Updated 30DEC1999
Updated 09JAN2000 : Everything up to Saturday night local time
Updated 15JAN2000 :
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| Expect Web Update | |
| Expect Phone Call | |
| In Flight | |
| On Train | |
| Fiction |
| Sydney AEDT | Location | Local Time | Local Event | Comment | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| 31DEC1999 23:59 | 33°52'S, 151°13'E Sydney Harbour | 31DEC1999 23:59 GMT+11 | Countdown | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 01JAN2000 00:00 | 33°52'S, 151°13'E Sydney Harbour | 01JAN2000 00:00 GMT+11 | Happy New Y/D/C/M, Take 1 | No problem here, plenty of buses after midnight. Is it just me or has this whole event taken on a chromy/champagne
colour? When I got home I watched some of the TV coverage of the rest of the world; most people I've met so far seem to
agree that Sydney and Paris had the most amazing spectacles. I also found the dawn music at the Sydney Opera House very
memorable; the saxophone player, didgeridoo, and female solo each at the top of an arch. Very spooky really.
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| 01JAN2000 15:45 16:00 | Sydney Airport SYD | 01JAN2000 15:45 GMT+11 | QF 11 Departure
| seat 70A pre-booked Estimated Time of Flight: 12h55
| Estimated Time of Arrival: 10:00 PST At pilot's mark, set watch from 17:07 -> 22:07, minus one day.
| 01JAN2000 19:00 | San Francisco | 01JAN2000 00:00 SFMT+0 | Earth sucked through San Francisco
| 01JAN2000 19:05 | San Francisco | 01JAN2000 00:05 SFMT+0 | Doctor #8 extemporates
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| 01JAN2000 20:40
| 10°S 175°W, 4h55m into flight | Ellice Islands, Tuvalu 300km east of Nukulaelae 01JAN2000 21:40 GMT+12 | becomes 31DEC1999 23:40 GMT-10 Cross International Date Line | then into Cook Islands This prediction of 0940 Zulu was spot on, so my maps and rulers and calculator did as good a job as the
pilots. However, according to the pilots, we only crossed into the GMT-11 timezone (see two cells down) which meant New Year's
celebrations on the plane only once. When I asked the nice stewardess for a photo opportunity, she took a look at these notes
and offered to let me into the cockpit to talk to the acting pilots, Bill and Dave. This was the calmest part of the plane,
which made it easy to forget we were travelling at 963km/h. And seeing nothing but still stars to the front and to the sides
made it feel like a spaceship. When I tried to recognise any of the stars, it was kind of spooky to see the Southern Cross
lying on its side on the horizon to the right, and what I could only say was the Big Dipper on the horizon to the
left.
| Anyway, we swapped notes and it turns out I was using "a political map" while they had some sort of definitive map of the timezones (as indicated by rows of "T"s) which showed the South Pacific in minute detail, but without any national borders. Plus the pilots reckoned that some of the South Pacific countries were declaring special timezones just for the new millenium celebrations. And now I've checked out a web site on timezones, and it looks like the Kiribati had a crazy GMT+13 jutting all the way into the International Date Line by three timezones or more. Sigh, I can work this one out when I get back. At least I knew exactly where I was, and when; just not "when". Anyway, whether it was the year 2000 GMT+13, or a last hurrah for 1999, I spent that time chatting to the pilots for nearly an hour ... they were more than adamant that the plane had no Y2K problem, besides which it operated on GMT/UTC/Zulu, so it had been 4am when we took off already. The pilot offered to set the ship's chronometer back to 1999 just to prove it would work, but I said "no, thanks, that's okay". Basically they weren't angry or even humoured by the people who told me not to fly on their flight, but altogether nonplussed. They even showed me a commercially produced aeronautical database which they regularly uploaded into the ship's computer, and the current one they were using dated was 20DEC->19JAN so it was just fine. We also had a chat about stuff like clear air turbulence, which the radar can't detect; ground collision warnings, for which someone has recently completed a global database of minimum altitude settings; international flight corridors, which operate something like an odds/evens system for the altitude you cruise at; and they let me don the cans and listen in on their HF radio conversation (they were already in US-controlled airspace). 01JAN2000 21:00
| 5h15m into flight | 01JAN2000 00:00 GMT-10 | Happy New Y/D/C/M, Take 2
| 20 min delay buffer
| 01JAN2000 21:15
| 7°S 170°W, 5h30m into flight | Phoenix Islands, Kiribati 450km south of Kanton Island 01JAN2000 00:15 GMT-10 | becomes 31DEC1999 23:15 GMT-11 Cross north over national border | from Cook Islands to Kiribati When it came time to celebrate New Year again, I finally left the cockpit to see if the stewardesses
were serving champagne or anything downstairs. As it turned out, First and Business Classes were just snoozing in the dark,
and Economy was busy watching the late movie or sleeping. So I got a photo with Robyn the stewardess, even though everyone
was either too zonked out from partying in Sydney, or didn't care -- after all, the pilot did start the flight by telling us
the Los Angeles time and considered the flight in that timezone ever since. He did mention the LA midnight for the benefit of
any of the locals on board, and told us when we crossed the equator, but even though the pilot considered it a special
occasion, not even he really felt informed about the idiosyncracies of this particular dateline transgression ("special event
timezones" and all ... sort of like Clearways?), and left it at that!
