Sunday, March 25, 2007
Traveling to Boston in order to present at another conference, this time JoAnn Hackos' "Content Management Strategies/DITA North America Conference 2007" which is being held at the The Fairmont Copley Plaza Hotel in Boston. I am there to present "AMD's Experience Planning and Implementing a DITA CMS”, which is the same title as the presentation Graydon and I gave in Frankfurt, but which has evolved over subsequent presentations I have done in San Jose, Austin, and at a SIG group in Toronto. In the end what started out primarily as Graydon's talk has been morphed into something that's more to my speaking style and depth of knowledge, and is (I hope) tailored more to the broad spectrum of people who tend to come to these conferences, ranging from those who are investigating DITA to those who are already well under way in their own implementation who want to compare notes with others.
The flight to Boston was set to leave at 9am, so I ordered an airport taxi to pick me up from home at 6:45am. Got to the airport, used a ticket kiosk to get my ticket, and despite the crowds, breezed through U.S. Customs in next to no time. Settled down for about an hour before the boarding time at Gate 164 with a Starbucks drink at the latest Scientific American. We all boarded the small Embraer jet that seats two to a side, and luckily I managed to get a pair of seats all to myself. The flight in general was uneventful, save for it being the first time I have been in a plane that has taken off in thick fog – I counted one, two, three seconds once we took off into the air and nothing could be seen of the ground. When I was allowed to I happily donned my Bose noise-canceling headphones (a recent acquisition from my last trip to Austin) and listened to tunes on my iPod for the short, one hour flight.
Landed in Boston just over an hour later. Got into a somewhat rickety old cab that constantly beeped a warning signal for something along with a cabbie who was a crusty but friendly. After a $25 cab ride I was dropped off at the grand entrance of the Fairmont Copley Plaza, a luxury hotel that belongs to the same chain as the Royal York hotel back in Toronto. Past a pair of gilded lions and an empty dog house (that apparently houses the canine "ambassador" to the hotel) and inside to the reception desk, where I got the keys to my room. After getting my keys (the now ubiquitous plastic entry key card) I stopped and took in my surroundings: much gilding and mirrors, with a ceiling painted with a blue sky. Early 20th century fittings, a grand old clock standing in a corner, and ballrooms which truly earned the moniker of "Grand". Clearly an old, established hotel.
Got to my room on the fifth floor, which was equally grand: nice rich wood furnishings, washroom with marble tiling, and room for a single king size bed and a comfy chair in the corner. The desk that I am writing this on sports a hands-free phone, a quad of electrical outlets that pops up from the upper-right corner of the desk, and a Ethernet jack/cord for the Internet connection, which is not free, but at $13.95 Cdn is no more expensive than usual at the place that charge for access. Should make for a comfortable way to spend the next few days in Boston. Despite the supposedly luxury, the hotel was missing some things I have come to expect at other hotels, such as a pen and pad for writing notes on, and a simply flyer or two that could give me a free simple map of the city and what's on. The working safe was nice though.
Once I had settled in, I pulled up Google Maps on my laptop and figured out where the Boston Museum of Fine Arts was in comparison to where I was staying. It was just about a mile down Huntington Street, so I determined to walk there and take in the sights along the way.
Labels: Boston, cab, cabbie, DITA, Embraer, Fairmont Copley Plaza, flying
Thursday, November 02, 2006
I woke up a few hours later, having unfortunately missed lunch and a few presentations in the process. I ended up seeing two further presentations that day: "Moving to DITA - An Engineering Case Study" and "Best Practice for Global Industry: DITA as a Competitive and Strategic Advantage". Both presentations were good, but neither of them told me anything much that I didn't already know, having already been working with DITA professionally for some time now.
