efozzie

There's just no way to get around the sucky-ness factor of a cross-country flight.

Last night I flew a red-eye from SFO to Cleveland, Ohio, and from Cleveland in the morning I flew to Baltimore, Maryland. A couple of months ago, I flew a direct flight from SFO to Washington, DC in the morning, thinking it would be better than a red-eye, but no, it still sucked because I had to get up at 3:30 am to go to the airport for the 6 am flight.

But a red-eye still sucks. Although I slept on both flights, it was that cramped sleep, which I feel like doesn't technically count as sleep. It's more like temporary hibernation / cocooning which is intermittently interrupted by flight attendants giving out drinks and peanuts.

When I got to Morgan State University, where our workshop is being held, I was so tired and jetlagged that I could not operate. And to top it all off, I forgot my ipod at home (it's snuggly charging on my ihome alarm clock). You never know how valuable something is until you are thousands of miles away from it.

Moral of the story: Traveling across the country sucks, and you need to give yourself at least a day to recuperate just from the traveling itself.

For future self-reference: I need to invest in some noise-cancelling earphones and some other travel luxuries because I am traveling way too often to not take care of myself.

I got a sweet note from a co-worker today after our site hosted a group of about 20-30 British women who wanted to learn about BUILD.

I wanted to tell you again how impressed I was with your presentation. I think you are one of the strongest public speakers at BUILD...

...You are really, really compelling when you speak...

I'll leave it at that, and just give an anonymous thanks. ;)

How Filipino is this?

On the last day of my dad's sister's family's visit to America, the whole entire Faustino Northern California contingent heads to the airport and waits around in the international terminal to say good bye.

That's love. I love family. It grounds you.

San Francisco Summers are so deceivingly cold, so for June's family day, we decided to head OUT of the city, and into the warm East Bay.

I found what sounded like an interesting hike over at the Black Diamond Mines National Reserve, so Bola, Bern and I, after a quick trip to my neighborhood Trader Joe's, drove about an hour east (and 20 degrees warmer).. but I'll let the pics speak for themselves.


To our left is a little field with a bunch of snake holes... Kinda creepy.













My printed out guide on www.bahiker.com said that the trail was a 3.5 mile loop, but it must have been a 5 or 6 mile hike because it took us almost 4 hours! The weather was gorgeous and I was so glad to get out of the cold city for a day.

[Photo taken at the Flickr / Yahoo exhibit]

I don't remember how I found about the Maker Faire, but for some reason it had been on my calendar for weeks, maybe even months, to go to the twice yearly fair--they hold one in San Mateo and another in Texas.

Coincidentally, my brother was in town visiting our relatives in Tracy, so I asked him to come with me because it definitely is something that would be right up his alley.

Essentially the Maker Faire is a convention or gathering of sorts for readers of Make Magazine, which is basically a do-it-yourself tech magazine for uber-geeks, nerds and dorks.

Just how dorky these readers and enthusiasts are, I did not know until I really saw them in the flesh. I mean I consider myself to be a pretty nerdy guy--I love technology, read tech magazines and blogs, and adore gadgets to the point of personifying them and giving them names (i.e. Shaquanda my, now, 2-year old Treo 650... don't even ask me what her full name it). But if you think I'm nerdy, you haven't KNOWN nerds, until you watch a crowd of people go gaga over a manmade lightning exhibit (the Tesla coils were so cool!) or watch a similar crowd cheer and jeer at battling wedge robots (wow... I cannot even describe to you the nerd-itude that was).

Anyway, all-in-all it was a great day spent with my brother. We walked around to a lot of different exhibits and saw a lot of new and old and remixed technology.




That's a homemade whale!


That's me INSIDE the homemade whale!


See the fire on the top right corner?


The final nerdy straw...