| According to some information I've seen, this particular moment might have brought us into GMT+13, therefore 23:45 01JAN2000 and near as dammit to the second of January ... gee whiz. If you find this sort of stuff interesting, you should probably know that it only really applied on (or around) New Year ... although I wouldn't be surprised if they've currently left it that way and haven't got around to moving it back to normal. Hmmm it may have been the case, therefore, that we didn't get New Year on the plane? "Officially". 01JAN2000 22:00
| 6h15m into flight | 01JAN2000 00:00 GMT-11 | Happy New Y/D/C/M, Take 3
| 45 min delay buffer
| 01JAN2000 22:15
| 3°S 165°W, 6h30m into flight
| Line Islands, International Waters 400km east of Jarvis Island 01JAN2000 00:15 GMT-11 | becomes 01JAN2000 01:15 GMT-10 Cross east into Kiritimati timezone | (then enter & leave Kiribati again) Okay this is the weird bit ... if you take the Kiribati arrangements as official, and ignore the usual
three-tiered timezone of Kiribati (and the official pilots' timesheet as well, which had no hope of being updated for the
celebrations), then, we would have flown from GMT+13 to GMT-10 in international waters, and back to GMT+13 and back again (to
GMT-9) all in about half an hour. If you see the maps, we actually went into that little nook of international waters that's
surrounded by Kiribati territory. I think Kiritimati was satisfied to see out the old year. Lemme get the final word on this
and put some maps online when I get home. Whatever I've done here, I've done it ... just not sure what.
| 02JAN2000 05:15 | 13h30m into flight | Los Angeles LAX 01JAN2000 10:15 10:17 GMT-8 | QF11 Arrival
| Touchdown time was spot on, and I had a really nice flight even if I didn't get any real sleep. I had too much fun
chatting to Sandy, a nice woman on an American Airlines codeshare flight back to Chicago, and doing other things.
|
| 02JAN2000 06:00 | to 02JAN2000 11:00 Los Angeles LAX | 01JAN2000 11:00 GMT-8 | to 01JAN2000 16:00 GMT-8 Exit customs
| Pick up baggage Turn right, drop off at LAX transfer belt Go to American Airlines terminal 3 Y2K survival assessment Well this went fine. The QANTAS pilots reckoned they'd heard about a GPS failure in a warning system in
the US, and I'd heard about the warning going off in a Japanese nuclear power station, but that's all. Not even my baggage
got lost, howzat? Even the security rigmorole seemed normal to me.
| Some thoughts about the New Millenium here, and about Los Angeles here.
| 02JAN2000 11:41 | Los Angeles LAX | 01JAN2000 16:41 16:45 GMT-8 | QF3159 / AA2862 Departure
| seat 15A pre-booked 1h14m flight | QF3159 / AA2862
| This was a particularly scenic flight, with the sun already setting through one set
of windows and out the other side. Looking at the clouds that kept California blanketed, it was almost as
if they looked like foam resting on water, and the smoggier area beneath it looked like underwater. Then
whenever you saw one of those tall Californian mountain-peaks sticking through the clouds, it was as if it
was poking up through the water's surface. Wicked.
