Travel diary, part 1

6:50 Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Although I age, I have not yet lost my sense of wonder. It is still a joyous and awesome moment when tons of man-made metal strains briefly against the brakes, then, released, hurls itself into the clouds. My face lights up like Christmas, every time.

This time, quite literally and immediately into the clouds. I felt a bit short-changed, as I love to watch the world reced into smallness. Still, there were compensations. For a few seconds, we were in a clear zone *between* two layers of cloud, rolling white plains above and below both.

By the time there started to be holes in the cloud cover, a baseball diamond was smaller than my thumb. Houses were only a few pixels wide, and automobiles were quite beyond the limits of my resolution. 30,000 feet and climbing.

I do love the eperience of flying, even as mediated and passive a version of it as I get here.

1:50 AM Thursday, May 11, 2006

The clock here says 10:50, but my internal clock says I’m up past my bedtime. Arrived at hotel, and checked in. Even got food, albeit with some difficulty. The hotel restaurant was closed, but the bar was still serving food. Lots of other Irrational folk were in the bar, but I was feeling grumpy and antisocial from hunger and long flight.

More flying thoughts:
The country seems divided into several distinct zones. At first, near the East Coast, there is much sign of human habitation. From above, though, one also sees how much human usage bends to conform with nature, in the contours of hills and valleys, rivers and lakes.

As one moves West, the countryside flattens out. There is still a big effect from humanity, but its flavor gradually shifts from cities to farm fields.

Eventually, the fields give way to an almost entirely uninhabited region. Not long thereafter, the steady flatness gives way to the upthrust contours of the Rockies. (dusk now, night falling) Covered in perpetual snow, and no sign of humanity, at least from our height. On the far side, lights from scattered settlements can be seen, but little in-between them.

And then, at last, LA. Dense-packed humanity that stretches on and on, past even the horizon that I can see from up here. Mostly flat, but with some mountains lurking at the edges, lit up just like the plains. Or maybe they *were* more plains, and the appearance of mountains was an optical illusion. I think there were some of each.

Well, this laptop thinks that it’s 2 in the morning, and so do I. And so to bed, and so to bed...

7:30 am (local time), Thursday.

Awake. Too jittery to sleep more. Didn’t get all that much sleep last night, either. For the first several hours of the night, I had every variation of a classic anxiety dream that I know of, most of them several times. No pants in public, wrong hotel, right hotel but wrong room, lost my keys, overslept, never made it to the convention…

Later on, I had a few hours worth of more relaxing fare. Dreamed that I went out to a movie with new_man and mermaidlady. It was an Orson Welles epic, based on a huge SF novel by one of those “literary” authors like Huxley or Orwell. Not a novel that exists outside of The Dreaming, but in my dream I had previously read it. A good thing, too, since the movie essentially consisted of Orson’s favorite scenes, with little connecting narrative tissue to explain what was going on. It was a story that went from the distant past into a post-apocalyptic future (plague variety). Near the end, there were alien robots, and a smidgen of time travel (Orson quoted the Doctor Who theme here). Mermaidlady left early, ostensibly to do some errands; though as new_man remarked, “She can only take abut an hour of Welles before she gives up”. I was embarrassed at having forgotten this, though (in waking life) I have no idea what she thinks of his work :-)

Up now. Shower soon. After which I will collect my gadgets from the scattered corners of the room. This hotel, foolishly, doesn’t have power strips in the rooms. Surely, these days, business travelers who want to plug in chargers for five different devices can’t be that rare? I had to unplug several lamps and the coffee maker.

11:10
Needed to look some stuff up online, so hunted down a wi-fi access point. Busybusybusy, so more details of E3 itself later. Wanted to get this much online while I could.

Travel diary, part 1

6:50 Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Although I age, I have not yet lost my sense of wonder. It is still a joyous and awesome moment when tons of man-made metal strains briefly against the brakes, then, released, hurls itself into the clouds. My face lights up like Christmas, every time.

This time, quite literally and immediately into the clouds. I felt a bit short-changed, as I love to watch the world reced into smallness. Still, there were compensations. For a few seconds, we were in a clear zone *between* two layers of cloud, rolling white plains above and below both.

By the time there started to be holes in the cloud cover, a baseball diamond was smaller than my thumb. Houses were only a few pixels wide, and automobiles were quite beyond the limits of my resolution. 30,000 feet and climbing.

I do love the eperience of flying, even as mediated and passive a version of it as I get here.

1:50 AM Thursday, May 11, 2006

The clock here says 10:50, but my internal clock says I’m up past my bedtime. Arrived at hotel, and checked in. Even got food, albeit with some difficulty. The hotel restaurant was closed, but the bar was still serving food. Lots of other Irrational folk were in the bar, but I was feeling grumpy and antisocial from hunger and long flight.

More flying thoughts:
The country seems divided into several distinct zones. At first, near the East Coast, there is much sign of human habitation. From above, though, one also sees how much human usage bends to conform with nature, in the contours of hills and valleys, rivers and lakes.

As one moves West, the countryside flattens out. There is still a big effect from humanity, but its flavor gradually shifts from cities to farm fields.

Eventually, the fields give way to an almost entirely uninhabited region. Not long thereafter, the steady flatness gives way to the upthrust contours of the Rockies. (dusk now, night falling) Covered in perpetual snow, and no sign of humanity, at least from our height. On the far side, lights from scattered settlements can be seen, but little in-between them.

And then, at last, LA. Dense-packed humanity that stretches on and on, past even the horizon that I can see from up here. Mostly flat, but with some mountains lurking at the edges, lit up just like the plains. Or maybe they *were* more plains, and the appearance of mountains was an optical illusion. I think there were some of each.

Well, this laptop thinks that it’s 2 in the morning, and so do I. And so to bed, and so to bed...

7:30 am (local time), Thursday.

Awake. Too jittery to sleep more. Didn’t get all that much sleep last night, either. For the first several hours of the night, I had every variation of a classic anxiety dream that I know of, most of them several times. No pants in public, wrong hotel, right hotel but wrong room, lost my keys, overslept, never made it to the convention…

Later on, I had a few hours worth of more relaxing fare. Dreamed that I went out to a movie with new_man and mermaidlady. It was an Orson Welles epic, based on a huge SF novel by one of those “literary” authors like Huxley or Orwell. Not a novel that exists outside of The Dreaming, but in my dream I had previously read it. A good thing, too, since the movie essentially consisted of Orson’s favorite scenes, with little connecting narrative tissue to explain what was going on. It was a story that went from the distant past into a post-apocalyptic future (plague variety). Near the end, there were alien robots, and a smidgen of time travel (Orson quoted the Doctor Who theme here). Mermaidlady left early, ostensibly to do some errands; though as new_man remarked, “She can only take abut an hour of Welles before she gives up”. I was embarrassed at having forgotten this, though (in waking life) I have no idea what she thinks of his work :-)

Up now. Shower soon. After which I will collect my gadgets from the scattered corners of the room. This hotel, foolishly, doesn’t have power strips in the rooms. Surely, these days, business travelers who want to plug in chargers for five different devices can’t be that rare? I had to unplug several lamps and the coffee maker.

11:10
Needed to look some stuff up online, so hunted down a wi-fi access point. Busybusybusy, so more details of E3 itself later. Wanted to get this much online while I could.