Yesterday I made it home to bonnie (cold) Scotland. It’s good to be home, I had a great time in Austin but it’s great to see Mandy again.

The trip back on Friday was super smooth, but still a little nerve wracking as between my flight from Austin and Houston I had 40 mins scheduled between arrival and departure, and in Newark I had only 35 mins between arrival and departure for Edinburgh.

Arrived in Houston a few minutes early at a gate only a little way from my next departure gate, waited about ten minutes before we started to board. Things were looking good, I thought we’d be off on time. However, what I didn’t factor in was that nearly everyone on the plane decided to take on board a huge bag, so that there was absolute chaos as it was impossible to get all the bags on the plane, some had no chance of fitting overhead, even if there was no-one else on board! Why do people show so little common sense and consideration for others in this way?

This of course meant that we took off a good hour late, leaving me a little concerned about getting my next flight. But I shouldn’t have worried, we got in only a few minutes late, and when I arrived at the gate I sailed straight on as my row number had already been called.

And so I arrived back in Edinburgh (at about 8am) in a lot shorter time than it took to get to Austin, not having 12 hours of waiting between flights will do that for you.

Not long after getting home I had a great sleep, even though it was early morning, I slept for about 5 hours before Mandy made me get up or else I wouldn’t sleep at night. No problem with that though, even though I did have an hour or so early morning where I woke up and couldn’t get to sleep, once I did I didn’t get up until midday. I guess I was a little tired after my trip!

And so ends my trip to REAL World 2006. I had a great time in Austin, Texas. I met some great people while there, and learnt a lot of cool stuff and experienced many new things. Sure, it cost me (my company rather) a lot, but I feel it was more than worth it.

Thanks to everyone at REAL Software that worked so hard to make the event happen, with any luck my business will take off this year and I’ll be able to afford to go again next year.

Today was a nice easy day, just as I planned it to be, a day to wind down after REAL World before flying home the day after.

Got up quite late, watched some TV (the movie Dodgeball) and then wandered up to the “Story Of Texas” museum. Had some lunch there (“Marbled Rueben”, another fine sandwich we don’t get back home) and then spent a good three hours or more going around the exhibits.

Pretty good, if you’re ever in Austin and want to get a good history lesson of how Texas was founded and all the troubles the Lone Star state has been through with lots of easy to read stuff and movies etc, it’s well worth the $5.50 it costs (and I got $1 off with a leaflet I’d picked up from the visitor’s centre. They also have an IMAX theatre, but I didn’t have a chance to watch anything as I spent too long in the exhibits.

It was a very nice day in Austin, completely clear blue sky with the sun beating down, not what I’d call a winter’s day at all! So the walk up to 18th street from 8th to the museum and back was very pleasant, nice to feel the sun on my face before I go back to chilly Scotland. 🙂

Later on had a really tasty meal in the hotel’s restaurant (Omni Downtown), a Flat Iron Steak “Chuto Roso”. This consisted of a really nice cut of beef, done just as I like it (medium, a little pink) with a “smoked nopales vino rossa butter, corn pudding and fried spinach”. Very good, never had a “corn pudding” before, nice, it all went very well together.

Finished off my relaxed day with a beer in the atrium bar watching some basketball. Basketball is mesmerising, wish we got more of it in the UK. After that packed most of my stuff and then watched Hostage with Bruce Willis on the TV, not too bad a movie for a standard “troubled cop / action movie”, enjoyed it.

And that was me, my last full day in Austin Texas, tomorrow it’s a day of traveling as I make my way home to Dunfermline Scotland, and as I’m going eastward my day will end in the morning of the following day back in the UK, so you’ll probably not get a wrap up post for a day or two.

I’m so looking forward to seeing Mandy, wish she had been here to enjoy this little bit of Texas, maybe next year!

Before I tell you about the last day of REAL World, I think I better clear up some miss-understandings from yesterday’s post.

Apparently some people have got the impression that we were out until 4am, that’s wrong, we were all back in our rooms by 2am at the latest, it probably was earlier, can’t remember. I was checking my mail, forums and then writing the post up until 4am, not out on the town.