| (The updated times were actually scheduled as such, when I got to the terminal). I booked my flights back in June but in September they moved my LA -> SanFran connection back a few hours. I'm not sure why, because there were some American Airlines / QF codeshare flights departing after I arrived; it meant I saw a whole sunset/sunrise/sunset while in transit, but never mind. The connecting American Airlines flight was a decent service considering its budget, and had at least two other souls coming from the fireworks in Sydney in my row alone. Again, the predominant colour seemed to be chromy/champagne, but this time it was because of the sulfur streetlights they use in all the cities along California. 02JAN2000 12:55 | San Francisco SFO | 01JAN2000 17:55 18:00 GMT-8 | QF3159 / AA2862 Arrival
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| 02JAN2000 13:06 | San Francisco SFO | 01JAN2000 18:06 GMT-8
| Prepaid shuttle to hotel
| This airport just felt a lot different to LAX. Much nicer and plusher. Upstairs was a traffic island where all the
private shuttle vans operated from, and they were organised enough to have colour-coding for the different companies. Just
looking at all the different buses going past, you could tell this city had its public transport act together. I felt much
more confident about this city, although it was noticeably colder and the entire concrete roadway kept shaking every few
minutes. Earthquakes?? Surely not. But I kept getting odd shaking sensations all day, though I'm sure now it was just the
effect of being awake since 31DEC1999 GMT+11.
| It took about ten minutes for the correct van to arrive from downtown, and the distinctive blue Supershuttle van took four of us into town. The black driver who took us was cool (and liked speeding), taking all our names and destinations in military fashion. Then he switched personality when he personally explained tipping to me calmly outside the hotel. Strangely, I feel like I've gone on a big trip interstate, but I'm sure I'll find something really weird really soon. |
| Shuttle voucher from QANTAS | |
|
Q210 Booking AU/354540-002 02/12/99
SUPERSHUTTLE 700 16th Street SAN FRANCISCO,CALIFORNIA 94107 (415) 558 8500 |
| Sydney AEDT | Location | Local Time | Local Event | Comment | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| 02JAN2000 14:00 | San Francisco hotel | 01JAN2000 19:00 GMT-8 | Book in to hotel
CMR# 1A-10044A | It was 10pm. I was hungry. I was, also, downtown. My impressions of San
Francisco.
See this mess of hotel bookings below, all at the same hotel? I asked the guy behind the desk if I could have the same room, and he said, "Well, as the Italians say, niente." But I told him I just wanted the cheapest room that the three rates gave me, and he put me in room 507. Which, as it happens, is the same room as the guy in the queue behind me at the Steve Jobs Keynote had at the Ramada on Taylor Street. Hotel Britton sits next to a couple of other hotels which are part of the same chain. You get to go to Cafe 7, which does a very nice breakfast (but they did charge me, only once, for "gratuity tax", which is the tax levied on the actual worker in lieu of income tax and is strictly voluntary for the customer to pay -- well that's according to the waiters at the diner where Ilene and I went). Especially for that area, don't bother going out for breakfast. Unless you have to eat before 6:30am (and if you're queueing to see Steve Jobs...) in which case, go down to the corner, and Tony Baloney will make you a Tony Baloney sandwich. The keycard to my room is manufactured by TESA Entry Systems, Inc. The white chunky-serif-on-blue logo looks vaguely similar. The hotel just surcharges you 25c per local phone call, and thankfully the one I made the next day was categorised as local, and cost me only 50c. 03JAN2000 07:00 | San Francisco hotel | 02JAN2000 12:00 GMT-8 | Check out and re-check in
| Q210 Booking AU/354540-004 17/09/99 Well by this stage I've seen enough cable television ... all that walking around, plus a small cold I caught on the
plane has made me tired and I decided to stay in. Which has probably given me enough chance to form an opinion on this country by now.
| 03JAN2000 | San Francisco | 02JAN2000 GMT-8 | Ring Ilene Hoffman
| Macworld Party guru 415 824-8910 It turns out Ilene is from Boston ... fantastic, she can show me around maybe! This was Sunday and I had a good look
around the empty-but-busy halls of Macworld Expo. This part of town is actually different to the west of it. And east.
