A part of project Brave New Jon…
I’m going to take a semi-crazy vacation in California (CA) on the back of a couple of conferences I’m scheduled to be at anyway. I’ll combine a series of road trips with hiking, surfing, lying on the beach, cycling, long walks, sailing, and hanging out with various friends. Other stuff will likely happen too. Here’s what seems to be the semi-final itinerary.
Red Hat Summit, San Diego.
The Summit runs from May 9-11. I fly out to San Diego on Tuesday (UA7780 12:21 BOS -> 13:55 IAD; UA231 14:35 IAD -> 16:54 SAN) and arrive in time for the pre-event party. I am not actually speaking until Friday (my lecture is entitled “Handling Asynchronous Driver Updates in RHEL5 and Beyond”) and will be attending other conference events/working on Red Hat stuff that comes up. I am looking forward to the opportunity to hang out with Red Hat customers and anyone who uses RHEL5 or Fedora and has questions/comments on driver support. On Friday evening, I’m looking to schedule some surfing before I leave San Diego. The conference concludes around 3 or 4pm, so I’m looking to go out shortly thereafter (we’re near the beach anyway). I would go to Mexico, but I don’t want that border crossing experience.
Sailing, San Francisco
I fly up to San Francisco in the morning of May 12 (UA710 11:16 SAN -> 12:43 SFO) with the intention of going sailing with Sven and the guys. I am in town until the Sunday evening, and during that time may also try to head out to meet Bill W. to catchup. I will hire (US: rent) a bike for an afternoon on probably the Sunday and ride around San Francisco and out to the Golden Gate Bridge. I last did that a few years ago. This time, I hope to also be in time for the ferry to Alcatraz, at some point.
Road Trip, Yosemite
I live for random experiences. I’ve never taken a proper US-style “road trip” (unless you count driving down to New York, which I don’t really think counts as a US style “road trip”), so I’m renting a Ford Mustang convertible (hopefully a red one, gotta live that cliche) on May 14 and driving out to Yosemite for a couple days. I’m staying in Fish Camp (Apple Tree Inn – 1110 Highway 41) and will do a day hike in the park, camera in hand – I just bought 3GB of additional MMC/SD media.
After visiting the park, I’m driving back to San Francisco, stopping over at a friend’s place to do a little target practice. Being originally British, I’ve never even held a gun in my life. So the opportunity to try out a little target practice really does appeal to me. At least once. I’m really not a fan of guns in general, but I’ll leave that argument to one side. Once I get back to San Francisco, I’m planning to drive out to Palo Alto to hang out with another friend, who happens to be in town from Dubai.
Road Trip, Pacific Coast Highway
I’ve heard good things about California State Highway 1. Good things. But I’ve never actually driven in California, much less seen said highway or lived that particular experience. So, I’m correcting this immediately by driving the Mustang down from San Francisco to Los Angeles. I’m leaving early on May 16 and aim to cover as much of the route as I can in the first day, stopping over only when it gets late and I find somewhere interesting on the way. There are a lot of great views (therefore a secondary reason for the camera upgrade) along the way and I intend to stop from time to time to check these out.
At some point around lunchtime on May 17 (so again, leaving early in the morning on that day) I intend to arrive at the Crowne Plaza Hotel – the one where they filmed “Little Miss Sunshine” (the option was there, and it amused me somewhat) and then drive over to Oxnard to the Silver Strand Surf School for what will hopefully be part 2 of the surfing. I’ve scheduled an afternoon of private tuition and if it goes well will try to figure out a way to have a few more hours before I leave LA. I need to leave early on May 18 in order to get into Los Angeles before rush hour so I can attend the FreedomHEC.
FreedomHEC, Los Angeles
I am speaking about the RHEL5 Driver Update project and future goals for vendor-managed 3PM (3rd Party Modules – a term that rostedt coined/used recently and is bound to become somewhat popular). The conference is at the Holiday Inn LA Center, and I think I even know where that is (from having been downtown once before – emphasis on once). I will hang out in LA on the Friday evening, and on the Saturday prior to my flight – I’ve got a couple of friends I would like to catch up with.
Camping, Tamales Bay
I am heading back up to San Francisco on May 19 (UA1798 19:10 LAX -> 20:25 SFO) for beer, oysters, and camping in Tamales Bay. I’ll get there late, and depending on my navigation will still be able to partake of beerage and camp before we all head out on the Sunday morning. The site is only accessible by boat, so it’s likely that I’ll need to do a crossing in the dark…which should be quite fun, or at least quite interesting. On the Sunday, I might take a short hop up to PDX to hang out with Deepak and the gang, although this is currently just a “there are a few minutes with nothing planned, so we better plan something, quick!” thing.
Ultimately, I fly back to Boston on May 21 (UA770 12:55 SFO -> 16:28 DEN; UA726 18:33 DEN -> 12:23 BOS) and will then be in the office, working on various followup from conferences and car shopping.
Jon.