Also, I didn’t have anywhere near as much to drink as on the Saturday night, and I don’t think anyone else was chucking it back either, but I could be wrong. I for one didn’t want to feel ill for the last day of the conference as there were sessions I really wanted to get the most out of, and I don’t think anyone else would risk wrecking their last day either. Sorry for any confusion on that one.

However, something went a little wrong with that, I must have eaten or drunk something that didn’t agree with me, as I had a really dodgy stomach in the morning. Didn’t feel bad otherwise, just a nasty stomach.

My first session of the day was “Accessibility and You!” by Aaron Ballman, with special guest Dr Scott Steinman. This was a superb presentation describing how disabilities can make using your application almost impossible to use unless you develop with them in mind, some ways of testing for and improving accessibility and how these changes will make a positive impact for disabled or non-dissabled users alike were discussed. It was only marred by the fact that it was being shoe-horned into an hour when it really needed at least an hour and a half. I felt really sorry for Scott, his very interesting explanation of how colour blindness (or rather “weakness”) physically happens and what the results are had to be zipped through as Aaron’s part went on too long. Well, it didn’t go on too long really, in fact it should have been longer, but us attendees had too many questions during Aaron’s part that we lengthened it too much. Still, it was an excellent session, a good way to start the day.

My second session of the day was “RBScript 201” by Thomas Tempelmann. I’m not sure whether this was a good session for me to attend or not. Having only just got my head around RBScript the day before, Thomas’s explanation of a couple of pretty advanced concepts was a little too much for me. Maybe if I’d had a little experience with RBScript I’d have appreciated it more, although I understood the concepts and problems he addressed it was a little over my head for just now.

The very last session I attended at REAL World 2006 was Aaron’s “Windows User Interface Design” presentation. Again, this excellent session needed to be at least an hour and a half as it covered so much, and prompted a lot of discussion among the group on Windows, Mac and Linux user interface design and accessibility. Aaron really knows this stuff, I learnt a lot, and made many notes on how I could improve CaseDetective for Windows and Mac to make it more compliant with their respective user interface guidelines and also improve accessibility.

There were a few sessions after lunch, but I wasn’t feeling well enough to sit through a 2 hour session with my dodgy stomach and all. A bit of a shame as I fancied seeing Joe Strout’s session on creating 3D games with REALbasic.

So I did some email and caught up with some feeds from the REAL World Internet Cafe, which had a great connection at the time, much better than it had been on the previous two days. I also tried to call my wife through Skype once I was back in my room, but that didn’t work so well, and AIM, instant messenger and even email all ended up being pretty useless. The wireless internet connection in my room has been terrible throughout my stay, and it’s been the same for many others too. Maybe that’s why there was a letter in my room to say that from 5pm until midnight the in-room wireless internet would be down as they were to change supplier.

Right at the end of the REAL World schedule there was a feedback session, where everyone could pipe-up and say what they liked or disliked about the conference, any ideas for improving it and generally chat about it. This was great, most people were very happy with the venue and new single venue format, lots of good feedback on what worked or didn’t work with the sessions and session schedule, and other general comments about the conference. I won’t bore you with the details, mainly because I didn’t take notes, but also I don’t think it’s appropriate, it’s something between the attendees and REAL Software and hopefully we’ll just see the fruits of the discussion next year. Although I will mention that I asked that they considder a european conference now that they are going to have a European office. Even a mini conference would help, maybe just a two day event with two or three distinct tracks for newbies, intermediates and experts. Fingers crossed on that one, I’d love to be able to attend a conference with say three or four of the engineers in attendance, and then some speakers from the community. Obviously there’s a lot of issues around language and venue to be considered.

Once it was all done and dusted it was decided that we’d all go get some Texas BBQ, as there was quite a few people staying for the evening.

As we waited for the arranged time for us all to wander down to “Stubbs”, I had a chance to chat with Mars about his excellent debugging session and then with Geof about the REAL SQL Server (which I’m very interested in). How often do you get a chance to bend the ear of the CEO of a company who’s product you rely on, and have a very frank discussion about the future of it’s technologies. This kind of access to people like Geoff and all the engineers working on REALbasic and other REAL Software products is absolutely priceless, and when Will Lesher joined in on the conversation about REAL SQL Server he explained a couple of details about the REAL SQL Server implementation that make it a very attractive proposition in deed. I am worried about the licensing model for it, it’s got to be attractive to enable developers to bundle it with their applications, but nothing’s been decided yet so I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it’s going to be simple and affordable.

