MB is happy!

Planetarium

Koi smackdown!!

MB and I are in Buenos Aires – so far it’s been quite a lot of fun. It seems that people here stay up late and wake up late, which has been great but I’m hitting the coffee more than usual – and that’s saying something. As you might expect (or might not), we’re seeing a lot of this kind of thing here (yay!):

Will post more pictures soon; mostly wanted to let you all know we’re alive. I’m hoping to meet up with a friend who worked on the Game Programming Gems books with me and owns a game development studio here. Will be very interesting to hear about the industry here… the cost of living is quite cheap compared to the US (about 3 pesos per dollar), which makes outsourcing and development very cheap for US companies. Hmmmmmm!
Anyway… signing off from Buenos Aires…
—Mark

Okay, I was working on a big post about my experiences in the Vancouver Airport, and about halfway through I realized it sounded like I was just bitching and moaning. And really, who wants to read that? That’s the headspace I was in, but I’m not posting it. I’ll treat it as a cathartic exercise.
The Vancouver airport was experiencing a full-on white-out when I got there Sunday morning. Flights were cancelled, delayed and then cancelled, or went out onto the tarmac and drove around for awhile and then cancelled. I experienced all of these things, but I’ve lost track of how many times. Six cancellations, I think. And in one case, I got on as a standby, we sat in the plane awhile, then we left the gate and drove around to get to the de-icing equipment, but after sitting in the line for awhile the aircraft crew “timed out”, having worked 14 hours straight, so they were forced to pull back into the terminal and go home. Sigh.
Anyway, I finally got a (delayed, not cancelled) flight back to San Francisco on Monday around 5pm. Spent four hours of restless sleep Sunday night in a Holiday Inn, which helped a little, but my brain was still absolutely mush on Monday.
I spent the day doing kakuro, watching Waking Life on the laptop, and reading Official PlayStation Magazine, the Financial Times, and the Economist.
I hope to not see Vancouver airport again for awhile – it used to be one of my favorites, but no longer! I’m sure that next time I go there, the security guys will say “hey, Mark – where ya been?”

Have been at Vancouver Int’l Airport for a little over 24 hours now, aside from the brief jaunt over to the Holiday Inn for four hours of sleep. Hopefully I’ll get out of here today… … ugh. More from me later…