ls -l batch job to run overnight.”

Anyways, we were giving some terribly impressive demo at SuperComputing in which we not only wrote 1.5 terabytes of data over a 2,000-mile link, but we also had all of our remote CFS employees mount the file system and exchange some data in a shared file. Neat, right?

Of course, not wanting to spoil the demo. I asked for some restraint. The conversation went about like:

18:31:40 <phik> ok, please don’t do anything stupid, like ls
18:31:51 <eeb> ls is taking a long time
18:32:00 <phik> eeb: honestly, what the hell?

I am not making this up:

<phik> I’m going shopping; name something delicious
<blizzard> chocolate
<phik> no, like a healthy, nutritious meal
<blizzard> french bread and brie

I learned today that approximately two tonnes of furniture, 25 cubic metres, will soon be loaded on a boat headed for Boston. When expressed in those terms, it seems like a lot.

There may be some reason to believe that the first stop on the Long Island Express is in fact Sousington, and not Souston as previously reported. We regret any inconvenience.

I miss my friend Jacob, and our zany antics. I wish he would visit me from time to time.

I totally, completely lost my voice over night. It was pretty bad last night, after being the centre of talking attention for almost eight hours, but now it’s pretty much totally gone. I think Chris is paranoid that I’m going to make his baby sick.

I had an amazing steak tartare as one component of my nutritious lunch, and then we slipped into an electronics store before I had to leave for the airport. I purchased the Tycho-approved Warioware, and let me tell you, kids, it does not disappoint.

When you think about making a game in which you have three seconds to figure out what you’re supposed to do, and then in many cases do it, you start to appreciate what Nintendo has wrought. It may just seem like a sort of nirvana for the attention deficit crowd, but in fact it is pure genius. Among my favourites are Deploy the Airbag, Catch the Toast, and Hammer the Nail.

And let’s not forget Dr. Mario. Did I ever tell you the story about how I competed in the Nintendo world championships of Dr. Mario in Seattle? Some would say that I am quite good.

I left my bathroom kit in California, so I made a stop at the Fred Meyer today to replenish the essentials.

Try to imagine the look on my face when I get to the deodorant aisle and see the newest grotesque creation which the Gillette/Mennen mega-empire has foisted upon us. I see deodorant in the distance; it looks a lot like the deodorant I normally use! But these have some sort of power dots floating in the gel, in three vomitous fragrances.

The practical upshot is that when I paste the already-questionable gel under my arms, these blue fucking flavour crystals come along for the ride. What happens to these? Do they fall off into my shirt, and collect along my waistline? Are they supposed to kick in for that extra burst when I really need it, such as during a really agitating meeting? Which marketing committee decided that it was OK to have opaque blue anything floating in my deodorant?

I spent my three days at home, and now it’s time to visit my family. No, nobody died, but I did skip out on both Thanksgiving and Christmas this year — which was a valuable precedent to set, in terms of the self-determination of my schedule — so my family is getting antsy.

On my way into Chicago, we arrive a little bit early, and the gate isn’t available yet. For those not familiar with O’Hare, if you do anything out of the ordinary during rush hour that could affect the schedule — arrive before your gate is ready, arrive late, push back late, not be ready when you’re cleared to take off, etc. — then air traffic control will send you to the penalty box until you sort out the holdup.

As for leaving the penalty box, well, that depends on when they can fit you in; after all, you’re the troublemaker. During rush hour, especially with weather involved, it’s hard to work your way back into the flow.

Long story short, we sat in the box for 45 minutes, and because I’m taking a pesky regional jet for my next leg, I have to hoof it a mile to the F terminal.

When I get there the door is already closed, and all of the seats have been given away to standby passengers — except one (phew). The woman at the desk is radioing downstairs to see if they’ve already pushed back when a second passenger arrives. I don’t encounter very many other 100K fliers, so that’s twice in one month that the priority waitlisting has made itself useful.

I didn’t wait around to see what happened to the other guy, but I bet it involved the O’Hare Doubletree, because I’m sure that was the last flight of the day to Akron. Maybe he got on a flight to Cleveland.

I don’t really want to be President, but I do really want to do all sorts of things that aren’t “Presidential”, like speak my mind regardless of whose feelings get hurt, and have reasonable opinions.