The BBQ at Stubbs was very nice, I really enjoyed my Beef Brisket, fries and onion rings, and Pepsi. I decided that I’d not tempt fate and have a beer with my meal, and I think this was a very good decision. My stomach felt much better after a good sized feeding of BBQ, and what’s more Geoff picked up the tab for everyone there! What a nice guy, can developer relations get any better?! 🙂

After the meal I and a few others headed back to the hotel, while some stayed a little longer at Stubbs, and I guess they’ll probably have gone onto somewhere else. Maybe someone will blog about that in due course or leave a comment here.

I ended the night chatting with Tom Dixon and Peter ??? (sorry, never caught his last name over all the time I’ve spent with him this week, shame on me) over a beer. By this time I was really starting to feel the lack of slumber from the night before, so although I could of happily chatted with them for another hour or two I decided to call it a night after just one beer. My mind had basically crashed, I think it was a SleepDeprivationException which I had failed to trap, so I said my goodbyes to them, and then to Geoff, Will, Steven, Lisa and others that I bumped into in the lobby, and made my way up to my room.

The only way to combat a SleepDeprivationException is to quit all threads of input, and close your windows on the World!

Damn, woke up early again! And neighbour did the same 06:00 alarm and two phone calls thing. Ah well, plenty of time to check email and stuff before heading down for first session at 09:00.

A bit panicked before first session though, couldn’t find my note pad from previous day, definitely wasn’t in my room or bag, so figured I’d left it in my last session the day before (had already left my pad in previous sessions during day, normally I’m pretty good at looking after my stuff but obviously Austin has some strange aurora going on), but of course the room had been cleaned ready for for the next day’s sessions. After a quick look around the room, asked reception whether my note pad had been found, they checked with house-keeping and then Lost And Found but there was no luck. What a pain, I hadn’t only lost my notes from the day before (including Jon’s declares stuff that I found so useful), but the pad has a CD stuck in the back with all the other REAL World sessions and example projects on it! A little depressed and dejected, I decided to double check the last room I’d been in the day before, went right up to the seat I had sat at and guess what I found? Yes, my pad, neatly placed on the chair I’d been sitting at, some kind person had saved my notes, what a relief! I guess I owe house keeping a nice fat tip before I leave.

First session of the day was Will Lesher’s Database 201 presentation where he talked about REALSQLDatabase and how easy it is to use, and the kind of funky stuff you can use it for, e.g. as a fast searchable dictionary replacement. Learnt some important stuff about REALSQL’s time handling, glad I found out about that.
Then Will moved onto REAL SQL Server, which most people were really there to find out about. Looks good, all the benefits of SQLite wrapped up with a multi-user server, with a neat little admin app that allows you to create users and groups, assign users to the groups and give the groups permissions on the server and it’s database’s objects. It’s great, really simple to add databases whether existing (drag and drop) or new, and modify the schema with minimal fuss. Passwords for connecting to the database are sent with a secure encryption scheme, and you can even set all communication to be encrypted.

Second session of the day was Steven Tallent’s XML 101 (if you have a blog or website Steven, let me know, couldn’t find it). I nearly left it because at the beginning of the session he stressed how simple the session was going to be. But I stayed and was very glad I did (actually I did leave, vacating my very comfortable second row seat, but then came back in and sat at the back). Steven’s description of XML and how the DOM (document object model) is handled by RB was very good, I learnt a lot of very seemingly insignificant facts that really are very important (e.g. absolutely everything in XML is a “node”) and a lot more besides. Well worth attending, I may know a thing or two about XML but Steven’s session really solidified some very important stuff for me and gave me some very useful info on how to manage it in RB. Steven, you sell this session much shorter than you should, please do it again next year and don’t put off so many people by describing it as being so simple. This session is a perfect grounding in XML and how it can be used within RB, stop selling it short!

