California For Usenix 99

On Monday I was required to work in the afternoon, so I spent the morning puttering about inland from Carmel. Nothing too exciting to report, other than the wine industry, which is predominantly north of San Francisco, is spreading to Monterey/Carmel.

Monday and Tuesday was work - redesigning some things, which means it will take longer before I can retire again :-(

We finished early on Tuesday afternoon, so I drove to Carmel, where there is another old mission church. This one is interesting for several aspects. First is that it was in a broken down state until the early 1930s when resoration was started. Restoration as in adding the roof! Today it is not at all apparent that it was in such a poor state. Secondly, Father Junipero Serra (now Blessed, a precursor to sainthood) is buried in the church.

And thirdly, there is a plaque in the church grounds from the French Government, commenerating the arrival of the "Comte de La Perouse", who sailed from there to Botany Bay, only to arrive a little after Captain Philip. And, of course, the suburb of La Perouse is named after him. Botany Bay was the last sighting of his party - they were never heard of again.

Wednesday through Friday was the conference proper, and so not much to mention to the general audience. Except that on Wednesday evening there is a reception, a belated welcome. This year it was located at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, so this was a good chance to visit the aquarium, and have dessert and a drink too! There is also an exhibition associated with the conference, but it is a small one. However, a number of book sellers are on hand, most notably O'Reilly, many of whose books I have, and they are, without exception, excellent. So I bought some more books, all these being technical. I hope soon to have time to actually read them :-(

On Friday night there is an "invitation only" end-of-conference party. Knowing the right people helps; I guess I do know the right people, since I had an invitation. It's not exactly an in-crowd, but is mostly people who have been involved with Unix for a long time. (So have I, I realised!). It doesn't start until 10PM, and I had a long drive (back to Medford, of course!) the next day. I stayed for about 90 minutes, then headed down to my room for some sleep.

On Saturday I drove to Jeff's (my employer) home in Pebble Beach. Yes, the place with the golf course. It's a "gated community", which means you need to be let in. You can also pay the $7.50 to drive through, as it is also a tourist route. Anyways, I arrived and we had some coffee, and oohed and aghhed over their new puppy. I've forgotten what type of dog it will be, but it will be big! I mean BIG. Fran, Jeff's wife, has a wonderful sense of humour. I asked the name of the puppy, and got the following response: "Rhonda Jean. Gangster Pup. Truffle Pig. Sugar Plum. Depends on the moment..." And we had a quick discussion of some of the conference papers too.

The return journey was, thankfully, uneventful, other than arriving in Medford about 7PM, and finding that my hotel reservation was non-existant. This could have been a problem, as I got the last room. There was a convention in town, and it was home coming week too. The weather was quite warm on the way back, as the route is inland, and thus there is no cooling from the ocean. Sunday was an easy drive back home, where I arrived about 5PM.