The great outdoors

The hotel in which I was staying for the O’Reilly Emerging Tech Conference was located in the middle of a Santa Clara office park. There was nothing but hi-tech office buildings surrounded by immaculately manicured lawns and a nearby gold course. Only the empty lots nearby — future locations of officeplexes, no doubt — had any kind of growth that didn’t look gardened, genetically engineered or designed. Aside from hanging out on the pool patio for lunch and to catch some end-of-day sun, we were pretty much confined to the hotel, as there was nowhere to walk for at least a mile around.

How do people live and work in such a sterile environment, where the buildings are just bigger cubicles for cubicles? No wonder computers are the way they are.

I’ve just woekn up from making up for the sleep debt inucrred at the conference, and am getting ready to go to some campfire party out in Guelph. My friend Will told me about it; apparently it’s someone’s parents’ two-story cabin with a giant fire pit, and people are bringing musical instruments. Tonight, we share the glow of a fire, not that of an 802.11b wireless Internet connection. Both are great things, in my geeky eyes, but with a fire:

• the girl-guy ratio is better
• you can roast marshmallows

See you on the flipside.