babbling on about nottingham

Ubicomp was wicked. I had a lot of fun, way more than I expected. Spent more time on buses and in airports than I like, made a bunch of new friends, saw caves in a mall and sheep in a field, drank red wine and learned a new card game. :)

[skip this post to the stuff that's not long and rambly]

day one [sunday + monday]
packed like a crazy person all morning, freeking out at various intervals about various stupid little things. Tried to make more phidget demos, failed miserably because I was too frantic to concentrate. p came in the early afternoon and we went to get some food and starbucks, because god only knows when [or what] they intended to feed me on the plane! p was awesome - he listened to me rant about the various stupid things I was freeking out about for like hours without snapping, and even managed to get me calmed down a little bit. He rocks. I have no idea why I always freek out before travelling, but it's not fun.

Got to the airport, found my gate [where the board said the plane was going to new zealand. I'd love to go to new zealand, it just wasn't going to work for me on that particular day...they never did fix it, but the plane went to london anyways], and managed to get on my flight.

Good god, I'd forgotten how much I sincerely hate airports. And planes. Wow. They smell funny, there's too many dumb people, and nothing seems to work how it's supposed to.

The flight was okay. We [me and r] got the pleasure of sitting next to Loud Snoring Man. He was awesome. really. I wanted to stuff my little airplane issued pillow down his throat about three hours in. But I contented myself with giving him death glares which he obviously wasn't going to see because he was well, sleeping. Made me feel better though. Unfortunately, I didn't have much else to do, since I did not get to sleep, what with his intermittent volume changes.

When we got to Heathrow we got to circle for a while. I hate it when the plane turns, because of the tilting, and the seeing directly down to the ground without obstacles. It just freaks me out. [I'm such a girl!] At this point we got to hang out on the tarmac for like half an hour because some other plane was in our gate. True joy is sitting on a landed plane unable to get off after nine+ hours. You can't sleep, or read or work or anything, because you're all ready to get off. You just sit there staring in horrible airplane-limbo. I didn't even care about the gate anymore...inflate the emergency slides already! I want off the plane!

When we finally did get off, we got all our stuff, went through customs, and hiked several miles to the bus station. I felt really bad for r, who did not have wheels on his suitcase. Wheels are genius. It was far.

Then we got to hang out at the bus station for a couple hours. Nothing more fun than a crowded, smelly bus station. Got cranked in the shins by several people towing humongous suitcases. I think the new rule for suitcase size needs to be, if a family of four could live quite happily inside your suitcase, it's too big. Watched some drivers get mad at various passengers who seemed to be trying to board buses they were not actually booked on. Why anyone would want to get on a bus other than the one they booked is beyond me. [Or conversely, why anyone would book a bus other than the one they wanted to go on.]

When we did get on our bus [the one we booked - we didn't try for any other ones, though it did seem to be the trend] it was hot, crowded and smelled like pee. Intensely like pee. I mean, I have a lot of bus experience, and I thought I had seen it all, but this bus was possibly the worst I've ever been on. There was nowhere for our carry ons, and it was a crowded bus. So I got to sit in the very back corner, behind the bathroom, all bunched up with my feet on my bag, and my knees around my ears. For four hours. And since buses make me sleepy, I was all groggy and desperately trying to get comfortable, and probably driving r nuts. It sucked.

Four hours later, we staggered out of the bus station in nottingham, found a cab and got to our residence. I think the cab was the best part of the whole trip, though I felt like total death by that point. I was pretty much willing to pay that cabbie any amount of money if he would take me somewhere I could sleep.

The residence was pretty nice. Little rooms, but clean, and everyone had their own bathroom, which was great. I think that first shower was like the best shower I've ever taken in my life. It felt really good to wash all the bus/plane/airport/bus station grossness off. [although the shower was about the size of a coffin. I banged my elbows a lot. Me hurting myself became a definite theme for england.]

We were standing around uselessly in the lobby trying to figure out what the hell to do for dinner when we were recruited by three other really nice canadians. Go figure. You go all the way to england, and the first people you meet are other canadians.

We went to dinner at this pub called the Cow. The food was kinda gross. [another theme for england] But there sure was lots of it! This one guy from Dalhousie ate this huge cow pie [yeah, a cow pie over there is not what it is over here...] it was like enough food for four people. I bet he didn't feel very well afterwards. The people we ate with were super nice. I don't really remember anything after that, because I think that's when my brain completely shut down.

day two [tuesday]
This was the workshop day. Holyboringbatman. Paper sessions in the morning, which were okay, but nothing that made me go "wow, that's really cool". I think the best it got was "huh, that's better than the last one". I don't think any part of "ubiquitous display environments" are that exciting to me. I was thinking tables, walls, devices, etc. You know, ubiquitous displays. But apparently the real theme was "wall displays and cell phones" which no one mentioned to me. It actually seemed to be the theme for the whole conference, though I hadn't realised this yet.

Lunch was okay, though the theme of kinda gross unidentifiable food was continued. The afternoon session was supposed to be a poster session, with demos and stuff. It ended up being more presentations, longer than the morning ones, since people had no slides, and no one was making them shut up. These workshop people were really disorganised.

