After several false starts and numerous natural disasters, I am finally on my way to the Bay Area again. The last flight of the day seems to be the charmed one as this is the first flight that has flown in three days. The last one I was on was the same as Flagstaff was coming off of several days of no power and several feet of snow. Even so, despite the lack of service, there are only six people on this flight. Maybe everyone else got used to driving to phoenix.
While its tough to leave the wife and kids, its nice to get a little time in the big city where everyone is in a hurry to get where they're going and the conversation at lunch is always about the next great big idea that is going to turn into a billion dollar business. While SW programmers in the rest of the world may complain about VCs and their distorted and sick business views, everyone out here has just adapted, and is working on the next netscape with pie in the sky forcasts that have a marginal chance of succeeding but are ready to burn cash like mad the minute a VC signs the check.
Actually, what I'm most looking forwards to, besides some good take-out, is hitting the geek mecha "Fry's Electronics". Though I don't usually buy a lot, there's something about wandering up and down isle after isle of USB cables, wifi adaptors and cheap robot toys from China, that you just can't get online at pricegrabber or amazon. Of course, thanks to my treo I can actually comparison shop online if I do see something, and if the need strikes me, I can even order it (though I have yet to actually buy anything online so far).
The only improvement would be some barcode scanning software for the treo camera, and a UPC interface to pricegrabber. I'll have to add that to my list of things to write for the Palm.
