Well the last day of the conference was a lot of fun. Geek news: lots of system administrator sessions today, including two on deploying Xserve and Xserve RAID. These are Apple's rackmounted servers and raid units. The systems above consistute approximately 17 Terabytes of disk storage, shared between variously several different Xserve models, and an IBM AIX server and a Dell Win2K server on fibre channel. The systems do brilliant things like automatically rebuild a RAID when a drive nears failure from a spare, and then let you know you can take the dud drive out with 0 downtime. They use these things to power the iTunes Music Store (bring on the Australian version!).
The last session came and went, with geeks frantically surfing and coding and video chatting until we all got thrown out at 6pm. There were a few farewell parties on that night, but my back was playing up, so I decided to go back to the hotel again and crash. Matt left this afternoon, so Craig moved back in for Friday night - bit of a drama because we forgot to get him a key but I found him outside the hotel in the end :) We went and grabbed tea at a Sushi Boat restaurant...
Probably the best food I've eaten all week! I think I should have tipped them a bit more...but as usual towards the end of a trip I'm reduced to counting my cash to make sure I have enough to last me until I go home without having to get more out of the hole in the wall!
If you've never been to a sushi boat restaurant, what happens is you have a sushi chef chopping away in the middle of the room, with a little moat going around him, complete with wooden boats, each laden with sushi delicacies. You pick the ones you want (a price is shown by the pattern of the plate) and grab it as it comes past, and then your bill (sorry, "Check") is totted up by the plates on your table at the end of the meal. Mind you the moat was a bit fast, you had to be pretty quick to grab a plate!
This is becoming a bit of a tour of "Places Wot I Have Eaten At"!
Lori's Diners, like Starbucks, are literally on every corner. Seriously. There are two within two blocks of my hotel - and 3 Starbucks - that I found! They serve good old 50s cafe style food - in enormous portions. I had corned beef hash with eggs and toast...delicious!
I went out to buy myself some Levis...and found this tunnel! Talk about a multi-layered city! If you can't quite tell from this photo, there is a tunnel with a street right on top of it as well as assorted buildings, trees etc...the electric buses run through here. Great idea, dunno why the buses in Australia are all diesel powered and smelly! Oh yeah, I picked up a Relient K CD at Virgin for about $20 Australian! Woohoo!
While I was out shopping I ran into a bunch of people singing and clapping and jumping around on a street corner...yup, Christians :) Can't go anywhere...
I asked them if they could recommend a church for Sunday morning, but they all seemed to be really stodgy or else way out in the sticks, so I decided to spend some time with Dad on Saturday night instead since I had the hotel room to myself and save Sunday for packing! I ended up finishing Soul Survivor, which is a great book by Philip Yancey (does he ever write bad books?) all about how his faith survived the church. He grew up in a 50s southern baptist church that left him scarred and challenged to believe in God at all, (think racist, oppressive, jingoistic etc) - and in Soul Survivor recounts his experiences with some of the people who restored his faith in God, like Paul Brand (a leprosy doctor) and various authors such as GK Chesterton and Tolstoy. I found it very encouraging - mingled with a sense of horror at the sort of insane things that went on in America in the 50s and 60s - and left me wondering how much racism was inherent in the way people of my generation grew up that I don't even notice. It was only a few years before I was born that Aboriginals were given legal recognition as human beings as far as I know!
Well Sunday afternoon I was all packed and ready to go. I went for a wander and found myself in the middle of the crowd of the Gay Pride march. It wasn't that exciting really, coupla hundred of guys running around without shirts regardless of whether they were 90% muscle from the neck up or 90% fat from the neck down...and holding hands and looking rather silly generally. Blah. Whoops, am I being homophobic? Nah. Whats the latin for 'bored by'? :-D Dunno what all the fuss is about...
The hotel's internet died for some reason, I wandered around various Starbucks and things but then found the Hilton Hotel had free wireless in their lobby! Woohoo! Noisiest place I've ever been...there was some huge tour group going beserk at each other...obviously enjoying themselves...wish I'd had my camera.
