Miserably Warm & Smokey

I arrived back in Fairbanks in the early hours of the morning. As we got closer to Fairbanks, you can see the haze get thicker and thicker. Fire season has arrived. It was still near 80°F, a bit humid and very hazy. Horrible weather. This morning, the sky overhead was tending towards blue so after church, I took the long way home. The Nike+ gadget supposedly keeping track on the iPhone. Walking up Ballaine Road, I decided to look at a map looking for other roads in the area to add to my walk. Thirty minutes later, I looked at the phone again and the distance was still reading the same. Bug in the software I guess. I manually pause the workout and restarted and the odometer started moving again. Lost a couple of miles but now that I'm aware of the bug, I can avoid it happening again. This afternoon, the smoke started to move in again. My eyes are burning now and it is still too hot.

San Francisco

I walked to Pier 39 and Fisherman's Wharf from my hotel near the Financial District. About 7¼ miles round trip according to the Nike+ gadget. It was a beautiful day with temperatures in the low 70s and a nice breeze. I walked out to the end of a couple of piers to get away from the crowds for at least a few minutes. I think today was a holiday for many people. There was a Princess Cruise loading up so traffic along the Embarcadero was very congested with a lot of buses, limos and cabs dropping people (and their 20 suitcases) off at the pier. There were a lot of people at Pier 39 but no street entertainers. I went into a couple of shops but since I wasn't really looking for anything, I tended to keep walking.

I had lunch at the Fog City Diner at the intersection of Embarcadero and Battery St. This wasn't your typical diner as the menu included cioppino, an oyster bar and truffle fries. I had a burger and it was made of real beef coarse ground at the diner. It tasted like a steak instead of a burger. It looked like a diner on the outside but very well appointed on the inside with black leather and wood. Very nice with a nice view of the port right across the street. Right now, I'm back at the hotel waiting for my shuttle ride to the airport. San Francisco is a nice place to visit but it will be nice to get home.

Friday Afternoon - Walked many laps of the terminal in SFO to get my mileage up to 10 miles for the day. I feel like such a slacker this week since I only averaged about 3 miles per day.

Also, walked one lap of Seatac. That's at least a couple more miles.

Cisco Live! (day 3)

The real highlight of today was a guest keynote by Guy Kawasaki. He is now a venture capitalist and used to be in charge of software development at Apple back in the late '80s. His talk was on 10 things to keep in mind while developing new products or services. Excellent review with many humorous references and digs at technology. The first session of the day was on wired 802.1X authentication. This is something I really would like to get set up in Barrow to replace the NetReg system that was just installed. The presenter went into the problems and issues with deployment in a typical enterprise listing the "gotchas" with various operating systems. The first afternoon session is on multicast advancements and again the focus is on the service provider market focusing on video distribution. I guess this is a really common method to deliver cable TV at this time. The last afternoon session is on multicast deployment and it was one of the best sessions here. The speaker was knew his topic well and spoke not only the the service provider side but the enterprise as well. I would like to use a lot of his material and examples in the slide deck for the multicast workshops.

Later - Not getting much walking in today either besides back and forth between Moscone West, North and South in addition to the walk down and back. This week, I'm well below my 10 mile per day average that I have been striving for. Oh well. I'll be back in Fairbanks shortly and should be able to get going again without too much trouble. I had a wonderful dinner at a sushi restaurant just around the corner from the hotel. Tempura with a small bowl of buckwheat noodles in fish broth, ikura, maguro & tako (sushi). Finished up with mochi green tea ice cream. Just about the right amount of dinner for a change. What amazes me is that the sushi here is, as expected, very good but the sushi in Barrow is just as good. Both are way better than restaurants in Fairbanks (though I still haven't tried the one near the Bentley Mall carwash.) The Cisco conference is now officially over but not quite soon enough to catch the 7:00 PM flight out so I get to stick around until tomorrow and spend some time looking around before heading back. I walked around a couple of miles after dinner. One of the frustrating things about walking around here, besides the traffic, is all the stops waiting for the light to change. I think maybe tomorrow I'll head for the water I think the area is called the Embarcadero. It is the eastern waterfront road then on to Fisherman's Wharf. I think it is only about 2½ miles each way according to Google Maps. Should be a nice way to spend the tomorrow.

Cisco Live! (day 2)

As all of the other Cisco conferences I've attended, it is like trying to drink from a firehose. The sheer volume of technical content available here is staggering. Hundreds of technical sessions, very few marketing presentations except when they are releasing a new product. I've gotten a lot of questions answered but now have a bunch more. I did talk to the certification folks since I used to teach certification classes as part of the Cisco Academy at TVCC. The material has changed considerably and it will be a challenge if they wanted to start up the classes again. I've been out of it for three years (I think). The first session this morning was on IPv6 enterprise deployment and, like most of the other sessions, is taught by a Cisco engineer who has tons of experience with the topic working with numerous customers on their deployments. I am teaching an IPv6 workshop later this month and this really added some new information that I can use in the class. I just need to get my thoughts together on it. My free Cisco Press book was on IPv6 Security which is a topic that really needs more coverage in the workshop. Maybe I can read it on the flight back. The last session of the day was on multicast security. Another very good session with tons of real useful content. It makes me think that the material being presented in the Internet² Multicast Workshop needs revision. I was surprised at the number of service providers already using multicast but for their own use, such as video broadcasting, as opposed to making it available for their customers to get multicast content on their own. I guess I shouldn't be surprised after all it is all about revenue'

Not much walking as in "walking for exercise". I usually don't get done with the sessions until after 7:00 and I have been pretty tired. Plus I just don't feel like walking around much due to all the street traffic. The hills are a challenge but I really didn't bring enough clothes to do any serious walking. Maybe on Friday since I'm done by noon and my flight out isn't until 7:00. The iPhone has been working fine with the Nike+ transmitter though it does seem to take more time to detect the transmitter than the iPod Nano did.

Tonight is the "customer appreciation event" with entertainment being provided by bands called B-52s and Devo. I haven't heard of either but then again I'm pretty disconnected from music these days.

Wednesday evening - It was pretty cold and windy out on Treasure Island as it is located in the middle on the bay. There were a lot of bands switching out with some MTV personality as the host. A wide variety of music though all really loud. The food was so so so I didn't stay long.