motss.con.xxxii (Palo Alto, CA)
motss.con.xxxii (Palo Alto, CA)The following is my motss.con.xxxii con report, or my experiences of the 32nd soc.motss.con (held August 15–19 in Palo Alto, CA and its environs). If you don't like such things, feel free to not read it. It won't bother me. Much.
Travel day! Thank to the broken foot I wasn't going to drive to DTW (and park at the Big blue deck, drag my crap to the interterminal shuttle then to check-in) so I had a 6am Lyft scheduled. Of course, I then was awake and up for good around 3:30am. Finished packing, showered, had some caffeine, and the driver showed up on-time for a quick jaunt to the airport.
Checked the bag curbside and then (as directed) went inside to wait for my wheelchair assistance to get through Security and to the gate. That took about 20 minutes. Then actually getting through the TSA line took another 40 or so, as they didn't have a dedicated or even semi-dedicated agent processing those of us in wheelchairs. Once through security it was a mostly uneventful glide to the gate (though I was reminded again of how oblivious people are). Pre-boarded and got settled into my seat, got my beverage, and we were somehow all aboard and ready to go a few minutes early.
The flight itself was fine... once we got into Iowa or so. Despite being told we'd have smooth air we had turbulence at all altitudes from our original 34,000' to our eventual 28,000' all through Chicago-controlled airspace. Eventually things settled down and the rest of the trip was uneventful. Breakfast was decent — I had the turkey bacon and cheddar omelette with breakfast potatoes and chicken sausage, and it came with a bowl of fresh(ish) fruit. Watched Avengers; Endgame. Drank a total of five kalimoxtos over the course of the trip.
Once we landed in SJC I was the first off the plane and my wheelchair and attendant were waiting for me. We got to baggage claim without incident (though again, people are oblivious and would walk right into the path of a moving wheelchair). Of course, the signs all said our bags would be at claim A4, and the signs at A4 said they'd have the bags for our flight, but after about 20 minutes or so a uniformed employee came over to say that she guessed we hadn't heard her announcement but our bags were on the other side of the room at A1. Sure enough, after another glide over there, we got my bag (the conveyor had halted, full, because — duh! — nobody'd taken their bags yet), and I bid adieu to my pusher.
I stuffed my CPAP into the checked bag, called for a Lyft, and somehow managed to find my way to the vehicle (at the far other-end of the baggage claim area, of course). We got to the hotel mostly without incident; the driver first went into the driveway for the parking lot before the hotel, then overshot the hotel driveway, and eventually figured out how to drop me off in front of the (oops) half-flight of stairs up to the lobby. I couldn't check in (the room wasn't ready) so I dumped my bags with the clerk and ran out to Jack in the Box for a burger and fries for lunch.
Got back to the hotel after lunch and hung out in the lobby waiting for the room to be ready. Chatted with John and Robert for a while until they left for their lunch. Once my room was ready I checked in, headed upstairs to unpack, changed into my swimsuit, spent some time in the pool, schmoozed with other arriving motsseurs, and eventually headed back to the room for a power nap before the (late) foodie dinner.
We had eight people (John, Ken, Lars, Leith, Ned, Robert, Vadim, and I) at dinner at Evvia. We shared five appetizers — roasted beets, grilled octopus, taramosalata, tzatziki, and (from the specials list) a mushroom-n-feta dish — and two bottles of an excellent Russian River (CA) pinot noir. For my main course I had the rib-cut, mesquite-grilled lamb chops with olive oil lemon roasted potatoes (and a few bites of Robert's lamb shank braised in aromatic spices with orzo). Other main dishes included grilled lamb and vegetable skewers, grilled whole branzino, and moussaka. For dessert I had the warm chocolate cake (with sour cherry ice cream, chocolate sauce, and cocoa nibs). Others had the cherry and nectarine tart (with vanilla ice cream), rice pudding (with poached figs and mint), phyllo-wrapped vanilla custard, and granita (but I don't recall what flavor).