I was up first, and did just fine - kept it under five minutes, plus another five for questions. My stuff was definitely not in the whole "walls and cells" theme they had going so I got lots of dumbass questions. I really hate it when people ask questions just to make themselves sound smart. If you have or are working on a PhD and you still feel so insecure about your intelligence that you need to ask overly complex questions to prove how smart you are, you have major issues.

There was also no demo space provided, so I hauled all my freeking phidgets to england for nothing. After my presentation the jet lag really set in, and I spent the next three hours using pure willpower to prop my eyelids open. If I had had toothpicks, I would've used them.

Going back into the dorms after the workshop carrying all my phidget stuff, the automatic door attacked me. Ow ow ow ow ow. My poor arm! England is out to get me.

Went to dinner [chinese food in england, not too bad actually] with more new interesting people, including a guy who spent two years in the Antarctic. That's neat. I always wonder if I would have to guts to do something like that, and I'm really not sure that I would.

day three [wednesday]
The real conference started today. It's much bigger than DIS. 500 people. The opening plenary was kinda weird - she mocked ubicomp and then described a urban game project way more mock-able than anything she made fun of in the beginning. She also made up her own words, which is like minus twelve points. [urbiquity? what the hell does that mean?] The talks were pretty good, though again, nothing that exciting. Getting the distinct impression that yet again, I don't really fit here. Great. I really need more places where I don't fit in. That's exactly what I'm looking for.

Minute Madness at the end of the day. Got more freaked out about it then I expected. But it went well. Sometimes being one of the only girls in a conference has it's advantages...you definitely become more memorable. a's minute madness was awesome.

Then I went and slept for an hour, coming back just in time for the barbeque. Texas burgers. They don't make them like that in texas. Really. I'd been at least hoping for edible.

After dinner we played this hilarious location aware game called bill, designed by these guys from scotland. You basically run around with a pda that shows a map of the area with these virtual coins you want to pick up and upload. You work in teams of two against another team of two, and you can steal coins from each other. re and I were up against r and a. It was super fun, even though we lost. We swear technical difficulties! [Note: running in the dark after staring at a bright LCD screen is not something I would recommend. Whole trees just come out of nowhere.]

The only other demo that really caught my attention was this thing called glowbits. I'm not sure what the point of it was, but it was really, really pretty. I want one. It was these LED lights on motors, and they changed colour depending on how far out they came from the matrix. It was a kind of light sculpture. I loved it. I think the guy running it thought I was stalking him because I went over to look at it so often. [totally random aside: if I had to pick someone to stalk, he would be right up there - really cute guy!]

Talked to a few people about the ambient display stuff. Everyone says "oh yeah, you're the flower girl!" Not sure that that's how I want to be known, but I'll take what I can get.

Also, on the theme of england attacking me, I got stung on the ankle by some kind of plant on the way back to the dorms. England is starting to worry me!

day four [thursday]
Another morning of semi-interesting papers. This afternoon we skipped the conference and went touristing. I know, I know, we're horrible people, but how often are you in nottingham? [I guess in my case that would be as often as you're at ubicomp, but that's so not the point :P]

We went to these caves that I guess run under most of the city. For some reason the entrance to the tourist part of the caves is in the mall. Yup, a mall. Like you go down the escalator and it's right there, with a neon sign, next to some trendy clothing shop. That was more than a little weird, so of course I totally liked it.

The caves were fun. The guides were total cheese, but whatever, we were tourists! The first guy was a medieval tannerer [?], then the other guy was a WWII Air Raid Warden [who, according to the receptionist, really thinks he is a WWII Air Raid Warden] The caves were pretty neat, I took a lot of pictures. A lot of the pictures sucked. Good for me. We initially started out with a group of like ten other students, but then a ended up talking to the WWII guy for a really long time. r and I waited, but everyone else left us.

We wandered over to the Galleries of Justice, but they were too expensive, so then we went up to the not-so-Castle, which is really just a big fancy house where the castle used to be. What a scam! Anyways, it was free, and pretty, and we took a million more pictures. Then we went and hung out near the statue of Robin Hood.

There was two weird things here. The first was that this was very obviously not an area you were supposed to drive in. Cobblestones, historical, etc. There were even these lovely bumps at the entrance to keep people out. This didn't really seem to stop anyone. They just drove right over the bumps. Perhaps they were really just suggestion bumps. There was also a sign that seemed to indicate that no flying motorbikes were allowed. Please keep your flying motorbikes elsewhere, people!

After we took our picture on the statue [I think it might be a law - if you go to Nottingham, you have to have your picture taken with the Robin Hood statue. Like going to Paris and having your picture taken by the Eiffel Tower. If you don't do it, the tourist police come and take you away for "retraining".] we kind of wandered around for a bit. Had some really good ice cream in a little chocolate shop that had very cool chairs. Went to the train station and marks & spenser. Then we went back to the dorms just in time to change and catch the bus to the banquet.

