Squawks of the Parrot

OS X conference, day -1

Yet another trip out. Wheee. It's amazing how boring and tedious frequent travel can get. This'll be the sixth trip this year, with at least one more to go.The airports don't (yet) blur together, but I've been in a lot of them this year. At the moment I'm in minneapolis, though only for a few hours of layover on the way to the OS X conference. I think I've hit a dozen airports so far this year (some, like Bradley in CT, multiple times) and there are still more to go.They each have their own personal character. Bradley, the local airport to me, is small and a bit scruffy. JFK is the quintessential new york airport--cranky, idiosyncratic, and a massive pain in the neck. Denver's really open and expansive. Minneapolis is a nice airport but definitely expensive.Bleah. I never thought I'd get jaded by flying, but apparently I have. Hopefully it'll wear off, as I do, or did, like to fly. Maybe it's the transfers--after the third airport in a day they get decidedly less interesting. All the security makes it difficult to get a good feel for them as well, since so much is off limits or difficult to get to.This trip is making me feel kind of old, as well. Someone left a copy of the weekend Financial Times in the waiting room at Bradley and I picked it up. (I knew I was going to run short of stuff to do if I had no seat power, which I didn't have) After I blew through my book, I started in on it, which is when things started getting surreal.Not because I understood what they were talking about in it--economics has lots of voodoo but it's not particularly difficult. And I've spent enough time in financial circles to understand the language. (And the subtext of who's getting screwed by whom, over what, in which power plays) Nah, the scary thing was thinking It might be good to drop some cash in a diversified Japanese stock fund, given how the market's been performing in the McDonalds grabbing dinner.

Getting into San Jose was interesting, as there was a minor medical emergency on board, then two of the three luggage carousels the airport has broke. (That was fun) I'm staying with friends while in San Jose rather than at the conf hotel, so I broke down, took a taxi, and hit the sack early. Well, early local time, at least.