South and north too.
| 04JAN2000 | Attendee Will Call Counter | Upper North Lobby Moscone Convention Center 03JAN2000 GMT-8 | Pick up badge using letter
| Had a quick look around the northern half of town this morning, including an intersection in Chinatown which I swear I
can
remember from TV when they had a blackout some years ago. Freaky.
| I met Ilene at the expo foyer and we went and had late lunch at a real diner (which she found out by asking the workers, which works for her!) This diner had some really enormous plates and the big meals you expect of America -- which is why I ordered a "half size" entree and still couldn't finish it! Ilene forgot this and ordered more than she could chew. She's a cross between Fran Drescher and Patsy Stone; she reminds me of Tacy Ullman, is fantastic for her age and not too shy about anything, really :-) We went to Jax's pre-expo party on this night, from his hotel room to Planet Hollywood, where, for not the first time this week, I felt like I was in Sydney until I checked my wallet. 05JAN2000 07:00 | San Francisco hotel | 04JAN2000 12:00 GMT-8 | Check out and re-check in
| CMR# 1A-10028A By now the shuttle bus services to Moscone are finally beginning, and people I bump into have heard of the show.
| 05JAN2000 | San Francisco Macworld | 04JAN2000 GMT-8 | Macworld Expo begins
| Today was the warm-up session, which was a nice, big friendly gathering in which people try to refrain
from guessing what will be announced. Yes, everybody was expecting hardware. Afterwards, I was a bit peeved that I didn't
have a squillion-dollar pass to go to the pre-show workshop conference sessions.
| 06JAN2000 04:00 | Moscone Convention Center | 05JAN2000 09:00 GMT-8
| Steve Jobs Keynote
live webcast
| Well this is what it's all about -- experience the Reality Distortion Field! I started queueing at
6:50am and it had already gone around one corner of the building (without the front doors open). When we
got into the hall, I honestly couldn't see more than I would have in a webcast, because all the best seats
were taken up by VIPs who got to jump the queue while we were waiting (include guys like John de Lancie
whom I saw). While we were waiting, some people started hitting an Apple-logo beachball around
the halls -- and you didn't hear that from anywhere else! It would've helped if the stage was a bit
higher, though; especially for the demonstration of the dock at the bottom of the screen, when people
began standing up everywhere. But this was very cool, getting to see the new interface unveiled and Steve
declaring his intention to stay. If anyone is interested, this is what I thought.
But I do think I spotted the Reality Distortion Field in action, when I heard a few "ooohs" and
"aahs" out of place, where I didn't expect them -- probably because I'd seen something similar before,
done on a *nix environment or elsewhere in industry I suppose.
| One other thing I didn't see mentioned anywhere was the snide reference to Microsoft, when Steve said that Apple didn't just like to eat its own dog food -- that was in reference to the description Microsoft gave to its own Windows 2000 internal beta test. 07JAN2000 | Macworld | 06JAN2000 GMT-8 | Show floor
| This day started with the Keynote de-brief, and this time they really were meant to
discuss all the new hardware -- except there wasn't any. The most notable comment from one of the guest
speakers -- "Yes, Steve really did surprise us: Who would have guessed? Apple Greeting Cards, eh?"