My last session before lunch was Aaron’s Design Patterns session. Again, I’ve already learnt a lot from Aaron’s blog about design patterns, but when it’s discussed and questions asked by other attendees you learn so much more. Aaron’s a great presenter, I’m looking forward to his “Accessibility and You!” talk, but I wish he’d had a chat with Charles Yeoman about his RBDeveloper article about the “Messenger Centre” (proper spelling) pattern, as I think a lot of people would have clicked once they’d had that described. I personally use a variation and much extended version of the Messenger Pattern (threaded) as described by Charles’s article in CaseDetective, and have found it to be extremely flexible and powerful.

Second half of lunch was a presentation by Tylor from Apple. Very fortuitous timing as apparently Apple released a couple of items today. 🙂
It was a very good session, he also described a number of ways that Apple can help promote indipendent software vendor’s products and also some other vendors that could help (e.g. SoftwareToGo). I won’t give out his email address, but Tylor also gave himself up as very good point of contact when needing help to get noticed for various initiatives within Apple. But to be honest, you really needed to be at the session to get an idea of how he could help promote you product. What, you didn’t pay over £1500 to go to REAL World but still want to know how to get in contact with Tylor? O.K, try and ask me, go on, I dare you!

After lunch I attended the Debugging Principles and Techniques session by Mars Saxman. Although with negative vanity I would consider myself rather comfortable with the debugger, I was very happy that I attended this session as Mars described a lot of very good ways of making debugging much less painless and explained some ways he hoped the debugger would improve (assuming we furnished the appropriate feature requests, you know what you’ve got to do!!!).

The sixth session of the day I attended was Steven Tallent’s XML 201 presentation. This session was primarily an explanation of XPath, and for this I am eternally grateful. I now have a good understanding of just how powerful XPath really is, and how XPath can be used to access any specific part of an XML document. Steven has presented both his sessions while nursing a broken arm from a skate-boarding accident, and apparently is an expert on dumper trucks.

My last session of the day was “RBScript 101” presented by Dave Grogono. This presentation proved to be a very good grounding in RBScript, although I did get a feeling that many of the attendees didn’t quite appreciate just how powerful the concept of RBscript is ( no one raised there hands when asked who had experience with RBScript, and I seemed to be the only one asking many questions at the end of the session). With RBscript you can open up parts of your application to your users by allowing them to use RBScript to create equations on instructions that interact directly with your application. When you start to think about the possible applications of RBScript, imagination is the only limitation!

Once the sessions finished I dropped by the REAL World Internet Cafe to get a better internet connection for dealing with my email etc, and to post my last post. Then I got cleaned up and came back downstairs for dinner.

Did you know that this year REAL Software will celebrate their 10th anniversary in May? Pretty cool, although it is just 8 years since REALbasic was first released.

Geof had a few words to say, and I had a great time picking both Jon’s and Will’s minds on various subjects related to REALbasic and REAL SQL Server / SQLite respectively during the dinner with free bar (hooraah for Merlot). In particular I learnt a lot from Will about REAL SQL Server, as well about how not to dance (somehow we ended up back at “Bourbon Rocks” on Sixth Street, and Will showed just how much of a dancing machine he really is). Seeing as it’s nearly 4am and I want to attend Aaron’s session on Accessibility in less that five hours, I guess I should probably sign off now.

Goodnight my friends, sleep tight!

So yesterday was the first day of the whole reason I’m here, REAL World 2006 Users Conference.

As usual my body clock still thinks that 04:30 is actually 10:30, so I woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep as much as I tried. Didn’t help when the room next door’s (there’s a locked adjoining door) alarm clock went off at 06:00, and then had two phone calls. So much for the early night and sleep through to 07:30. By the end of the week I might just be adjusted to this time-zone as I leave for home!

Knocked off a couple of support requests and stuff before heading down to registration. Saw Aaron Ballman in the restaurant getting grilled by a small group, so joined in! Learnt a few juicy things about input handling and the things they have to go through to ensure REALbasic works on the many different keyboards out there. Also confirmed some stuff I wanted to know about the IDE’s code editor, there’s functionality there that may one day be relevant to CaseDetective.

At registration got my t-shirt and badge like everybody else and then got stuck in to the pastries and coffee that was available, glad I didn’t order breakfast before, those pastries were yummy, I love that French custardy stuff who’s name I always forget (confectionary custard?). Briefly chatted to Brad Rhine, and saw many faces that I recognize from their blogs or from RBDeveloper profiles.

