Post MacWorld Reckoning

Now that we’re back, unpacked, and some­what caught up on email, laun­dry, gro­cery shop­ping, and all of those other chores that await when you return home, I can write a lit­tle about the past week.

Mac­world is still fun, but its even more fun when Pam comes along, because it really just turns into a mini-vacation for both of us with Mac nerd activ­i­ties thrown in. We got there on Mon­day night, only a lit­tle late. Our hotel was the whim­si­cal and friendly Tri­ton Hotel, a bou­tique inn on Grant Street, right by the gate to Chi­na­town. Besides the decid­edly off-the-wall decor, they had a free wine and beer happy hour every day, and the young and hip staff fre­quently hit the switch to open the front doors for us so we often felt like we were mak­ing grand entrances (and exits). While the room was small, it was cer­tainly usable, and the free wi fi Inter­net in every room wasn’t too shabby either.

Rather than get up at 3:00 AM to get in line for the Keynote (like some peo­ple I know) we arose at a decent hour and spent most of Tues­day at the two show floors, see­ing new prod­ucts and occa­sion­ally bump­ing into old friends. We had a great din­ner at the nearby organic foodie restau­rant ‘Roots’ (no rela­tion to the Cana­dian cloth­ing chain), includ­ing a Duck con­fit salad and an excep­tion­ally deli­cious ‘Dun­ge­ness Crab/Mac & Cheese’ dish that I think should become a classic.

On Wednes­day, I man­aged to make it to sev­eral Con­fer­ence ses­sions. The one on using the new Finder in OSX Leop­ard turned out to be far too basic for me, so I left early and dropped into a nearby ses­sion on using the iWork appli­ca­tions (and got some very good tips on Num­bers, the spread­sheet pack­age in iWork). I also went to a ses­sion on iLife which was heav­ily weighted toward using iPhoto, although I did get a bet­ter feel for how to edit in the new ver­sion of iMovie. I guess you could say that it was a highly ‘i-centric’ day. In the evening Pam and I decided to go out for some lighter fare, and ended up in a small Thai restau­rant that oddly enough was the very same site (a 1938 diner that has seen count­less restau­rants) where I had first dis­cov­ered fusion cui­sine in Bar­bara Tropp’s now long-gone China Moon Café of the mid 1990’s. It was sad to think that restau­rants, like the peo­ple who run them, are all too mortal.

On Thurs­day I caught a few more ses­sions, but I really wanted to spend a bit more time at some key booths (Par­al­lels, Microsoft, File­maker, and El Gato were all on my list), as well as make a short trip to the Apple Store to get…(drum roll, please) an iPhone. Now, with the swiftly shift­ing sands of the jail­break­ing of Firmware update 1.1.2, the new 1.1.3 Firmware update that adds new func­tion­al­ity, and the soon-to-be released Devel­oper SDK next month, I’m frankly a bit torn as to how to Unlock this phone. While hard­ware solu­tions might be the the most effec­tive, I really would like to be able to update the phone like every­body else, espe­cially to add the whole new raft of 3^rd party appli­ca­tions due to hit in the com­ing months. So, I’m going to have to go slowly and care­fully, with the goal of get­ting my iPhone work­ing in the least inva­sive and destruc­tive way (hope­fully with­out saw­ing off pieces of my SIM, or doing some other destruc­tion). It would have helped if Rogers would finally offer the iPhone, but if Telus rolls out GSM and offers it first, I’ll switch car­ri­ers before you can say “Ring”. Hear that Rogers? You’ve kept me (and thou­sands like me) wait­ing long enough, so I’ve got zero loy­alty to you.

On Thurs­day evening we, we met with an old friend of mine for din­ner (at a nearby bistro — Steak with Bor­de­laise sauce, Frites and Leeks Vinai­grette — Oh yeah!), and then took a taxi to Davies Hall, where we heard the San Fran­cisco Phil­har­monic. They gave a con­cert of Bach’s Orches­tral Suite No. 2 (with the flute soloist being Tim­o­thy Day, an old friend of my par­ents who even per­formed a piece of mine years ago), Xenakis’s sur­pris­ingly beau­ti­ful and affect­ing L’Ile de Gorée for harp­si­chord and large ensem­ble, and Schubert’s 9^th (‘The Great’) Sym­phony in C Major. I hadn’t heard Michael Tilson Thomas con­duct since I briefly met him many years ago in Lon­don, so it was great to see how he had matured as a con­duc­tor. The orches­tra was first-rate and played every­thing beau­ti­fully, and I had to admit that I was prob­a­bly grin­ning for nearly all of the Schu­bert —it’s a fun piece, full of good ideas, great tunes and rich colours, but I also know it really well. I could have almost sung along for the whole per­for­mance (but I didn’t, thank good­ness for Pam and all the rest of the peo­ple sit­ting around me).

Fri­day morn­ing, after a light break­fast (incred­i­bly but­tery crois­sants from the Café de la Presse next door), we headed on to the air­port, and caught the Qan­tus 747 home. By 3:30, we were back, which takes me to the chores I men­tioned at the begin­ning of this post. Now it’s late Sun­day night, and hav­ing gone through my mail for work, I see that I have a busy week ahead of me. Oh well. The iVa­ca­tion is def­i­nitely over.