Caliban – Opinion and Righteous Anger

Well, I successfully reentered the United States on Friday and spent the weekend in St. Louis. Man, what a shithole. There’s nothing there apart from the Arch and Six Flags.

Speaking of Six Flags, we went there on Saturday afternoon and rode a bunch of cool rides. Nothing could quite match the Dragon’s Wing, however, which was well worth the extra $50.

Basically, the Dragon’s Wing is a 152 foot replica of the St. Louis Arch. One, two or three people lie in a harness, and are then hoisted backwards and upwards until horizontally level with the top of the arch. Then, you pull your ripcord and plummet downwards, swinging at incredible speed in an arc through the arch and upwards through the other side.

This was awesome, and it was even more thrilling to ride with Sarah, who overcame her fear to enjoy the exhilarating experience, even though she was shaking from the adrenaline for quite a while afterwards.

I flew back to San Francisco via Chicago yesterday, arriving at work just in time for the weekly MIS meeting.

It’s good to be back in San Francisco. I’ll be here for a few weeks until the end of August, when I fly to Maine to stay with Sarah and her folks. Meeting the parents should prove interesting and I’m looking forward to it.

This is my last day in Canada. I’m writing this from the Ottawa Linux Symposium during Stephen Tweedie’s talk on ext3 and journalling. Oh, the joys of 802.11 wireless LAN PCMCIA cards.

Tomorrow, I fly to St. Louis, Missouri via Chicago and will stay there with my girlfriend until Monday. Then, it’s back to San Francisco.

I’ve enjoyed my sojourn in Canada (especially the surprisingly clement weather), but it will be good to get back to the bustle of San Francisco.

I put out signature 0.13 yesterday, which fixes a couple of stupid bugs.

My girlfriend is coming up to Ottawa on Friday to visit for a few days, so I’m really looking forward to that.

I’ve been working until really late all this week in the office on William Street. It’s a really nice location, right on the market, so there’s plenty of choice in eateries and it’s only five minutes’ walk from my hotel.

I spent this evening hacking some C and reacquainting myself with DocBook, since it’s a while since I used it to write any documentation.

I heard that The Netherlands got knocked out of the European Cup (that’s football, or soccer to you Yanks) on penalties, but since I don’t follow football, I don’t care. However, I hear they’re burning flags and orange clothing back home in the streets of Amsterdam.

It’s officially Canada Day here, so I’m off to bed so that I’ll have the energy to enjoy it in a few hours when the sun rises.

And so life continues in Ottawa. I’m staying in Les Suites on Besserer Street, which is conveniently close to the Canadian Linuxcare office.

Ottawa is a curious place with a curiously European feel to it; not what I expected at all. The Linuxcare office is quiet and peaceful, a far cry from the hectic San Francisco headquarters.

The cabin crew had turned the heating up so far on the first outward flight that I couldn’t sleep at all. I arrived in Washington Dulles at 07:15 feeling jaded and spent an hour and a half compiling kernels at the gate for the onward flight.

I then flew on to Canada, where entertaining immigration hassles awaited me (big surprise). After some careful answering of questions, I was allowed to enter the country. Hah! Now all I have to do is get back into the USA four weeks from now.