Start of Infocom
Apr 14th, 2008 by Graham Booker
Well, I am currently at Infocom. Getting here was a lot of fun because I had to wake up at 5am to drive to Houston and catch my flight here. In theory, I could have flown out of College Station, but all too often it is faster to drive to Houston than it is to fly. Then, when I got the rental car, I noticed it was made by Hyundai. I immediately remembered the old episode of Top Gear I watched the previous night where they “accidentally” called the Hyundai Accent the “Hyundai Accident.” I thought to myself, “did I get an accident?” I guess I should feel better that it was a Sonata instead, but the car still sucks. It has no acceleration, and if I hit the gas, I can count the seconds it takes for the idiotic automatic transmission to realize that it needs to downshift to actually go anywhere. Oh, and the engine has to be on to shift from drive to park. What engineer thought that would be a good idea?
Anyway, Phoenix is weird. I walked around outside, and it felt like 70 to me. In truth, it was 90. Without the humidity, it just doesn’t feel as hot. But I already hate downtown. Here are some things I noticed:
- The lights are not synchronized so you get stopped at over 50% of them
- Central street is under construction so it’s speed limit is 25, but the old 35 speed limit signs are not covered up
- People are no where near as friendly as they are in Texas. This is evident by the fact that a police officer jumped in surprise when I said hi to her.
- There are many people begging and loitering downtown
- There are signs telling you that a sidewalk is suddenly closed without recourse for an alternate route
At least the conference is good. Hopefully my allergies don’t ruin it for me. I dislike dry climates.