Somusing

After some conference calls and other work this morning, I walked around San Francisco with Colter. Up and down hills and all around. It was a beautiful day for walking, sunny, but a little breezy and cool too. After a while we stumbled onto the famous Lombard Street: ... and walking up it halfway we heard what we thought were the wild parrots of Telegraph Hill, and then a few minutes later we saw them fly overhead across the street. Thanks to my Aunt Kar, I saw the movie about the parrots not too long ago. Pretty cool. Then we met up with Jason Holt and friends putting together the Holodeck to show off their work on Google Street View for Google I/O tomorrow. They show a drive-through of Rome, Paris, the Pyrenees, and more on 8 large LCD displays in a semicircle. Here he is ironing the curtains that had some serious creases: And Tom Sawyer-like, he lured me into helping him iron the curtains: Then in the evening we took the BART out to the Mission d...

I'm in San Francisco for the Google I/O conference . I arrived at SFO airport last night around 22:30 and took the BART train to Powell St. station, and after a little wandering around found the Parc 55 Hotel I'm staying at with help of some fellow travelers who also happened to be staying at the same hotel. I woke up this morning to the pretty San Francisco skyline out my 24th floor window. Yes, the window's a little dirty, and doesn't open. Still purty. The hotel room is nice: I plan to check out the city with Colter Jacobsen and/or Jason Holt after I'm done with some phone meetings this morning. There are lots of wireless networks visible from here, many labeled "free" in various ways, but I wasn't able to use any of them except the $13/day Parc 55 wireless. Probably a result of being so high up.

This is a hoodie I knitted for my nephew Ollie. It looks much better on him instead of on a hanger, but he wasn't available for the photo shoot.

I finally got around to reading the fourth novel in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. It was entertaining and exciting like all the others. I have a home school project percolating in my brain that will require the kids to research all of the mythological characters and creatures mentioned in these books. Then I won't have to.

I don't know why this is so popular. The setting is interesting (a traveling circus during the 1930s), but the characters are not well developed, the story is just okay, and the writing is boring. I only finished it because both of the book clubs I go to chose it.