Who knows what the political landscape will be in 2016, when I’m old enough to be elected, but I bet it won’t be so different that there’s open debate or any real hope of a multi-party system.

With that in mind, I’m wondering if I could make some sort of deal with Fox: if I’m elected, I’ll let them produce a four-year reality series called “Mr. President” or whatever. Viewers can see my zany antics and sober decisions in a highly-rated weekly program. Maybe they can mix in some American Idol by letting people make some relatively trivial decisions, like choosing which tie I’ll wear to dinner with the Canadian Prime Minister.

In exchange, Fox has to get me elected, probably by primarily catering to the uneducated majority and the people who would normally never vote, but really want to see a show like that.

Everybody wins! Especially our children, because holy fuck, do I want my government to spend a lot less money. That is my one and only campaign pledge that does not involve zany antics.

Go go priority waitlisting. Another day of fun travel weather, and another dodged opportunity to spend the night at O’Hare.

We got into Logan so late that ATC told us that we could land on runway 33 left “if you can find it; I’ll turn on the lights.”

BBQ with Joe, Chris, and Shona tonight. I can’t remember the last time I had BBQ.

Joe is totally hooked on Warioware. I think his favourite game is the one where you make Wario dodge the dolphin which comes at you on a skateboard.

We watched an episode of Bill Maher’s new show on HBO, which is hilarious. Maybe I’ll start getting HBO again.

I also just learned that Alton writes from time to time, and should not be missed.

I’m in Maui for the Lustre Users Group meeting which we’re hosting — tough life, I know — and it’s been really stupid busy, although I did spend an hour snorkeling earlier. Mike and I found one of the fabled sea turtles a little ways offshore, and a few big schools of fish under some rock shelves. I’ve only ever snorkeled in little lakes in Ohio, where the most exciting thing you’ll find is a smallmouth bass, or perhaps a piece of masonry.

The first morning after I arrived, I went for a swim just after the sun came up, and there was a bikini model and photographer on the beach. The rest of the day was kind of a let down.

You know that you’re in a special country when the free wine in the airport lounge — the cheapest thing they can leave out that won’t be a complete insult — is a Jacob’s Creek shiraz. From this I can only conclude that this is truly a place of wondrous natural and human resources.

People occasionally ask me for the secret to multi-time-zone travel, although coming from Maui was only a 3 (well, 21) time zone difference. At any rate, the key is to be one of those people who can sleep on planes, go to sleep on your new time zone, and wake up for breakfast on your new time zone. If you can’t sleep, well, you’re pretty much fucked on that 13-hour flight anyways.

I have the opposite problem. I’m all set to get a lot of work done, without the constant interruption of the telephone, and the moment my ass hits the seat I’m asleep until we’re back at the gate. I guess it’s better than the alternative affliction.

I picked a mostly-random barber shop in the King’s Cross district, and I think I could not have done better. An awesome Italian-Australian man cut my hair almost entirely with a straight razor, which was a new and very pleasant experience. I have no idea if I’ll be able to find someone similar when I get back to Boston, but now I’m spoiled. It’s been a long time since I’ve had such a nice person cut my hair. It’s usually such a chore.

This is one of my only meeting-free days while in Australia, but we have something of a major release coming up for which I somehow find myself in the critical path. So I’ll probably need to work on that instead of seeing more of Sydney.

I bought an Australian SIM card for my phone two days ago, and every call I’ve received has been cut off after almost exactly 10 minutes. So today I went back to the store to troubleshoot, and while I was there, their mobile phone supplier came in for a visit.

While he was waiting for the owner, his bag was stolen, almost right out from under his nose.

Canberra is a pretty cute little city, although owning a car appears to be basically mandatory. It’s one of those planned cities, which I think in most cases means ass-y, but in this case means filled with awesome concentric circular streets and roundabouts.

I would be content to spend every February here, actually.

I ate at an average thai restaurant on London Circuit, which according to both the guidebook and the storefront is award-winning. What they don’t tell you is that it was for Slowest Restaurant in Canberra. I cannot in good faith recommend it.

If you are interested in getting on my good side, or have something for which you feel the need to apologize, or are the person whose job is basically to make me happy, I am now a very big fan of Cooper’s Sparkling Ale. I predict that I will have a difficult time finding it when I get home, not unlike the products of another favourite brewery, Sleeman.