A manic shuttle ride to the airport and a quick belt through security (hooray) and I was waiting for my flight to Los Angeles...which was delayed. And delayed again. Oh well. I didn't mind, I met up with an older couple from Brisbane who were returning from 7 weeks in the states, and a couple from Orange County who were at the conference. As you do in these situations you exchange lots of personal opinions and details but fail to actually find out eachother's names.
Well I eventually got to LA, and found I'd gotten my frequent flyer points upgrade to Business Class for the leg home! Woohoo! It was REALLY nice...good food, lots of room in the seats, could lay the seat back heaps...also met some more nice people, Lynne from Ringwood who's a trainer with a hospital software company, and Mark who works for BHP Billiton. I also got to go in the Qantas lounge while we waited for the flight. Wow, what a great way to kill a few hours! Above you can see a shot I took out my window from the top floor of the jet, of the sun rising behind us...you can see the light just tipping the clouds beneath us...spectacular...
Ah, sunny Victoria. Well it was sunny _above teh clouds :)
I'm sure it wasn't that green when I left...but it was 8°C when I arrived! Brrrrrrr!
Wonderful to see Alison and Nathaniel and Aaron and Sophie and Ben again...
Thanks for joining me on my trip, if only via electrons. Hope you enjoyed it!
Well the last day of the conference was a lot of fun. Geek news: lots of system administrator sessions today, including two on deploying Xserve and Xserve RAID. These are Apple's rackmounted servers and raid units. The systems above consistute approximately 17 Terabytes of disk storage, shared between variously several different Xserve models, and an IBM AIX server and a Dell Win2K server on fibre channel. The systems do brilliant things like automatically rebuild a RAID when a drive nears failure from a spare, and then let you know you can take the dud drive out with 0 downtime. They use these things to power the 
The last session came and went, with geeks frantically surfing and coding and video chatting until we all got thrown out at 6pm. There were a few farewell parties on that night, but my back was playing up, so I decided to go back to the hotel again and crash. Matt left this afternoon, so Craig moved back in for Friday night - bit of a drama because we forgot to get him a key but I found him outside the hotel in the end :) We went and grabbed tea at a Sushi Boat restaurant...
Probably the best food I've eaten all week! I think I should have tipped them a bit more...but as usual towards the end of a trip I'm reduced to counting my cash to make sure I have enough to last me until I go home without having to get more out of the hole in the wall! 
If you've never been to a sushi boat restaurant, what happens is you have a sushi chef chopping away in the middle of the room, with a little moat going around him, complete with wooden boats, each laden with sushi delicacies. You pick the ones you want (a price is shown by the pattern of the plate) and grab it as it comes past, and then your bill (sorry, "Check") is totted up by the plates on your table at the end of the meal. Mind you the moat was a bit fast, you had to be pretty quick to grab a plate!
This is becoming a bit of a tour of "Places Wot I Have Eaten At"!
I went out to buy myself some Levis...and found this tunnel! Talk about a multi-layered city! If you can't quite tell from this photo, there is a tunnel with a street right on top of it as well as assorted buildings, trees etc...the electric buses run through here. Great idea, dunno why the buses in Australia are all diesel powered and smelly! Oh yeah, I picked up a Relient K CD at Virgin for about $20 Australian! Woohoo!
Well I eventually got to LA, and found I'd gotten my frequent flyer points upgrade to Business Class for the leg home! Woohoo! It was REALLY nice...good food, lots of room in the seats, could lay the seat back heaps...also met some more nice people, Lynne from Ringwood who's a trainer with a hospital software company, and Mark who works for BHP Billiton. I also got to go in the Qantas lounge while we waited for the flight. Wow, what a great way to kill a few hours! Above you can see a shot I took out my window from the top floor of the jet, of the sun rising behind us...you can see the light just tipping the clouds beneath us...spectacular...
Ah, sunny Victoria. Well it was sunny _above teh clouds :)