The keynote for me was all about one announcement, soon there will be the ability to save our projects out to multiple flat text files, so we can use any version control we fancy and get proper diffing and individual modifications tracking! Woohoo! There were a lot of cheers for that one.

But there were plenty of other things in the keynote:

* New regional REAL Software offices, e.g. European and Chinese offices.
* Over 100,000 customers so far, aiming much higher for the future.
* Stuff coming in RB2006r2 and later:
> Localization of IDE
> MySQL plugin supporting latest versions
> Support for Oracle Instant Client
> Improved ODBC
> Even better VB compatibility (e.g. With statement, Currency datatype, improved VB conversion)
> SSL Socket with proxy support (tracking OpenSSL)
> Plugin API for datatypes
* Definitely after RB2006r2:
> Mac Intel (Universal Binary)
> Compile to Cocoa, which means using standard edit field and therefore enabling in-built auto-complete, spelling and full contextual menu etc, core graphics and proper composite windows with optimized clipping and refresh and so on, all standard controls will use Cocoa base where possible but retain current RB functionality
* RB apps already work fine with Windows Vista (theme savvy)
* Swordfish … still working on it
* REAL SQL Sever
> One database engine, one source of support for your customers
> Easy to install and use (just drag binaries onto computer and run, has monitor app, backup etc)
> RB plugin, C and PHP clients (with more to come)
> it’s fast, across suite of tests was 2x faster than PostgreSQL, 4x faster than MySQL

My notes aren’t complete, there was plenty of other market information and other nuggets of information. I should warn that as my notes aren’t complete I may have got things wrong too, so take everything above as pure rumour and not fact.

Lunch was nice, met some great people and had some good discussions about many things, which is a theme that has repeated throughout my time here. Meeting people that I know from the NUG or forums or people I’ve never heard of before has been extremely valuable, the things you learn from just a 2 minute conversation can be very very enlightening.

After lunch I attended Aaron’s “A Deep Look At Threads” session. Great session, even though I’ve read the stuff on his blog and bought the two threading articles from RBLibrary.com I still learnt a couple of things, or rather had a couple of ideas verified by his talk and questions posed by other attendees. I really know the difference between preemptive and cooperative threading now, and why we’re really lucky to have cooperative.

Then I attended Jon’s “Mastering Declares” session, which for me was the best of the day. He succinctly explained how to construct declares and his examples were great. It was particularly useful when he showed how to use the new structures functionality with declares, and when he showed how easy it was to use an array in a structure I was over the moon! I just need to make sure I get the example code he wrote off him, I’ll have to chase him down for that stuff.

The final (2 hour) session I attended was the Cocoa one, where Jon showed off the Cocoa functionality that he’s been working on for almost a year now. Really good stuff, not particularly applicable to what I’m doing just now but very interesting all the same.

My mind was too frazzled to attend the coding contest, so I just did a bit of email and started to write this post before going down for dinner and drinks.

As mentioned earlier, these social situations are where attending these conferences really shows it’s worth. During the evening I got to chat, have a beer with and play pool with people that I never imagined I’d ever meet, people who’s products I use and were more than happy to discuss features, how they achieved them and many other technical and plain interesting things. It wasn’t all techy, it’s nice to just chat about life too.

It was a great evening that finished just past midnight for me, falling very quickly into deep and very needed sleep.

Sunday 26th Feb 2006 was a nice relaxed day.

In the afternoon I just wandered around Austin taking in the quiet Sunday scene. Had a bit of food and coffee to clear the hang-over and then headed back to the hotel once the blisters started to appear.

Room hadn’t been cleaned yet, so grabbed my laptop and sat down in the lobby to catch up on the news and stuff with the slightly quicker ‘net connection down there.

Met a few like-minded REAL Worlders there, so had a couple of nice little chats as people came and went.

Later, after getting another shower to shed off the last of the hang-over went down to the bar and met up with some other REAL Worlders again, and then went out for a great steak at “Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse”. Very nice, had a good conversation about various subjects ranging from colour-spaces to the differences between the various States of America.

When we got back met up with a load more REAL Worlders, including Aaron Ballman and Mars Saxman, but I was really shattered so only stayed for about half an hour before heading off to bed.

Short day, but really nice, looking forward to meeting more people today. Talking of which better get off to Registration and breakfast.

