My Macworld Odyssey (Part 3)

WOO HOO! Made it to San Francisco. Tim, David, and I stayed at a hotel that was a first timer for both of us (the past few years we had been at the Holiday Inn off 8th Street) the Mosser Hotel. A very different kind of experience. They had two different classes of rooms, those with bathrooms and those without. Each floor had communal bathrooms for those budget-minded folks (like David) who possibly enjoy a more “bohemian” experience. Tim and I elected to go the “with bathroom” route. The rooms are incredibly small with barely enough room beyond the bed (kind of a cross between a double and a queen size). The view outside my room was to see across to…another room! The really weird part was when Tim and I went off to our separate room, we discovered that our rooms were right across from one another! Knowing Tim I kept my blinds drawn for almost the entire visit. At this point you may think that I was unhappy with the sleeping arrangements. Nothing could be farther from the truth. While small, the room was comfortable, clean, and just the right size for a person who wasn’t going to spend a lot of time there anyway. If I go to Macworld next year (and I hope I do), the Mosser will be on the short list. Besides being relatively inexpensive, it was also just 2 short blocks away from the Moscone Center which meant if we didn’t want to bring everything with us or there were things we wouldn’t need until later, it was just a short walk back to the hotel to get it. It also meant we didn’t need nearly as many cab rides as usual. Tim, David, and I went over to the Westfield Mall’s food court, ate some forgettable food court food, and called it a night.

The next day (Wednesday the 10th) found us at our usual breakfast stop, Mel’s Diner, to plan out what to do next. We needed to get our Press Passes for the Expo and our Speaker’s passes. The Speaker’s passes came with some bennies including a daily lunch buffet and an official Macworld Expo backpack filled with goodies. I won’t go over what was inside, but it was some great schwag! We were still debating what we were going to talk about on Thursday on the Main Stage and I was unsure of exactly how well all the gear I had was going to work. I had just purchased a new Camcorder (A Canon Vixia HF200HD), a shotgun microphone for the same, and some other miscellaneous doodads for the show with little time to work out exactly how best to use them. Fortunately we had a listener meet-up planned at 3PM so I could practice there. 3PM came and only one person showed up. We did shoot some video, but the shotgun microphone was next to useless in such a loud and busy environment that the footage may never see the light of day.

That evening, we (Tim, David, Mark, Owen, and I) met up with Sam Levin of Sam’s Cool Pics fame (amongst many other things), for a sit down with the folks that have created an iPhone App called Pana.Ma. Kind of an IM slash Social Media application that shows some great promise. Many Pizza slices were consumed while we hashed out how it worked and gave feedback on future features. From there it was off to the Smile on My Mac party for a bit, though the events of the day had really worn us all down and we only stayed for about an hour or so (though meeting up with many of our friendly Mac folks was great) before heading back to the hotel for some much needed rest.

Thursday morning we went to Mel’s again for breakfast and as soon as it was open, the Moscone North’s Press room for what was to be my near impossible to leave stop for the next three days. We rushed out in the morning to shoot a few videos (Two at FastMac for the new iPhone Battery case and built-in UMEE RF app and one at OWC) and I went back to the press room to begin editing. By the time I got done with the first two, I realized I had a serious problem (no not THOSE obvious problems!). My internal drive was down to less than 70 GBs! That might still sound like a lot for a laptop, but when it’s for video it’s next to nothing. Fortunately I had a Toshiba USB-powered 320 GB drive that I could just dump all my video stuff except it refused to mount. No mini-USB cable I had would work and I was in near to full panic mode. I really didn’t want to buy another drive so I gave it to Tim and Dave to try. It worked fine for both of them. So now I’m down to potential laptop USB issues …FUN! Tim let me borrow a cable that seemed to work for that day (I used one from David the rest of the time and I need to send it back!) and I copied over all my video files and support folders for Final Cut Express onto the external drive. Moving close to 150 GBs takes a wee bit of time during which my laptop was near useless except to surf the web and check email.

By the time all this copying and moving and re-syncing folders with Final Cut was finished, it left very little time to get any actual work done before David and I had to prepare for our Main Stage event at 4:30PM. I shot a little more video that I wouldn’t have a chance to edit until the next day and we were off to set up for our live presentation.

Before I go on any farther I want to take a moment to talk about the show floor. It…was…packed! Yes it was a smaller venue than other years, but any thoughts that Macworld was a dying show can be thrown out the window if the crowds I witnessed during almost the entire Expo are any measure. I was reminded of the scenes from Tommy (the Who movie you troglodytes!) where people are bursting through the door to get to Tommy’s Holiday Camp. There’s MORE at the door! There’s MORE at the door! The vendors and exhibitors must have been delighted at the amount of traffic flowing through the place and I’m guessing that many who gave it a pass this year will take notice and return for 2011.

