microsoft trip - day 1

Quick summary: I made it. The rest is just detail.

Actually, the trip was pretty uneventful. I got up way too early and made it to the airport in plenty of time. Airport screening was pretty easy, despite my fear that they might have noticed what day today is. I didn't throw up even a little on the plane this time. The only hiccup was when I went to pick up my baggage (I had to check it, even though I only had clothes, some notes and the company laptop. I'm not used to this stuff). It was hard enough trying to figure out what baggage carousel I was supposed to stand around, but even when I managed that, my bag never showed up. But I swallowed my pride and asked a bunch of people, and eventually I found it. Sea-Tac doesn't have much in the way of useful signage.

A couple things are weird about this place. For one thing, everybody drives the speed limit. It's bizarro-land. But then I noticed what suspiciously looked like photo radar cameras, so I think I see the reasoning. I've decided to drive the speed limit too. There were other weird things, but I can't remember them now. Maybe they'll come to me.

I stopped off at Fry's Electonics. I would like to announce that I love this store!! I want to have its babies!

It's a big box electronics store, except as well as all the cutesy fruity consumer electonics crap, they have electronics. Like, components. Soldering irons and stuff to solder. They have an entire aisle of motherboards. An aisle! They have a cool Mac section. They have like four shelves of Anime. Good stuff, too! They even have Master Keaton. And the sales people aren't pushy. At all. In fact, I don't think they particularly care. That's awesome!

They had the camera I was looking for, which was the main thing. I told the guy I wanted it and he took $30 off the price for no reason! I didn't haggle or anything. I don't understand, but I'm not going to argue. I used the $30 to get a 256MB flash card. Well, okay, it as $35. It did have a $15 mail in rebate that I can't use, so that doesn't count. ComputerXS is selling the very same thing back home for CAD$60, which is not unreasonable. Future Shop's cheapest 256MB SD flash card is CAD$90.

Checked into the hotel and sat around for a bit. Today was already a long day at this point. TV sucks here (even more than usual). There wasn't anywhere to plug the laptop in, and, while the hotel does have wireless, this laptop doesn't. So what's a guy to do, I ask you? Why, go back to Fry's of course!

I got an 802.11g USB adapter for $45! It was already marked down to $60, and they took an extra $15 off at the counter! I love this store!

So I'm online now. I wish I could have brought my own laptop, though. The clickable PC touchpads are annoying. I wish I'd brought my USB mouse at least. Except now the USB ports are full of cameras and wi-fi adapters.

Armed with Internet access, I was now able to find decent places for supper. Dixie's BBQ is supposed to be one of the best in town. And it was within reasonable (for me, anyway) walking distance from the hotel.

[Closed]

Unfortunately, this quaint little BBQ and autoshop, tucked up as it is right against an overpass, is only open from about 11-4. Lunch crowd only, I guess. And they aren't open at all on Sundays, so I won't get a chance to try them out. I did pass another little BBQ joint in a mini-mall, called 3 Pigs. It's right next to a Subway, so I assumed it was a chain or something. The guy behind the counter seemed sincere in his BBQness, though. The ribs and beans were pretty good. I'd forgotten about the iced tea down here, though. Hafta remember to stick with Coke next time.

Check out the sidebar at the right for little pictures from the trip. I whipped up the code last night (I can be productive when I'm procrastinating).

comments:

This post is archived. Comments are disabled. Feel free to send me email if you have something to say.

back to main