After dinner most of us adjourned to the hotel pool deck for conversation, but by this point it was pushing 1:30am biological time and I'd been up for 22 hours so I went up to my room and to bed.
I woke up, caught up on email and social media — or at least as caught up as I'm gonna get — and got ready before meeting folks in the lobby at 8:30am to head to breakfast. John, Leith, Robert and I wound up going to Izzy's Brooklyn Bagels; I had the lox special (plain bagel, cream cheese, and smoked wild salmon trimmings). After breakfast we met up at the hotel with Dennis, Ken, Lisa, and Rod and we all headed out to the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University. I spent most of my time viewing the Rodin, with a brief swing throught he African and Asian exhibits on the main level. We also ate lunch at the cafe there; I had a sandwich (smoked ham and organic cheddar with honey mustard, lettuce, and tomato chutney, served on a sliced baguette, and a side of couscous with brunoised apple and cucumber).
After lunch I hung out at (and in) the pool for a couple of hours with (at various times) with Alan, John, Ken, Leith, Lisa, Ned, Robert, and Rod. Showered off the saltwater, caught up on social media, wrote some more of this trip report, and got ready for the BYO picnic.
Leith and I headed to Khoury's Market for dinner. I wound up getting a pastrami and swiss on sliced sourdough, a side of potato salad, and a jug of raspberry lemonade for myself, and a bag of cookies to share with the group. Leith got his own sandwich, side, and drink, and the makings of a cheese plate to share (brie, blue, and manchego with sea-salt crackers).
Around 5:30pm we left with Rod to head to Rinconada Park for the Welcome Dinner picnic. We were not the only ones who thought of bringing stuff to share; in addition to our 3 cheeses we had another cheese and more crackers, tortilla chips, two kinds of salsa, guacamole, at least three other containers of cookies, and three pies. We all ate way too much food in the 2+ hours we were there.
We left the park around 8, most of us went back to the hotel, and we sat down by the pool schmoozing until at least 9:30pm (when I gave up the ghost). I performed my evening ablutions and headed off to bed.
Despite difficulty falling asleep I managed to wake up around 6:30am. Caught up on personal email and social media, wrote more of this report, showered, dressed, and was ready for the day by 8:30am or so. Went to the Starbucks next door for a breakfast sandwich and ate it outside before heading back to the hotel to meet up with the group heading out to Monterey for the day.
We left the hotel a little before 10am. I shared a car with Ken, Kathryn, and Aunt Terry. It took about 2.5 hours to get there (heavy traffic) and only about 1.5 to get back. We all met up at Zum Sushi where I pigged out on an iron man roll, a rainbow roll, and 2 unagi nigiri (which had a lot of unagi). After lunch I was part of the group of six that wound up at the Dali exhibit which was okay but not great. After we got back to the hotel I hung out with others poolside for a bit, took a quick dip in the pool to cool down (especially the bum foot), had a small glass of rye whiskey that Gwengolyn and Thomas brought with them, then went to get off my feet for a bit before dinner.
I wound up going with Gwengolyn, John, Kathryn, Ken, Leith, Robert, Aunt Terry, Thomas to Il Fornaio for dinner. I had an excellent wine (which I didn't write down), a very nice caprese salad (where about 2/3 of the tomatoes were yellow and all were heirloom), and a very good gnocci a la bolognese. Leith and I split a dessert trio of cannoli, tiramisu, and zabaglione.
After dinner we got back to the hotel (around 11pm) and everyone else had disappeared so we just went to bed.
Today started with dim sum at Tai Pan. We had 25 people spread across two tables (15 and 10). We ordered and ate too much, including crispy shrimp ball, gai lan (Chinese broccoli), har gow (shrimp dumpling), minced chicken in lettuce cups, pea shoot dumpling with prawns, pea shoots dumpling, siu mai, spinach dumplings both with and without shrimp, steamed bbq pork buns, string beans with pork, turnip cake, and vermicelli Shanghai-style, with egg tarts and mango pudding for dessert.
