Dateline: Faculty Club, U Cal Berkeley, Berkeley California, 8 March 2005
Long, tiring day, but a fun one. Got up, did some email, made some calls, missed my Japanese newspaper interview (bad phone connections at hotel), decided to give up and jumped in the car to cruise. Felt I needed to practice my run to the airport, because I'll be trying it at 4am on Friday, so a little up-front practice can be a good thing.
So I catch CA 24 to US580 and then catch US80 over to San Fran via the famous Bay Bridge, a two-fer than connects on Treasure Island in the middle (where I've actually spent some nights in a naval BOQ (Bachelor Officers Quarters) about a decade ago). Drive around the Embarcadero, then catch 101 to Golden Gate. Get to the Marin County side and stop at Point Vista (or is it Vista Point?), park the car, and then walk the length of Golden Gate back to SF and then walk the dog backwards over to Marin again (takes about an hour). I shot of bunch of pix I may post tomorrow. Fog would roll in periodically in vast waves from the ocean. Unreal to see on sunny, cloudless day.
Then jump back in car and drive to Muir Woods off Hwy 1, one of the most crazily curved roads you'll ever drive (more hairpins than Rapunzel used to wear). Get to Muir Woods and do about 100 minute hike: up a mountain for 1.5 miles, then along ridge-line for another 1.5, then take hillside trail back to start. So just over 4 miles. Lotsa verticality. Views were unreal, if you like trees. Sometimes, looking into a narrow valley, your sight could take in as many as 200 redwoods, all 9 to 15 stories high and very tightly clustered in "families" (or rings of trees that grow off of roots of original center tree).
Then it's 3:30, so I buy a sandwich at the Muir gift shop and jump back in the car. Instead of driving the way I came, I head north on 101 through San Rafael and catch the 580 Richmond bridge back over into Oakland, getting back to the Faculty Club around 4pm. Then I load up a couple of Kraftwerk songs to open and close the brief (mood setters), using "Computer World" for before the talk and "Computer Love" for after. Tomorrow, night I'll use the main title and another key theme piece from the "Last Emperor," because I'll talk less military and more globalization tomorrow night.
Once Mac set, I shower and get dressed and then walk over with Lt. Hiler again to the auditorium. It's a bit smallish and way too hot, but the overhead projector is good and the sound is integrated.
Then I have a brain accident: I slap the Interlink RF clicker USB port in the Mac, and start testing the brief by clicking with the mousepad. Here I learn something weird: when the USB port is in the machine, and you click with the mousepad, it clicks straight from slide transition to slide transition, skipping all the internal animation embedded on each slide. Well, I found this problem around 6:30, but didn't realize that I was just messing with myself by doing this, creating almost a panic attack. Finally, about 10 minutes before showtime, I realize how I'm causing a non-problem and simply use the clicker to advance the slides and it all works fine. I also figure out how to correct the snafued Law and Order ch-ching sounds on the header slides, switching the sound effect from the transition to the emphasis effect within the slide. Never had a problem with this on PCs, but on Mac the secondary animation cuts off the ch-ching sound, so by switching to the latter effect, it's preserved in its entirety. I fix all the headers by 5-minutes-til, then trigger the opening Rule-Set Reset ad slide, likewise triggering the Kraftwerk song to settle down the audience.
Room is very hot and I go about 1:40 instead of 1:00, but few leave. It's SRO with about 20 people in the aisles and another 30 or so crammed in the doorways. About 15 minutes of Q&A. Then to the Faculty Club for about an hour of informal talks with ROTC cadets and retired vets. Just too tired to pop right now, so this will be it. Tomorrow I have a lunch, a class-meeting with ROTC cadets, and Part Deux of the Brief. I am promised a bigger hall tomorrow night, and hopefully a cooler one.
Hosts seemed pleased by the talk. I am ready for bed after the 2.5 hours of hiking and then the 2 hours pacing on stage. My dogs are barking!
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