The bus ride was neat. Lots of pretty english countryside. And fields full of sheep!!!! Fluffy white sheep!!! Sheep in fields are so much cooler than cows in fields. Took lots of sheep pictures, the non-canadians on the bus thought we were crazy. The banquet place was gorgeous - kelham hall. When we got there, everyone got out and took a zillion pictures - geek city - LCD screens lit up the night! The ceiling of the first room was painted bright pink, which was weird, but the rest was very grand.

The banquet was hilarious. It was one of those things where I expected to be bored and uncomfortable the whole night, cause I really hate forced mingling and small talk. But it ended up being really fun [thanks again to r]. Our table, which I think was supposed to have two bottles of wine, ended up with like twenty. People who were all academic and polite at breakfast were now seriously hiding bottles of wine under the table. I don't even like wine and I drank quite a bit. The food was what I am now starting to recognise as generic english gross. The grey meat+fat slab I received as a main course was impressive. One of the conference guys has a band, so they played after dinner. They were not very good, but they were loud! There was even dancing. But overall it was really, really fun. Slept all the way back on the bus [buses make me sleepy, okay?].

day five [friday]
Morning papers were okay. There was a japanese guy with the funniest slide deck I've ever seen. He was awesome. The afternoon papers were also okay, but the closing keynote was brutal. Some kind of graphs...global ubiquitous computer malarky. No pictures. I'm sorry, but if you're the last speaker in a long conference, no matter how cool your idea, you need to have pictures. I think he was trying to inspire us to do something theoretical. If the number of people checking their email on their laptops is any indication, I don't think many people were inspired.

After the conference we ended up going down to the Cow again for dinner, with the same people as the first night, plus a bunch of others, including this cool ID guy who had this awesome demo project - it was this neat system for controlling the atmosphere in the home - you moved these metal/wood arms on this spinning thing...hard to describe but very neat. r said it appealed to the industrial designer in me, which was totally true. I think that and the glowbits things were the coolest stuff I saw. I had been really hoping I would find all sorts of exciting things at ubicomp, a whole community I fit into so, since it's my thesis area and all. But I really didn't, and it's just depressing.

Anyways, we went to dinner and then back to the dorms. I kinda felt like we should go out or something, but we all kind of wussed out - tired. We ended up sitting in the lobby, watching weird british TV [we do not get TV like that over here! mildly disturbing], watching people work on their chi papers, and playing foosball and cards. I got to once again prove my complete lack of foos ability, this time on an international level. I taught r spit, and learned how to play war, which is the kind of game that goes forever, but never seems to get anywhere. ;)

day six [saturday + more saturday]
Got up really really early. re, r and i took a cab to the bus station where we waited around for about an hour and ate chips from a newstand for breakfast. At least they were recognisable. We got on the bus - much less crowded and smelly than the first one. bonus! I wasn't feeling very well about half an hour in, so I took some gravol, which made me sleep for about an hour, and then just made me slow and spacey until the airport.

While being spacey I fell and hit my leg on the arm of the chair..seriously, I think I have more bruises from england than anything else! We ended up sitting on the bus for 45 minutes at one of the bus stops waiting for some guy that I guess got left behind while I was still drugged, but we had his luggage.

Why did we have his luggage? Now that's a very good question! I have no idea.

Finally got to heathrow, hiked back to Terminal 3 [r had a cart this time :) ] and wandered around looking for food, but there wasn't any until we got through security. Of course they don't tell you that anywhere. It would be way too helpful for an airport to tell you anything!

We got through security pretty quickly actually, though I did get patted down on a random sweep. They don't seem to feel the need to swipe your laptop with the magic thing here. Or even to have you take it out of your bag. Calgary In'tl needs to get on their program.

After getting through security we wandered around uselessly for a while, assessing our options. We'd almost decided when there was a fire alarm. Seriously. In the middle of Heathrow Terminal 3, where there's like a zillion shops and twice as many people. So we all had to evacuate down towards the gates, past these fire doors. We sat on the floor and waited for a while and then they let us back. I'm not sure if they were set to extra-sensitive because it was september 11th, or the alarms were busted, but there was another one as we were going to our gate, though we didn't have to evauate that time.

We ate at TGIFridays - I had a BLT. I figured not even the english could screw up a BLT, but I was wrong. Nasty. After that, re left us to catch her flight. She's a sweetheart - so glad I met her! r and I went and bought some books, and then wandered over to the gate.

Flight home was a whole new level of boredom. Instead of the Loud Snoring Guy, we got the Screaming Child. As far as possible from the video screen. Awesome. Read for a while, but I didn't really have enough brain cells left for reading at that point. I watched Shrek2 [i love puss in boots], part of Hidalgo, slept a little bit and stared at the seat back in front of me a lot. Thank goodness for r - otherwise I would've lost it!

Got home, got through customs, got my stuff. No p. Called p, who had the times screwed up. Sat in the airport and stared blankly at things again. p finally made it and gave r a ride home. Got home, went with p to the round-up staff post party. Came home and went to sleep instantly, like before I even laid down. 24 straight hours awake.