Benford Does Stuff

I found this posting that I thought was eaten by the internet whilst I was in San Fransisco. Here it is in its original glory:

Train ride from Portland to Emryville was fairly smooth, though at 17 hours it was still a bit tiring. However, unlike an airplane, there were in-transit meals that were actually pretty good, and there was an observation car where you could hang out if you didn’t want to sit down all of the time. The breakfast special was a wierd omelette pizza, which suprisingly did not give me any stomach trouble.

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So I was scheduled to head back home, but I heard about how there was a family reunion just two days after the conference. I was able to get things cleared with work, so I was able to stay the extra weekday and attend the family reuion.

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Day 2 of HigherEdWebDev convention and things went pretty well. I attended two particularly good panels on Agile development and Test driven development.

For the uninitiated, Agile development is more flexible than traditional software design patterns. The idea is that you have something fully functional to show your customer every two weeks (or failing that, some kind of short time period). The key thing is that

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Well, springfield is a big town. There’s a lot to do on a Sunday Afternoon, such as watch football. I played mini golf at one point which was quite nostalgic. Especially the part with the dinosaur (A brontosaurus) blocking my path about halfway through the course.

I’m off to the the higher ed web development conference in Springfield, Missouri. Plane rides went just fine and nothing particularly outstanding has happened so far.

During the ride I was powerlevling my party in FF3 because the game designers saw it fit that by the time you got to the final dungeon, you would be just fine for facing the local monsters, but would have to go to a point at which you could not save before fighting the worst boss in the world and you would also be about 10 levels below what could be considered even remotely survivable by ordinary human beings.

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So the raft rally Adventure Weekend went absolutely great!

Friday was a bit uneventful. Most of it was just getting to Camp Johna, near the White Salmon river in Washington. During the trip I discovered that Jack in the box is basically the same as McDonald’s, but with a few key differences:

1. Jack in the box has a dollar menu. McDonald’s has a $1.09 menu. That’s right, McD’s is now terrible for you and expensive
2. Jack in the box does not prefix “Mc” to everything, including pancakes
3. Jack in the box also sells “tacos”

Beyond that, there’s really no difference, but it was that or coffee cake at starbucks.

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I tried writing some blog posts in california, but wordpress eated them. This is here as bait to see if I can duplicate the problem

Edit: stuff seems to be working now for some reason. Will post on the San Fransisco trip soon. I hope I remember it all by then.

Well, graduation was great, finding out that I got a “real” job (the kind where I can ask about medical benefits without being handed a toothbrush) was great as well. I’ve got about a week before my start date so I’ve decided to do something fun.

Something, in this case, is going on a trip. To San Fransisco in fact.  I’ve never traveled there before, Airport terminals aside I’ve got Amtrak reservations so I can take the Train down anyhow. I’m hoping to eat dinner in an actual dining car either on the way over or on the return trip. I’ve heard that its really fun and it’ll probably be better than a cardboard cup of soup or a hot dog; the next best availible options mid-nonflight.

The trip will be epic. The train portion will take 17 hrs (which includes some sleep time) and then there will be a ~40 minute bus ride to arrive at the Wharf. I have youth hostel reservations at the Wharf, which is near many of the cool areas to see.

Well, after 5 connections, using a combination of plane train and bus, I have finally returned home, just in time to start class again on Tuesday.

It’s really nice to be home again but I’m still running on Japanese time, making normal sleep quite difficult for the moment.

Ive made it most of the way back at this point. I have finished all of my plane flights and now i’m in Washington, waiting for my train to Portland tomorrow. Passenger rail for the win?

Huzzah for frequent flier miles.