Speak to you later!

I couldn’t sleep. As much as I tried I eventually awoke at 06:30 am and couldn’t get back to sleep, even thought I didn’t go to sleep until after 00:30 the night before.

So, I eventually got up, showered, shaved, and made my way out to the lobby to settle my bill (zero, all paid via Expedia.co.uk earlier).

After a short ride by a really nice man driving the Hilton courtesy bus back, went back to the airport to pick up a Super Shuttle into Austin to the Omni hotel and dropped off my bags as I was a little too early to check in.

I then took a nice stroll around town, getting completely lost. It’s real strange seeing street names sign-posted across the entrances to totally other streets when you’re used to streets being sign-posted on the side of buildings actually on the street!

I eventually found (with the help of a nice gentleman outside a bar) the Visitors Information centre. From there I worked my way up to the Capitol building and had a look around. Impressive building, it’s strange how open it is for people to just wander around (obviously you can’t go into the private offices).

I then followed a self-guided walking tour, looking at all the buildings and stuff. Part way through I stopped off at a deli and had a sandwich and coffee. It was a fantastic sandwich, Pastrami and Swiss on Jalapeño Cheese bread, probably the tastiest sandwich I’ve ever had. Yum.

It started to drizzle mid afternoon so I headed back to the hotel and checked in, where I was warned that it’s Mardi Gras weekend, so if things get a little too loud to give them a call.

Once into my (nice) room checked my mail and posted my previous entry via the (free but slow) wireless internet. When I first got into the room though, the phone rang, I thought it might of been Dr Gerard Hammond whom I had planned to meet up with later, but it was someone very different and totally unexpected, Mandy my wife!

She was a little worried as she hadn’t heard from me in two days! For me of course it was only a day and a half, it was only mid afternoon but for Mandy it was late night. Anyway we had lovely chat (I guess it probably cost a fortune), it was great to be able to talk to Mandy.

Met up with Gerard in the hotel’s atrium bar, where we had a few beers and a good chat about REALbasic, the community surrounding it and some other stuff, then decided to go out and get something to eat and check out some of the live music.

When we came out of the hotel and turned the corner to go down to 6th street where all the action is, I was surprised to see that the police had closed the road to all traffic. There were police everywhere! All the streets leading to 6th were blocked off by police cars, and all up and down the street were little groups of police with some very long batons hanging off their belts. Serious stuff, I guess things can get a little out of hand on Mardi Gras weekend then, or do they do this every Saturday night?

We checked out a few restaurants and then headed into one that first took our fancy. Good food, I enjoyed my Chicken Chipotle, but Gerard had a bit of a shock when he opened the napkin in the bread basket, cockroaches on the bread! Eeewwww! The waitress was also a little shocked too, and very embarrassed and apologetic, we got a free sweet as compensation.

So off to check out the music and get one last drink (we had already had 5 or six beers so far).

It kind of looked as though things were getting set up for a parade, but when Gerard asked a girl selling beads about it she said no, “just beer ‘n’ boobs”!

It was just before 9pm, and things were only just starting to come alive, eventually we came across “Bourbon Rocks” which seemed to be bouncing with life, a band in full swing knocking out some great rock. “All beers $2 until 9” the guy on the door said, so we got in there quick as it was 5 to 9 and got our cheep beers.

The band was excellent, great music and the lead singer was putting on a great show, so we stayed for “just one more” beer. And then another, another, another, another and then a few more!

I must apologize to Gerard at this point, I think I encouraged him to stay for “just one more” a little more than I should, but in all fairness he did surprise me a couple of times by saying “lets have just one more” himself.

The band even played some Led Zeppelin at my request too, they really knew how to play, the lead guitarist got a nice little workout with that request!

And of course, with this being Mardi Gras, the band got the occasional flash of boobs!

Eventually we came to our senses and wandered back to the hotel, although I got a bit confused and headed off in the wrong direction at first, convinced we had to cross the street. It didn’t look right, but I was convinced I was going in the right direction. Eventually we asked a police man what direction the Omni was, and he just pointed up at the huge tower with Omni written on it, a block or so behind him! I still thought it was the wrong direction but decided to give it a go! I think maybe I was a little drunk. 🙂

Now I’m paying the price for all those beers. It’s looking like a really nice day outside, but I’m not looking forward to the bright light!