In unrelated news, when I’m drunk in Australia, I’m pretty sure I talk with an Australian accent. I guess that’s just the risk one takes.

That is all.

I finally managed to have a kangaroo steak, after a false start involving an exceptionally busy restaurant on valentine’s day. I’m told that it’s best prepared like beef, and the “medium rare” they brought me was somewhat more done than it should have been, but no matter. The cut I had was quite good, and went very well with the roasted tomato and capsicum … topping? relish? Whatever.

I have definitely had better beef, but this was also probably not the best kangaroo that man is capable of preparing. So by no means would I reject another meal of the same.

I caught an amazing show on the BBC last night about Venice. The highlight was the last interview, with a man who owns a wood shop. He makes all sorts of everyday items out of wood — “jackets” and “hats” hanging on pegs, chairs which look like they have cushions, sneakers, bowls of fruit, all manner of things.

The finale was a fully operational amphibious convertible made entirely of wood, except for the engine and other necessary automotive components. Even the folded-down “soft” top was made of wood. I wish I had a clip of that wooden car driving down the river.

Before I went to the airport I stopped at Circular Quay, to see if the Queen Mary 2 is moored there. To my delight, it is.

Make no mistake, this is an extremely large boat. If I said that it is the largest ocean liner in the world, that would not be exaggeration, that would be the truth.

After carrying it for probably 14 months and something like 80 flights, the “security” guy in the Sydney airport decided to confiscate my one-inch eyeglasses screwdriver for being a lethally dangerous sharp object. Amazingly, the TSA is incredibly consistent, in ways that the rest of the world never is. I have never had an easier time having my privacy invaded than since the federal government took over, which makes sense, since they have so much practise.

There is an (out of order) computer here in the lounge, which appears normally to have internet access, and I see a wire snaking back to a Cisco 800. I’m tempted to plug in and see where I end up, but given the unrelenting paranoia in airports, that could easily be jail. And not the good jail, like on Cinemax. The man jail.

There was a store selling various customs-inspected and approved Australian perishables in the airport, but they only had fish and beef, no kangaroo. Sorry Mike.

I was going to stay in Boston for at least 3 days, but you know, I’m a sucker for being away.

A carefully, albeit belatedly, orchestrated scheme came to brilliant fruition when Mike came bounding down the stairs expecting me to be somewhere — anywhere — except his doorstep. Success!

I tipped Tyla off in advance, because although we all love surprises, the uninvited-out-of-town-houseguest surprise is the kind that rarely goes unpunished.

I got to see Aven, Mark, and Madhava, which was an additional bonus extremely nice surprise. Aven and Mark regaled me with tales of my own life, regurgitated from my own writings. It made me feel special, and stalked.

Today is Hockey Day in Canada — which is the real reason I came to visit — a phenomenon for which there is no parallel in the United States, or perhaps anywhere. All of the Canadian NHL teams play each other, while junior and pick-up teams across the country play shinny or drink a lot of beer. We fell into the latter category, a fact from which I take absolutely no shame.

Jacob arrived early this morning, and I think he’s been awake for something like 36 hours. He’s a lot less surly than I would be, I think, but I usually do my best to avoid subjecting other people to me after my all-nighters.

We were all pretty tired, but between the Halo and the Hockey — the two Hs of weekend family entertainment — we managed to stay awake until a respectable hour.

I was stunned by some kind of loud wetness during the night, but it was over quickly and it was lost to the mists of fatigue and time.

Until Jacob started telling a story this morning about how Chester was drinking his water and making some kind of loud drinking noise. So what did he do? He threw water on Chester, of course, who promptly jumped down and shook it all off onto me. So that mystery is solved.

Mike was going to drive us to the airport — on surface roads, apparently, because he’s not allowed on the highway yet — but there was some snowfall and he was not interested in practising in the snow, I guess. That’s probably for the best, because then we can leave later in a taxi and expect fewer surprising delays.

Jacob and I thought the thumping was just innocent taxi noise, like some ice falling out of the wheel well, or perhaps running over a rock or small child. It turns out that you can drive for quite a long time with an extremely flat — a hole the size of my fist — tire.

K met us at the airport, and some gifts of coffee cake were exchanged. Later we had dinner with Jacob, k, Shona, and surly-Chris. He wouldn’t say why he was surly.