MySQL UC: Day 0

Got up before 6 a.m. to drive to Atlanta for a 10 a.m. flight to San Jose, CA (Delta). Flight left mostly on time, and full. Fun travel fact: You don't need a driver's license to travel. When I went to PyCon in DC, I found out once I was on the airport shuttle that mine was gone. I used my university ID instead; no one questioned it. I decided to use it again for this trip, with the same results. Fun travel fact #2: When travelling to Washington, DC, you are not allowed to leave your seat during the last 30 minutes. If you do, air marshalls might shoot you. The same rule applies for outgoing flights, although "30 minutes" is somewhat loosely interpreted: We sat on the ground for almost an hour, and we still weren't supposed to get up, although several people did, and no one got shot. I managed to watch about 1.25 DVDs before the battery gave up on the laptop. Arrived around noon local time. After an hour or so at the San Jose airport, I managed to catch an airport shuttle to my hotel in Sunnyvale (4-Points Sheridan). The room is nice: Large with a vaulted ceiling. Staying here was not my first choice, but the conference hotel was full for the first few days. Fine dining at the local Jack-in-the-Box. Walked to the conference hotel: The Westin in Santa Clara. This is about a 2.5 mi hike from my hotel. On the way up Great American Parkway, I passed a lot of the big names in the tech industry: Sun, Yahoo!, McAfee, NetGear, ATI. I also passed Globix. Once upon a time I worked for Globix in Atlanta (pre-bankruptcy). Passing it in Santa Clara is kind of running into your creepy uncle. Santa Clara is pretty clean, at least in the sense of not having a lot of litter. The weather is nice, and the mountains are scenic. It's urban, but not so densely urban as Atlanta or New York or Washington, DC. I registered for the conference. At this point I am pretty burned out, and I still have to get back to my hotel. I decide to walk back the other way, which is down Tasman Drive to Lawrence Expressway. This is somewhat more roundabout, as Lawrence Expressway doesn't have sideways all the way down. But I do manage to drag my ass back. The 55 bus looks like the best one to take tomorrow. Bus fare is $1.75. I'm hurting by the time I am back to the hotel, so I decide to make use of the outdoor Jacuzzi. However, no one else has used it for some time, so it is pretty cold. I stay in about 45 minutes because I need the massage, and it does help a bit. Some high school kids come over to check it out and they all puss out fairly quickly. Too tired to write anything that night, so I watch a DVD and go to bed about 1 a.m. EDT.