I won’t be drinking like that again this week, I want to enjoy and get the most out of the conference and therefore can’t afford to have a hang-over spoiling it. But I had a blast last night, it was a great time to be out and about in Austin.

Wow, US Homeland Security is serious stuff, flying to the USA involves many security checks, which I guess in the end I’m quite thankful for.

2006-02-24 06:40 GMT: As I queued in Edinburgh to check in for my flight to New York – Newark, the first of three flights to get me to Austin Texas for REALWorld 2006, I was given the third degree like never before.

We’re all used to being asked “did you pack your bag yourself?”, “has anyone given you anything to carry on the flight?”, “Have you got anything sharp in your hand luggage?”. But I wasn’t expecting “Who owns these bags?”, “Where did you pack your bags?”, “Where have your bags been since being packed?”, “Have your bags ever left your sight?” and a couple of others I can’t remember.

Then as I was checking in I was asked whether security could search my bag as part of a random check? First time I’ve ever had my main luggage bags searched, in over 9 years of frequent flying around the World (on a couple of occasions literally around the World, on my travels to New Zealand and back). Wasn’t an ordeal, the guy was very nice about it and very gentle with my kit, we had a nice chat actually, apparently he was in “the force” and had a torch similar to my mini maglight, but bigger. When all was done I locked my bag up and the security guy put my bag onto the belt of an empty check-in desk, I must admit I was a little worried that it would be forgot and wouldn’t make it to Newark.

The flight from Edinburgh to Newark was fine, pretty uneventful until we got close to our destination and started our descent when we met the worst turbulence I’ve ever had the misfortune to experience. Scary s$*t, we had a real rough ride there, and had some spectacular drops. You should of heard the screams, I’ve only heard anything like it while watching some crappy airplane disaster movie or something. At first I was laughing it off, but towards the end after a few sudden drops as we neared the runway I wasn’t smiling any longer, in-fact I don’t mind admitting that my hands were gently wringing the life out of the arm wrest!

After kissing the ground on exiting the plane, onto US Immigration. I’ve only been through US immigration twice before, both times were excruciatingly slow, hot and very tiring. This was nothing like that. I queued for maybe five minutes and then I was up (a new guy on came shift and I switched across and was third in line). Got the finger print and picture thing done, and then the usual “business or pleasure?” (actually it was just “here on business?”, he’d read my visa waver card), “what do you do?” etc. And then “have you been to the States before?”, my answer “yes, a couple of times.”, and then he asked the trick question … “When was the first time you visited?”. Had to think about that one, it was quite a while ago, “1998”. “Thank you, have a nice stay!”. Pretty painless really, much better than last time.

Waiting for my bags was a little nervy, fingers and toes crossed in hope that my bag made it onto the flight. Bags took a while to come out, no surprise there, seemed to come in waves, I guess as they were unloaded from each of those little trucks you see scooting around on the tarmac. First wave of bags came and went, mine wasn’t there. Second wave came and went, no sight of my Samsonite. Third, no bag (getting a little nervous now), fourth, oh dear. Long wait. Is that it? Surely not, there’s still about twenty groups here still. Wait some more, bugger. Fifth arrives, and mine is first! Thank [insert preferred descriptive expletive here, something like “goodness” will do]! 🙂

Through customs (apparently that consists of just queuing and handing them your customs card), and then I need to find where I drop off my case for the trip through to Austin (via Cleveland). Easy, couldn’t miss it. Nice lady checked the tag on my case and said “Just give it to that guy to put on the belt, it’s unlocked right?”. Eh? “You must unlock your case, just scoot over there and unlock it and then give it to the guy.”. I’m surprised at this, obviously this is so that the bag can be searched, it wasn’t just my case, I heard her ask everyone, but this really goes against the grain for me. In the U.K. we’re used to being told to make sure your case is locked so that it can’t be tampered with. Got no choice, and I’m not going to argue about it, so just step aside and unlock it, open and close each latch to make sure it really is, and then pass it onto the guy who out it on the belt. Fingers crossed again that those latches don’t spring open in transit and I lose all my loosely packed socks and shorts or something. Don’t relish the idea of going commando!

