Peregrine

I recently posted about a nice little bit of historical information that I had found while traveling for work. Since then, I purchased a digital photo camera. This week, since I’m back at the same location where I found “The Real McCoy” factoid and since I brought my new camera, I decided to take some pictures of some of the plaques.

Unfortunately, the subject I’m trying to photograph is so highly reflective, that only 4 out of the 14 photos I snapped today turned out well enough to be used.
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As most of you know by now, I’m spending this week on the road. One thing that makes a big difference in how you feel throughout the day is to have a good breakfast. That doesn’t mean a huge feast, just something to get your body energized for the day. This is especially true when traveling.

So, with that in mind, I have filled out the “order some breakfast” door hanger and placed it on the handle the past two nights. Unfortunately for me, each morning, there was no breakfast. It never showed up.
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This week, I’m again in Alexandria, Virginia. I arrived yesterday afternoon, flying in at Ronald Reagan National Airport. I took the Metro train into Old Town Alexandria where my hotel is.

The work this week is to teach one of Linux courses for (and at) the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. I’ve been here once before, as some of you may recall.

My hotel is only about a 4 block walk from the Patent Office. Following the first day’s class, I started back only to find that it was just starting to rain. As I completed the first block, I reached a point where I could see farther away between the buildings and knew I had to hurry if I didn’t want to get drenched.

I just love the rain. I normally don’t mind getting caught in it, either. But today, I was wearing a silk tie that my wife recently gave me (no, it wasn’t for Father’s Day, it was a few months ago).

Sitting here working on my notebook for the past couple of hours, I have been listening to Frank Sinatra and a lot of strange sounding thunder. Looking out the window, I can see the rain coming down in droves, pounding the cobbled streets, but I can’t hear it. I think the thick windows are mutating the sound of the thunder. It’s almost like some one is playing it through giant, blown speakers. It’s rather tinny. Weird.

Oh, but I am loving it. :)

This week, I’m working at the United State Patent & Trademark Office. On Monday, I had some time to myself during lunch and walked around the halls of their classrooms floor. Outside the door of each is a display mounted on the wall, talking about a different inventor (or inventors), their patent(s) and how they affected technology & society.

This one in particular caught my eye, so I took a picture of it with the camera in my cell phone.

Elijah McCoy, the son of former slaves, worked for the Michigan Central Railroad as a fireman. His duties included lubricating engine parts. McCoy invented his automatic lubricator. Soon, long distance locomotives, transatlantic ships and factory machines were using his lubricating invention. His reputation spread, and users were wary of buying cheap substitutes. As a result they often asked for “the real McCoy.”

Last week, I found out I would be spending this week in San Francisco, California. I’ve never been here, before. I came home and asked Charlotte if she wanted to go with me. That put a really big smile on her face.

We had to go to Idaho for my youngest brother’s wedding over the weekend, so I asked Guru Labs to book my flight from Boise instead of Salk Lake City. No problem, but I’m flying on Alaska (they’re the ones who decided to loose my “checked plane-side” bag the last time I flew with them).

While driving to my folks house in Weiser, Idaho, I got Delta on the phone and reserved a seat for Charlotte using some of my 100,000+ miles (just a hint, I’ve spent 145,000 miles on tickets in the past 20 months). It wasn’t until Saturday night that I had an opportunity to pay the fees for the ticket, but I took care of it. We left my folks house at 9am to head to BOI, about an 80 mile drive.

My flight left first, so Charlotte saw me off at my gate. I actually flew on a turboprop aircraft! I haven’t been on one of these since October, 1997. I tried to call Charlotte’s cell phone when I reached Portland (to change planes) but she had it off. I had a 2+ hour layover (+20 they had added on since printing my boarding pass).

Later, Charlotte called and told me that she was sitting on the plane at BOI, still on the ground; there was a mechanical issue. Her flight out of Boise ended up delayed about 90 minutes. That meant that she had to be re-booked to another flight from SLC to SFO (San Fransisco). Since this is Delta, I knew there would be no problem; they have billboards that advertise around SLC that they have no less than 17 flights a day from SLC to SFO, and back.

So, I finally left PDX (Portland, Oregon), this time on a CRJ700. Those are very nice 70-seat “regional” jets. Once I got in to SFO, I found the baggage carousel that Charlotte’s bag would be coming out of (I never check, unless I have no choice). I sat around for 2.5 hours until she got there.

We took a cab to our hotel, which is right in the heart of the Financial District of San Fransisco; nice! it was about 7pm by then, so we got dinner at the Elephant & Castle Restaurant & Pub, attached to our hotel. It was very good food and a fun, English Pub atmosphere. Oh, and it’s smoke free, which is always a big plus.

Since Charlotte has been to San Fransisco many times, she’s just loving it. I have walked from my hotel to the training center where I’m teaching this week, each day. It’s a nice 7-8 blocks walk (for those of you who think that blocks come 6-to-a-mile, that’s only in Utah; these are about 10-12/mile). But, there’s going to be very heavy rain overnight and tomorrow, so I might take a cab instead.

I think we’re going to see Alcatraz Friday evening. If I want to do that, I had better get tickets tonight. Charlotte says we have to go to Fisherman’s Wharf and my students have told me about an excellent little pizza place called North Beach Pizza in Little Italy, which will be about a 7 minute walk from our hotel; I think we’ll go there tomorrow night.