After dim sum and the mandatory photo, some people left to go home, others to visit with Arnold at his home, and the rest of us (including me) to the hotel. We hung out by (and for some of us, in) the pool for a couple of hours before the sculpture garden group headed out. My foot was bothering me so I went to the room to get it out of the boot and elevated.
At 5:30 we met in the lobby to head up to California Avenue for dinner. Pastis Bistro was able to seat us as a party of nine and had food everyone could eat given dietary restrictions, so that's where we ended up. I had moule et frites with the traditional garlic-white wine sauce, and chocolate mousse for dessert. The rabbit and duck looked good too.
After dinner we went back to the hotel. While some played the card game Lisa brought, I schmoozed for a bit before heading up to pack... and deal with some flight confusion. My trip home was via Salt Lake City, and the SLC-DTW flight was delayed 2h15m (not the 15m I thought based on their text message), so I looked at my rebooking options. I could get the same seat on a direct SJC-DTW flight that began boarding around 11am, but given the issues I had getting a wheelchair at and then going through security at DTW I wanted to have extra time in the schedule so I'd have to leave the hotel by 8:30am, 9am at the latest, which ruled out the Stragglers' Breakfast for me (and which is why I didn't pick that flight home originally, I suspect). I went back downstairs to say goodbye to the remaining gamers and then headed up to bed.
Travel day! Woke up before my alarm, finished packing everything up, and was downstairs in the lobby to say Goodbye to the remaining early-risers as they headed off to the Stragglers' Breakfast. My Lyft driver arrived on time and got me to SJC, where there was a very short (less than five minute) wait for wheelchair assistance and virtually no wait through security. Even better, my gate was mere feet away from the security checkpoint so I probably could've walked the entire thing anyhow. Of course, having left the extra time in my schedule, I had about a two-hour wait until my flight boarded.
Boarding itself was uneventful, the skies were mostly clear and smooth, lunch was decent enough (cheeseburger, potato salad, and mini pecan tartlet), the drinks were plentiful (I had five kalimoxtos during the 4.5-hour flight), and we got into Detroit about five minutes early at 7:12pm.
And I waited for wheelchair assistance.
One wheelchair showed up with a supervisor, who settled me in the chair, got a second chair and pusher for the little old lady who needed one, and they left. And left me sitting there.
For a grand total of 39 minutes, no less than five phone calls to the dispatchers under contract to DTW, and at least three overhead terminal-wide announcements.
As I said to the supervisor who showed up to make excuses and again when my pusher finally showed up at 7:51pm, I'm sorry y'all're slammed. I'm sorry that you have passengers needing to make connecting flights so those of us with Detroit as our terminus are bumped to the bottom of the queue. But if you don't have enough people to do the job then hire more people, and if your profit margin is too low then go out of business and let someone else take over the contract. I have zero sympathy for the management here. (And to be clear, this is all a problem with the company contracted out by the airport to provide the service, not a Delta issue. The Delta staff were as helpful as possible under the circumstances.)
Anyhow, I got wheeled to baggage claim... to find that my bag, allegedly delivered at 7:29pm, was not on either conveyor belt 8 or 9 as it should have been. Headed to the baggage services office, where there was a very long line (apparently 20-odd people coming in from PHL had bag issues). As it happens, my bag was indeed in the storeroom, I assume because it had the SKY PRIORITY label on it and had been wheeling around for "too long" (while I waited for wheelchair assistance at the gate).
My assistant wheeled me up and over to the ride sharing area where I thanked and tipped him (his service, once he arrived, was worthy of it) and sent him on his way to help the next client. I got my keys out of the laptop bag and put both the laptop and CPAP bags inside the suitcase itself so I'd have just one thing, not three, to manhandle into the car then house. My Lyft driver showed up as scheduled and we had an uneventful ride out to mine. I got home around 9pm, unpacked, set up the laptop and CPAP machine, took my evening drugs, and was in bed by 10:30pm (and without dinner as I didn't want to go out, order pizza delivery, or cook).