| I spent most of the day on the show floor ... I had a really nice lunch -- people were queueing like crazy to get the crepes one guy was specialising in; he made them on the spot and you could have sweet toppings or gourmet ... mmm, when you finished it, it wasn't enough! Microsoft had the only place you could find a copy of IE5 (hehe, Outlook Express makes it so easy to email entire folders); Apple didn't even have a demo of Aqua, though the lucky ones got blue "X" t-shirts; and there were more 22" LCD monitors than you'll ever see again in your life. I also spoke to some Apple guys about Open Firmware and getting Linux and Darwin to work; one of them gave me a Darwin Developers' SDK CD-ROM, and the other promised to email me a copy of a comprehensive Powerpoint presentation about the G3's Open Firmware that he once went to see. I bumped into Aaron again, the guy who was in the queue behind me waiting for the keynote. He'd also seen John de Lancie ("Q" from Star Trek) and was lucky enough to bump into Steve Jobs and shake his hand (all he said to Steve was "thanks!"). Anyway Aaron was good enough to offer me a lift down to Cupertino. Pilgrimage! Woohoo! Later on I went to the Netter's dinner (all you can eat Chinese), in which they do the obligatory raising of hands to see who has the most bandwidth, RAM, email addresses, (or email domains), whatever. It turns out one guy had a gigabyte of RAM, the same guy had a 22" LCD, and I can't remember how much hard disk -- but it turns out it was all paid for by the US government. (You can only nominate your "main" machine for most of these categories). Three guys had more than a T1, and "Woody" it turns out had something called an OC12. This is the same guy who had the most static IPs to his name ... Adam Engst, the MC asked, "you must have a B-class?" and he answered "Two." He actually provides the internet access for a couple of others at the party. I managed to get them to count Pine as a mail reader category, and remembered eMates when they were counting PDAs and Newtons. Then I called out "Extensions!" and it turns out somebody has seven rows, which is two more than me! Amazing. Afterwards, I managed to find the notorious, elusive Mac The Knife party -- photos will be supplied, I promise! 08JAN2000 | Macworld | 07JAN2000 GMT-8 | Around San Fran
| I spent most of this day around San Francisco, to buy a couple of standard tourist souvenirs.
This involved going to the obligatory Fisherman's Wharf (all the way by foot via Nob Hill, because of the
incapable cable cars), which is like Darling Harbour, etc ... every city has one, and this is where
pickpockets like to go. I didn't get my pockets picked, but I did bump into Aaron again down there. The
coincidences were getting scary :-)
| I also visited the Cable Car Museum, where they actually turn the wheels that pull the cables. Big mother GE engines in there. Other places I went included Chinatown, where I failed to find any London poster advertisements in a back alley with bits of police tape left lying around. I did check! As for suspicious cars, I did see a dark blue Mercedes ML-class (a colour that's a bit rare) with the numberplate: KGB GMBH 09JAN2000 | San Francisco Macworld | 08JAN2000 GMT-8 | Macworld Expo ends
| Well I got to stand in front of Apple HQ, courtesy of Aaron! And yes it's just like in the VR, except
this was the weekend and besides, everybody was up at the expo anyway. Cupertino is like a nice open suburb, with plenty of
buildings in the area with big Apple logos on them (still rainbow ones). Across the road from Apple was Sun's building.
| We then drove west from Silicon Valley along a very, very windy road to the Highway 1, where the rolling hills give no clue of the coast that's approaching. You even get cows grazing on the strip of land between the highway and the ocean. A few minutes up the road and it turns into cliff-edges and the highway winds its way through cuttings. Then the freeway, SanFran and the fog begin! We went to Golden Gate Park and the across the red bridge itself for a few photo opporunities. There were also some World War II fortresses to defend against the Japanese up that side. Well that's your lot for now ... now I've got to go pack my bags a bit and get up early, because the Amtrak people want you to book in 30 minutes beforehand, just like an airline check-in. The coach leaves 30 minutes before the train from Emeryville too, so it's an early start to get to the BART station on time. Well I made it to the Ferry Building in time for the transfer to the coach and train that started in Emeryville ... it was no problem taking my rolling suitcase on the BART trains, except I had to trundle it down the steps because the only escalators were going up. |
| San Francisco hotel | |
| Hotel Britton
112 Seventh Avenue San Francisco, CA 94103 +1 415 621 7001 | |
| via Macworld Expo Housing | |
CMR Confirmation #: 1A-10044A
+1 415 979 2267 +1 415 979 2270 fax | |
| via QANTAS Holidays | |
| From SUN 02 JAN 00 to TUE 04 JAN 00
using prepaid voucher Q210 Booking AU/354540-004 17/09/99 |
| Macworld Expo | |
| San Francisco
Moscone Convention Center Marriott Hotel +1 800 645 EXPO http://www.macworldexpo.com Confirmation # 07-3136 Package 5 (Conference) student rate |