Before I knew it was time for dinner, and there was a group heading to the nearby Corner Steak House. Their specialty was servings of various types of steak cuts served up sizzling on a slab of hot lava rock. So about forty of us descended on the place, with the intention of talking about semiconductor specializations for DITA while we waited for our meal. With forty of us there, we ended up waiting a long time; it was a full half hour before our beer orders were filled, and well over an hour before we got our particular pieces of sizzling steak (mine was the spicy hot pot variety, which was excellent, though by the time I got it I was ravenous). Met some interesting contacts both in the semiconductor business as well as a couple of the organizers for the conference.
The Corner Steak House, Frankfurt (Picture Taken the Following Day)
Waiting for the Food at the Corner Steakhouse (with Michael Priestley, sans Tie and Suit, at the Head of the Table)
Labels: conference, DITA, Frankfurt, Michael Priestley
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Today is the day I fly out to a conference in Frankfurt, Germany. I am co-presenting at the DITA Europe 2006 conference there, along with a colleague from work. He left yesterday, but I stayed behind an extra evening so that I could take the girls trick-or-treating for Halloween. Both of them look forward to the event and it didn't seem right not to have one of their parents around for the big day (Erika was working on a film and couldn’t make it). I will probably for it later in terms of jet-lag once I arrive, but it was well worth it.
The almost 8-hour long flight is aboard an Air Canada Airbus A320. I savour the relative luxury of being in business class for the flight there and back, and for the first time in ages I have appreciable leg-room and elbow-room. Champagne was served while we were still on the ground, and the food was definitely much better than average, but I most enjoyed the luxury of space.
While I had loaded up my video iPod with a number of TV shows and movies, I needn't have bothered, as this plane is equipped with a personal display touch-screen, and I have whiled away the time playing chess and watching "The Prairie Home Companion" starring Garrison Keillor and directed by the Robert Altman (while relatively low-key compared to previous films like Nashville or M*A*S*H*, it still very much shows his influences, and the solid ensemble cast makes it a fun thing to watch, though still it is ultimately not one of his best. Never knew before that Lilly Tomlin couldn't sing; now I know).
I picked up a copy of Dava Sobels' The Planets before heading out. I end up getting to the beginning of the chapter on Mars by the end of the flight. I very much enjoyed her biography on Galileo as seen through the letters of his daughter the nun, and considered picking this up when I first saw in hardcover. It was an immediate purchase when I saw the softcover version. She is a long-time science writer and has a certain verve for description and evoking vivid memories from her childhood that impinged upon her interest in the planets, though I find the occasional Christian religious reference (straying beyond the obvious ancient Roman personifications for the planets) jarring and cloying. I know the book is aimed at the general reader, but there are numerous times I keep thinking about other related things that she spends a bare paragraph on, or other interesting tangents which may only be hinted at.
After the first in-flight movie ends (some non-descript thing starring Keanu Reeves and a familiar-looking female co-star who end up emoting endlessly in and around a country house built by a bay; I didn't don my headphones for it but I suspect that this film’s silence wouldn't have been improved by dialog), the lights were dimmed and most people ended up putting back their seats and drifting off to sleep. I ended up having a look at the print-out of my portion of the presentation, cribbing notes to the pages, and was amused to look around me to see three others working on their own PowerPoint presentations, either by the glow of their notebook screens or on paper, like the fellow beside me. Thanks to the presentation text size I can make out that one young lady to the left and forward from me is presenting on a radiological test machine (medical? industrial?) of some sort, the fellow beside me is doing something relating to mining engineering, and a professorial-looking sort of man is working earnestly on something to do with improvements in electrical engineering processes (according to one slide, there have been significant changes since 1987, apparently).
Later, after watching the conclusion of the film, I try to fall asleep. Despite the relative comfort of the seats – they recline to a near-vertical angle, plus a motorized footrest – and the sleeping blindfold I brought, I just cannot fall asleep. I toss and turn for about an hour before giving up and returning to my book. The lights slowly come back on, creating a false dawn, and breakfast is served soon afterwards. The plane arrives slightly ahead of schedule at Frankfurt airport and I debark.
Labels: Air Canada, Airbus 320, conference, Dava Sobels, DITA, Frankfurt, Lilly Tomlin, Robert Altman, The Prairie Home Companion
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