Anticipation 1
After two days of driving, karenjeane and I arrived in Montreal just after 2pm. We're staying in residence at McGill University, in a tower block about half way up Mont Royal. It's a 15 minute walk to the convention centre, but a hard walk back up the side of a mountain. Amazing view of the downtown however.
So after getting checked in and cleaned up, we walked down to the Palais. It's right downtown, and hyper modern looking, so it fits in with the towers of glass and steel. Although the convention doesn't start till tomorrow, registration was open and we got kitted out. Amazingly, it only took about two minutes because there was no lines. I'd never seen so many nerds in one place before, let alone elder nerds. I also spotted Charles Stross.
The drive was without incident, overtaking every car we met at 130km/hr, wind rhythmically thrubbing through open windows (the car has no a/c). New Brunswick is a nice province, not for its boring barrenness, but for the quality of its twinned highway to get you out of there as fast as possible. We stopped at a provincial campground in Edmundston for the night, where we got eaten alive by bugs, and didn't sleep well in the car with the windows rolled up to keep the little bastards out.
The drive through Quebec was more scenic, and much shorter, although we were on the road close to 7am, because of the time change from Atlantic to Eastern. Stopped for a traditional Quebecois breakfast of grease and beat rush hour coming into the city. We drove down the main drag through the financial district full of non-failed banks. I'll also get to meet economist Paul Krugman at the convention, as he is also a sci fi fan and panelist.
I'm also writing this on a little Acer Aspire One netbook, that I bought for cheap in New Brunswick. It's more powerful as my $1600 desktop I bought 5 years ago, yet is tiny, portable and a fifth the price. It's utterly astounding how fast price-performance increases with computers. This thing will allow me to blog wherever there is an unsecured wifi network, of which Montreal should have plenty. Unfortunately, we did not bring the hookup cord for the camera, so it is unlikely there will be pictures until I get home, beyond which grainy ones I take with my netbook.
So after two days and 14 hours of driving, I sunburned on one arm and half my face because the sun was on my left the entire way.
So after getting checked in and cleaned up, we walked down to the Palais. It's right downtown, and hyper modern looking, so it fits in with the towers of glass and steel. Although the convention doesn't start till tomorrow, registration was open and we got kitted out. Amazingly, it only took about two minutes because there was no lines. I'd never seen so many nerds in one place before, let alone elder nerds. I also spotted Charles Stross.
The drive was without incident, overtaking every car we met at 130km/hr, wind rhythmically thrubbing through open windows (the car has no a/c). New Brunswick is a nice province, not for its boring barrenness, but for the quality of its twinned highway to get you out of there as fast as possible. We stopped at a provincial campground in Edmundston for the night, where we got eaten alive by bugs, and didn't sleep well in the car with the windows rolled up to keep the little bastards out.
The drive through Quebec was more scenic, and much shorter, although we were on the road close to 7am, because of the time change from Atlantic to Eastern. Stopped for a traditional Quebecois breakfast of grease and beat rush hour coming into the city. We drove down the main drag through the financial district full of non-failed banks. I'll also get to meet economist Paul Krugman at the convention, as he is also a sci fi fan and panelist.
I'm also writing this on a little Acer Aspire One netbook, that I bought for cheap in New Brunswick. It's more powerful as my $1600 desktop I bought 5 years ago, yet is tiny, portable and a fifth the price. It's utterly astounding how fast price-performance increases with computers. This thing will allow me to blog wherever there is an unsecured wifi network, of which Montreal should have plenty. Unfortunately, we did not bring the hookup cord for the camera, so it is unlikely there will be pictures until I get home, beyond which grainy ones I take with my netbook.
So after two days and 14 hours of driving, I sunburned on one arm and half my face because the sun was on my left the entire way.