Recently in Travel Category

I'm still at the Streaming Media West conference, on a break and preparing to make the trip to Mountain View to visit Lars and Anne. Just now, I'm sitting at a table in the middle of the convention center, very close to the wireless node that is providing Internet access to a pretty sizeable chunk of geeks, nerds, and geeky nerds in suits (the business types).

It's day two, the sessions weren't particularly exciting today, and I'm a bit worn down. So I just threw on my headphones and put on Frou Frou. Amazing! Suddenly everything is much better. Honestly, I could sit here for hours watching streaming media types walk back and forth from session to session without getting bored. That says something about the music, doesn't it? It helps me focus, and it makes everything more beautiful.

And that is beautiful.

I'm spending the week in San Jose, at the Streaming Media West 2006 conference. It's very interesting, and my time here has been productive. We're talking about video deployed through the Internet to multiple devices -- primarily PCs, but also mobile phones, iPods, etc.

Since I have a lot of experience with Flash, and Flash Video is one of the fastest growing formats used to deliver all of this content, my past life touches the edge of "streaming media," but just barely. The world has changed in the last 5 years, and the "bleeding edge" work I was doing way back when with Flying Rhinoceros is old hat now. Drag and drop, and boom you've got a video interface in Flash.

The one bonus is that I get to see Lars and Anne tonight, and I'll get to meet Kira for the first time. Having Zoe around has helped me to appreciate all of the beautiful children my friends are having. I miss my daughter, and seeing Kira and her wonderful parents should help to dull the "where's my daughter" ache a bit.

I thought about going to In-N-Out Burger for lunch today, but they provided a box. Maybe I'll make the trip tomorrow. It's rare that I'm in Cali (or even out West) these days, so I have to take advantage when I can.

Sorry that this is such a boring update. I've been swamped at work, and all of my time at home is focused on my daughter and my wife, or on recovering from work and family commitments.

In May and April this year, I was back in South Africa ("back" because I was there in 2005, too). It was a crazy trip: I spent eight working days there: two in Mpumalanga, two in East London, two in Cape Town, and two in the Free State. There wasn't much time for picture-taking, and I was working very hard (interviewing people, which was fascinating . . . but that's another story). Lucky for me, there was one moment of rest, in Cape Town, when I was able to explore the city a bit.

It's an amazing place, a jumble of mountains, oceans, and city, with a rich, lively culture. I loved it, and I hope I get to go back another time with more time to explore.

As it was, I spent the first day there driving around the cape, getting a good look at all of the ways the city reaches into the ocean and up into valleys between the crags.

The second day, I was planning on taking a tram to the top of Table Mountain. But when I parked, the man who was watching the cars asked me if I was planning on climbing.

He pointed to a trailhead, and said, "it takes about three hours, most of the time."

I'm completely out of shape, but I couldn't resist. I hadn't been hiking in years. (YEARS. Isn't that awful?)

So I grabbed a bottle of water (not enough, by far) and huffed my way up the mountain. It wasn't technical, but it was definitely a climb. It took me four hours (not bad for a fat guy who hasn't even been on his bike in the last year) and it's impossible to express how incredible it was to see Cape Town from the side of the mountain.

So here's the news: I'm leaving for Johannesburg in the morning. I'll be arriving there (after a quick stopover in Atlanta and a few moments on some island to refuel the plane) on Wednesday morning. I'm going there on business, so I won't be much of a tourist, but let's face it, I'm a tourist -- in the warmest and most generously positive terms -- wherever I go, for whatever reason.

So I'm going to do my best to take lots of pictures, and if I catch any good ones, they'll go up in my flickr photostream.

Okay, I'm off to pack.

It's the middle of the week, I'm just now recovering from jet lag, and Amy is in Kentucky until the 23rd.

Yesterday, on my way back from lunch, I drove right by one of the many shelters in Portland that serve lunch to the city's homeless. The line wrapped around the block.

Amy's plane had a difficult time landing in Kentucky. The weather was horrible, she said, and the plane was bouncing around in the sky in ways that commercial jets shouldn't bounce.

When I pulled up to the light and looked to my left at the long line of my hungry and homeless neighbors, I thought about what it used to be like when I lived downtown. Every day, I encountered people like this -- people living on the street, for whatever reason. Sometimes they asked me for money. And sometimes I gave it to them. More often than not, we just ignored each other.

The cats across the street -- the strays we feed every day -- were really glad to see me. There was a six-day period between Amy's departure and my arrival. Dad fed them at least once while we were gone, but I'm sure they were hungry. The one with the scratchy voice was really vocal. I don't know if she was happy to see me, or if she was angry that I'd been gone for so long.

The funny thing about Germany: I never saw a single homeless person. Granted, we didn't visit any of the really big towns: Berlin or Munich or Frankfurt. And we were right smack in the middle of one of the richest parts of the country. It's strange though. When you don't see people suffering (though they are suffering, the world over) it's hard to think of them at all.

I had to wait a long time to hear from Amy after her flight, because of the time difference. So there were hours there when I was wandering around Europe just hoping that she was okay. It may have been difficult, but she made it. Thank God. I would give anything for her.

And yesterday, I drove right by a line (stretched around the block) of people in need. What is my responsibility to them?