Now I go up to the departure gates area and wait in a long queue to go through security. Had my Boarding Pass and Passport checked twice while waiting, as did everybody. Moved pretty quick really considering what you find when you arrive at the scanners. I usually get sorted for the scanner nice and early, I empty everything from my pockets, wallet, loose change, gadgets, put them in my bag and then take off my coat, but I didn’t expect … “All males over the age of 16 must take off their shoes” was shouted out, “… or else you will be searched.“. “All laptops must be removed from bags and placed in a separate box.“. Why were only blokes asked to take off their shoes and put them through the scanner? Why not women too? I don’t get it, although I understand why it’s a good idea to have them put through the scanner (I saw Aeon Flux the other day, O.K. bit of entertainment but she had stuff hidden in her shoes, no man did from what I remember). I guess, in the end, it does make me feel quite a bit safer to see this kind of thing happening, it’s a pain, but better safe than sorry I say.

After that it’s been nice and calm. Had really nice service in the Garden State Diner (where I had a Philly Cheese Steak Sandwich, yummy), and even had one of the same stewardesses from the flight to Newark on my flight to Cleveland, which was nice, small World really isn’t it?

While I waited for my flight to Cleveland I caught a few of the endless CNN “loops”, it was quite strange to see some stuff about home on the news, i.e. the £40 Million robbery and something about the Mayor of London’s suspension for his concentration camp comment to a Jewish reporter. There was also something about Bono and Geldof being nominated for Nobel Peace prizes or something. It was hard to tell what was being said on the newscast as every other sentence was interrupted by airport announcements, but I did see a piece about some “eighty year old” driving for 14 miles the wrong way down the freeway, in the fast lane, which was quite funny.

It’s now 19:40 EST (00:40 GMT) and I’m now sitting in the departures lounge in Cleveland waiting for my flight down to Austin. My seat makes a “ffft ffft ffft” sound every time I move, a bit like some unfortunate harnessed beast from Star Wars complaining as it gets a heel in it’s side, and “Jody Maroni’s Sausage Kingdom” is smoking the place out. I’ve had a nice Raspberry, Strawberry and Low Fat Dairy Mix “All That Raz” smoothie (my first ever proper smoothie), and am considering wandering off to get a Starbucks.

I’m not going to submit this post just now as I’d need to pay for wireless access, but I will as soon as I get to somewhere with free internet access. I think I’ll post more “notes from the States” throughout the week, if anything just as something to look back on later, but also so that family and friends can see what I’m getting up to as well. I’ll try and write at least one post per day.

Ta-ta for now!

Update 19:54 EST (00:54 GMT): Got my Starbucks, my usual “Americano” (after much experimenting over the years I’ve settled on good old simple coffee), and boy they’re stronger over here (or maybe it’s just because that’s what I need just now)! Me likes.

Update 23:55 CST (05:55 GMT): Made it to Austin, with case and everything!

Flight from Cleveland was pretty smooth, didn’t even realize we’d actually taken off it was so smooth and I was reading about Yao the Houston Rockets 7 foot six inch tall Chinese basketball player in the in-flight magazine. Tiny little plane, but nice and quick on and off it.

Walked through the airport to baggage claim and as I came to the carousel my case popped up into sight from the chute, how jammy is that! First thing I did? Move to the side and pop my case open to check everything was there. Not sure my case was searched, one of the internal detachable side pockets was off it’s hooks and the batteries for my alarm clock were no where to be seen (later found down opposite sides of the case), but everything looks to be there. Sigh of relief.

Spending the night in the Hilton at the airport, nice big room, usual fair for a Hilton. Rather tired, been awake for nearly 25 hours now, time to crash (can say that now that I don’t have any more flights for a few days)! Night night.

So, here’s my preliminary schedule for REAL World 2006, what’s yours?

I should probably point out that the session at 15:00 on Tuesday is “A Practical Approach To The Perfect Product Launch”, not “A Practical Approach To The Perfect Product”, that would be a little grandiose!

Also, the last day is pretty much up in the air as there’s this concept of voting for repeated sessions for when there are conflicts, and some sessions just haven’t been set yet. Even so, I already have a conflict on the Friday, I want to attend both “Windows User Interface Design” and “Database Reporting”.