Follow-up

Macworld turned out to be pretty decent after all. As I mentioned before, the new convention center is easily the equal of any others I have been to (New York and Atlanta) - in fact, I like it a lot better than New York's Javits center. It's well-designed to the point where two or three conventions of Interop scale could coexist. Combined with the adjacent World Trade Center Boston, there are not many conventions we couldn't host.

Bad things about the location - the surrounding area is like Baghdad minus the mortar shells. Outside of the elevated roadway to the WTC complex there isn't much to the neighborhood so far. Parking isn't too tough to get to, but the walk is through a construction area and rather unsafe. The planned MBTA silver line underground busway isn't finished yet, though the stations are ready. So the walkways and staircases are still ostensibly blocked off from pedestrians, who mainly ignored that and stepped over the barriers to use the convenient stairs.

Other, minor quibbles: the food court closes early. I went to grab some food at 3:20 or so and everything was closing up already, even though there were still plenty of folks around. The bathrooms were not being well-stocked (at least as far as paper towels go), and there appeared to be a couple of cases of minor plumbing leaks. And the side entrances are not terribly intuitive to get to, but that may be a function of the unfinished state of the surrounding area.

I wound up the day there by running into one of my friends' ex, and we caught up for a while on our way out to parking. She's a good egg. The BNUG meeting that evening was interesting, both for the topic (Novell/SuSE Linux), and for the intermittent power outage that was sweeping the Newton area. When I arrived at Mount Ida, power in the surrounding area (and the guard shack) was out, but the student center where the meeting was had power. Midway through, we lost power there as well, but the meeting continued because the presentation was on a laptop anyhow. One of the guys went to go get flashlights from his car so we could at least see the speaker. It was masterful improvisation. Not to mention that Novell's Scott Lewis (who presented) is always a terrific technical speaker.

I ended the night by throwing out a dead mouse that Jane was afraid to touch. I suspected that the one Gracie caught a couple of months ago wasn't the last one. This one seems to have found our poison baits. Which means that Gracie is now banned from the cellar for the foreseeable future.

MacWorld purchase update: $0. I was looking longingly at a nice computer backpack from an Australian company called STM, but ultimately passed. I do have a somewhat need for an inexpensive laptop backpack that's in-between my Incase shoulder sling (just big enough for my PowerBook, charger, and a notepad) and my enormous Timbuk2 messenger bag. Having a backpack form factor is also handy. I loved the STM design, but the larger bag was just a little too big, and their sports bag was a little too flimsy. They have a bag designed for the 15" form factor, but it's not out yet. The prototype I saw at the show was just right, though, and their pricing is vary inexpensive - it'll sell for about $80 once it's out.

I also got a card from Belkin that I can use to buy virtually anything of theirs though month-end for 50% off. Mom, I'll be getting you a USB hub for about $15. You can use it. Trust me.