The Main Stage event went pretty well. David and I were both very nervous at the start but we eventually began to forget about the audience and have a little fun with it. David gave away an OtterBox iPhone case and I gave away two iPhone hats that promise to give an immersive video experience at the cost of looking very silly. Tim perused my completely untrue porn collection on my iPhone and Owen gave us our first dollars ever for podcasting. It was a lot of fun though and I hope we get the chance to do it again or something similar next year. Overall, a productive day and between David and I we got up some audio and a few videos . There will be some video from the event online eventually, but syncing the audio from the event is turning out to be a little problematic. Have patience.

That evening was the Circe du Mac party and I have never missed it…except for this year. I was feeling tired and needed some sleep. Each year the Mac All-Stars show up. Who are the Mac All-Stars? These are various Mac writers, podcasters, bloggers and so forth with some degree of musical talent who get together and jam. Many of them are really good musicians and those that aren’t make up for lesser talent with great and infectious enthusiasm. It is one of THE highlights for Macworld and I missed it. As it turned out, this was the beginning of becoming very sick that thankfully held off until the show was nearly over, but more on that later.

The next day (Friday for those keeping track) brought us again to Mel’s Diner (cause that’s how we roll breakfast at Macworld) to fuel up for the day. Mark ended up leaving due to some family matters (always more important than even Macworld), but left a bunch of great pictures. David and Owen went out to grab more audio and some video and I sat down to finish editing the video I had shot the day before. Eventually I did go out and grab some more, but at some point during this day I found myself just outside the North hall talking to Tim. Not an unusual occurrence but what happened next was one of those “only in San Francisco and only at Macworld” moments that cannot be planned for and in most cases isn’t wished for. We met one of “those” people. No, this isn’t some racial/ethnic/religious/alien kind of things. “These” people come in every stripe and there’s absolutely no way to tell them apart from anyone else until they speak. In San Francisco they can be homeless and poorly dressed, or a seemingly well employed, apparently normal in every way kind of guy except for…that…one…thing. That thing that sets them apart from the rest of us. That…CRAZY…thing.

In this particular case, neither Tim nor I saw it coming. It started innocently enough. A man, white, dressed appropriately for a long day of Expo-ing (I think I just made up a new verb) walked up to us and started to talk. It wasn’t even crazy at the beginning. I picture the gears in his mind starting off, moving and grooving, saying all the right things to convince a casual onlooker that they aren’t batcrap nuts and then…a cog slips, the gears grind, and a odd unconscious stream of thought that probably is perfectly normal to them begins to issue forth. How did this begin?

(Dramatic Pause)

With a statement. A factual statement. A statement that drew Tim and I in like a rip tide.

He said, “Twenty-five dollars for an Expo pass and they’re charging a dollar for a bag they gave away for free last year.”

Now normal circumstances would warrant a quick nod and a sympathetic , “Yeah, what’s up with that?” At which point we all grimace and then with a hearty wave go our separate ways, but this was NOT to be. The moment Tim and I glanced in this guy’s direction it was GO time! I truly wish I had a recording device for times like this so I can go back and find the exact moment things begin to go wrong. Not entirely for my own education, but to then play it back for the crazy person so they can hear just how fanatical and bent their opinion was. It might not have worked for this guy though since once he was wound up there was no stopping him. He talked about global warming, the Chinese taking over the West Coast, the European Union dividing up the East Coast and on and on until I finally had to play the only card available to me at the time.

I said, “Dude, it’s just a bag.”

He stared goggled-eyed for a moment, his mouth moved up and down, and he began to draw what was probably his first breath since he started the diatribe against whatever the heck his point was going to turn out to be. Tim and I seized that moment to turn back towards the relative safety of Moscone North and the sacred Press room where we already KNEW who all the crazies were and how to either avoid or embrace them.

That evening was going to be the MacBlast party. I have never missed one since coming to Macworld but once again I was very fatigued by the end of the day and begged off. I’m really sorry to have missed it especially since Paul Kent’s band, The House Rockers”, were going to be playing and if anyone deserved to let off some steam it was him.

The last day of the Expo was much like the others. We all went out and got video, audio, and a last bit of news before closing the show. David Cohen had a much earlier flight and left Saturday afternoon. Tim had the honor of being the last event on the Main Stage and he got quite a few very well-known Mac guys up on stage with him. Go to OWCRadio on iTunes for the audio version and eventually I’ll finish the video I shot.

After that, we met up with Bill Palmer and some of his BeatWeek people for dinner. We ended up eating (yet again) at Mel’s because everyplace else in the area had at least a 45-minute wait. Mel’s is great for breakfast, not so good for dinner. After that, Tim and I got our bags and went to the San Francisco Airport for our 11:15PM flight home. By now I was really sick and it was obvious that this was not going to be a lot of fun.

Next time up I finish this whole thing with getting home.