Saturday in Austin

Saturday was my last full day in Austin, and my day off. I hung out with philreed and gina_fischer, who showed me around the area. Hills and city streets, toy stores and a candy shop . . . almost 11 km of walking.

Somewhere in there, we got lunch. I've never had chili in Texas, so the Texas Chili Parlor was a good choice. I had their XXX chili, supposedly their hottest. I still added jalapeños.

I'm not sure why I wanted that heat . . . it was a warm, sunny day (while Montréal was freezing). I even got a little sunburn. But hey, it fueled the walk!

Toward evening, philreed and I met with SJ about a Secret Topic. It's difficult to say where that will go, but it was an interesting meeting. It was also an excuse to have sashimi. It's always a good time for sashimi.

Then it was time for a stop off at a birthday party (that of Dr. Max More), but only briefly. That's because philreed and I had to get home before too late . . .

. . . to catch our flights today. More on that when I get home in one piece!

Posted via LiveJournal.app.

Flying to Montréal

Austin: Thanks to philreed also having to fly – and within 45 minutes of me, as luck would have it – I had someone to talk with at the airport. This made the wait caused by showing up two hours early (to make the TSA happy) go by in a snap. We talked work talk, sure, but not just that. It sure was nice of him and gina_fischer to put me up at their place and drive me around . . . I was sorry to have to say goodbye!

In the air: A fairly generic flight, but I can't complain: no screaming kids and no coughing plague rats. I started an article for Pyramid #3/5 . . . but had to stop work thanks to the laptop battery. Grr.

Chicago: With all public electrical outlets in use, a dead battery, and a three-hour layover, I decided to search more thoroughly for sushi. No joy on the G, H, K, or L concourses . . . how could a food that's ubiquitous in every major North American city be missing from the second-busiest airport in the U.S.? I settled for a veggie bagel and a blueberry muffin. I eventually scored an outlet when other geeks bugged out, got more writing done, and charged up for the flight.

In the air: The genius move of having our flight leave from the same gate as a flight to Toronto, scheduled just minutes previous, got us off to a late start. (No thanks to three Toronto passengers standing around in plain sight, being paged and ignoring it, thereby delaying their flight and mine.) Luckily, a tailwind corrected the situation. Got a bit more work done on the article, but my seatmate's perfume gave me a headache, so I had to stop squinting at a screen.

Montréal: Cold: -8°C. But Customs was a breeze and now I'm in a cab discussing world politics. Home!

Posted via LiveJournal.app.