Travel – Page 5 – Made by Mikal

Dave and Busters

Post author:mikal
Post published:November 18, 2006
Post category:Travel

To celebrate a recent launch the team went out to an "adult arcade" called Dave and Busters today. An adult arcade is pretty much what it sounds like -- imagine a huge collection of arcade games, pool tables, bar, and restaurant. I of course had the most American thing I could find, which was a double cheese burger. It was sufficiently huge that I didn't really have dinner, just a light snack. Dave and Busters was cool, and I recommend having a look if you ever see one of them. The food is generic, but of a reasonable quality and quite cheap compared to what you would pay in Australia. The games are expensive, but given I have basically never been to an arcade in Australia I don't know if that is run for the course or not. I had fun, and I suspect that James with his fifty fluid ounces of Guinness did too. Oh, thats 1.47867648 liters by the way.

Mi Pueblo

Post author:mikal
Post published:November 6, 2006
Post category:Travel

The phrase "Mi Pueblo" is remarkably over used, which made web surfing for this one hard. For some time, Catherine has been doing some of our food shopping at the little Spanish grocery store in Mountain View. For the first time I went along yesterday (she normally goes when I am at work). Imagine a food shop full of kids running around the place, loud Mexican music playing, where you're the only ones speaking English. It was great fun... Like a very short trip to Mexico. Oh, and it's cheap. Really cheap. For example, half the price of Safeway for Sirloin steak, and most fruit. For some time I've been thinking I should learn some basic Spanish. I really should get around to doing that...

Getting ready to leave Sydney

Post author:mikal
Post published:November 1, 2006
Post category:Travel

I haven't written much about the couple of weeks I've spent in Sydney. Nothing really exciting happened, apart from a trip home to see the kids (the Southern Tablelands were greener than I expected), a visit to CLUG another to SLUG, and a lot of time spent eating at restaurants on King Street in Newtown. I've decided that I like the Sydney train system, but not the trains themselves. The trains fall into several categories: Millennium trains: the standard one would expect from any world class train system. There are hardly any of these, but they're the only ones with screens saying what station is next, and are in a good state of repair. It seems that they're mainly devoted to the tourist-centric airport runs. Tangaras: about 15 years old I'm told. They're ok but nothing special. Craptastics: these are the ones older than Tangaras but with retrofitted air conditioning. They must be about 30 years old from the look of things. They're crap. Craptanics: imagine a Craptastic before it had the air conditioning retrofit. This is that train. At least you can open the windows, which helps let some of the reek of sweaty office workers and teenaged boys…

Go see the stilty building

Post author:mikal
Post published:November 1, 2006
Post category:Travel

If I find myself in New York, New York I should try and see the stilty building of doom, a sky scraper which stands on nine story high stilts so that it could use a site occupied by a church. I can't work out how to deep link to Flickr images, so click these instead! http://www.flickr.com/photos/geneko/253774855/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/musiclover-uk/272615715/

In Sydney!

Post author:mikal
Post published:October 15, 2006
Post category:Travel

So now I am in Sydney, with Grant and Lindsay (old friends from Canberra). Newtown seems nice, in fact the house itself is very nice. However, the streets are pretty Victorian and built up, which is a bit oppressive. Then again, I am told there are a bunch of parks I haven't seen yet, so I'll delay any further comment until then. It appears it's only about 15 minutes on the train from here to work, which will be nice during the week. More news later...

Beware the concierge at the Rendezvous Hotel!

Post author:mikal
Post published:October 15, 2006
Post category:Travel

Heh, he cancelled my hire car booking without my knowledge or permission. Then when it was fixed, the car company tried to bill me $100 for cancelling. It took a while to sort out...

Qantas site

Post author:mikal
Post published:October 10, 2006
Post category:Travel

Is it just me, or is the Qantas website crazy slow?

Melbourne

Post author:mikal
Post published:October 6, 2006
Post category:Travel

This one took a couple of days to write up cause I am slack... I flew down to Melbourne for the night the other day to present a beta of the NSLU2 hacking talk at the Linux Users of Victoria LUG meeting. It's good that I did, because although the talk was ok, I don't think it was up to standard for a conference, and it gives me some time to work out what was wrong and then fix it up in time for the real deal. The main problem is that some of the demos took too long to work because I hadn't factored in reboot time for the devices. Dinner afterwards was really nice too, and I am actually quite impressed with the high level of clue at the LUG. There also seem to be some pretty cool MythTV hacking projects happening in Melbourne at the moment too. Oh, and thanks to Stewart for picking me up from the airport, thus saving me a $50 cab fare.

In Canberra

Post author:mikal
Post published:October 3, 2006
Post category:Travel

Lefty tighty, righty loosey When Frank used to drive in the US when we were on business trips, he'd mutter "Righty tighty, lefty loosey" as he turned corners to make sure he ended up on the correct side of the road. Now that I am back in Australia, I guess I need to mutter the opposite when I drive around. I was a little nervous when I drove for the first time since returning today, but it was actually really easy. It's good to know that I haven't broken my brain permanently. Or at least not on that front. Today was lunch with my mother and brother, a wander around the National Botanic gardens, and then a quick trip into the city. It's interesting that all of Civic seems to be taken over by the Canberra Center (a shopping mall), which now consumes something like three more city blocks than it used to. Met Steve Walsh for beer, and then off to my mother-in-law's for dinner. Now I am at dad's house, finishing up my talk for LUV tomorrow night. Wish me luck. [btags:]

Back in Canberra again

Post author:mikal
Post published:October 2, 2006
Post category:Travel

Catherine, the kids and I have made it back to Canberra successfully. The flight from SFO to SYD was actually pretty good. I was dreading the kids screaming the whole way, but that completely didn't happen. They were a bit fidgety by the end, but so was I so that's fair enough. Met by various parental units at the airport, had a quick look around our old house (which dad now lives in), off the Jaycar for emergency electronics (power supplies for slugs and wall socket converters), and then a big lunch at my mother in laws. More details later. [btags:]