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[OK, I’m in my hotel in Chicago, so I can start getting caught up on my trip reports.]

2023-11-11 04:00 UTC−10:

I woke up with plenty of time to get all packed for my trip home, and I was basically done with that before breakfast.

08:00:

We’ll be adjourned by the time I post this, so I can start talking about the meetings.

As I’ve said before, Monday morning was a plenary session which was mostly administrivia.  The real work happens in smaller breakout groups.

I mostly played hookey for much of the meeting.  Since my retirement a bit over a year ago, I’ve been disinterested but not uninterested.  (There’s no decision that the committee would take that would help or hurt me in any way, but I hope that I never stop learning.)

I’ve found that Zooming into the meeting from my hotel room works well and is easier given my current somewhat limited mobility.  I did Zoom into discussions of several papers that were interesting, and I might have some more to say about those when I get my thoughts together.

This morning is a plenary session where the breakout groups report, we take formal votes, and talk about future meetings.

10:00:

We finished after only about two hours, so I checked out of the hotel and, since I was running low on cash for tips, I tried the cash machine which, I guess, was out of money.  Oh, dear!  Oh, well; there should be a cash machine at the airport.

I got a taxi to the airport; but when I arrived, the United checkin counter wasn’t open yet, so I had to wait until about quarter after 11:00.  Checking in was a bit of a hassle because they wanted to see the credit card that I had used to make the reservation (which I had lost as I reported near the end of the day 4 report), but they found me when I showed them my passport.  I checked just one bag because, at KOA, walkers can be checked at the gate.  I remembered that I had Global Entry from my trip to Belfast back in 2018, and I had the card with me which was still valid through 2025, so I got TSA Precheck.

When the wheelchair arrived, I asked to be taken to a cash machine, which worked, and so I had a tip for the the wheelchair guy.  The wheelchair service plus the TSA Precheck let me zoom through Security; and I got dropped off at the gate.

We started boarding around 13:15.  It’s the same kind of plane that I took westbound, a 777 IIRC, with the first-class seats that recline all the way to flat for taking a nap.  The flight to SFO “met expectations”.

ca. 21:00−8:

The flight arrived just about on time.  It took a while for my walker to show up at the door to the airplane, and there was no record of me needing a wheelchair.  That eventually got sorted out — a good thing because I never would have been able to walk all the way to baggage claim even with my walker.  After claiming my one checked bag, I got dropped off at the taxi stand.

The taxi driver spoke only enough English to be able to do his job, and I speak no Chinese at all, so it took a little while for us to agree on where I was going. 😎  He didn’t know the address of the hotel, and I didn’t have it written down, but he was able to look it up on his cell phone.

22:30:

I finally got to the Hyatt House Emeryville, checked in, and crashed.

With any luck, later reports will be more interesting than this one.

2023-11-11 22:30−8:

I’ve made it to the hotel across the tracks from the Amtrak station in Emeryville, but there’s no time for a proper day-10 trip report.  I’ve already lost two hours because of the time zone change, and I need to get to breakfast at 07:00.  The real report might have to wait until I get to my hotel in Chicago on Tuesday.

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I don’t expect anything special to happen between now and bedtime, so I’ll post this shortly before suppertime.  I can’t talk about the meetings yet, so this will be mostly about the hotel and the surrounding area.

Kailua-Kona, HI [wikipedia] is a town with a population of about 20k that’s the main tourist destination on the west side of the Big Island.  I’m staying at a hotel on the north end of Aliʻi Drive, the main drag along the shore, which is where most of the tourist stuff is.  At the southern end of the tourist area is the Royal Kona Resort where our group held its meetings until a couple of years pre-COVID.

Heading south along Aliʻi Drive, there are the Kailua Pier, then a beach where lots of surfers ride in, numerous restaurants, and shops that sell the unsurprising faux-Hawaiian kitsch.

Some pictures that I’ve taken in and around the hotel are below the fold:

[Read more…]

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2023-11-05 09:00−10:

The Kona meetings are starting half an hour earlier than normal:  08:30 on Monday and 08:00 Tuesday through Saturday; so they were half an hour into the Monday plenary by the time I was all set up and ready to go.  That was clearly stated in the agenda, and so it was entirely my own fault for not checking that beforehand.  Fortunately, the Monday plenary is mostly administrivia and I didn’t really miss anything.  I’ll get with the program for the rest of the week.

As usual, I can’t say anything about the meetings until adjournment on Saturday.

After the meeting on Monday, I went back to my room to get caught up on my non-meeting reading.  I have a WiFi hotspot I got from my cell phone provider that I use when traveling so that I don’t have to use any public networks, at least not in the U.S.  The hotspot’s battery was running low; and when I looked for its power cord, I couldn’t find it.  I’ll bet a dollar to a doughnut that, when I get home on the 15^th, I’ll find both the hotspot’s power cord and the one for my laptop sitting together in some place “where I won’t miss them on the way out the door.” 😎  The bottom line is that I’ll be stuck with public WiFi networks outside the meetings until I get all the way home; and I’ll be totally offline for the entire trip on Amtrak’s California Zephyr.

The universal power cord that I bought for my laptop seems to be working just fine.  Indeed, I stupidly left it plugged in overnight and I haven’t fried the laptop’s power supply yet.  Aside from being careful when I insert the power cord into the laptop, I think I can quit worrying about that.

I had a bit of trouble connecting to the hotel’s WiFi.  For some reason, I have to use airplane mode instead of WiFi mode, which makes no sense to me, but it’s working.

[When I logged in to the meeting room WiFi to post this, I found that it’s a public network, too.  Oh, well…]

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2023-11-05, 05:00−8: (we’re off daylight saving time in the U.S. now)

Things got off to a good start today.  I stopped by a snack shop not far from the hotel’s front desk for breakfast and opted for a ham and cheese croissant, not really breakfast fare, but I wanted something more substantial than just a Danish.

07:00:

I had everything packed and was all ready when two of the hotel staff arrived at my room at 07:00 to collect my baggage and wheel me to the front desk where I checked out.  At the front desk, I was transferred to three hotel staff—I guess one was supervising…or something—who took me on the AirTrain to terminal 3 and all the way to the United checkin counter.  After checking in, I was left at a place where I awaited wheelchair assistance from an airport employee who took be through security, to the gate, and all the way to the airplane’s door.

The first class section on this plane had those seats that recline all the way, even allowing you to lie flat, which was a surprise.  The plane must be pretty wide because there were two such seats on one side of the aisle, four in the middle, and two on the other side of the other aisle.  I had booked seat 2D which was in the middle on the port-side aisle.

We pushed back from the gate about five minutes late but didn’t get very far when the whole airplane shook, and there was a sound like we had run over something.  We sat there for over half an hour wondering what the heck was going on.  One of the flight attendants eventually made an announcement saying that the drawbar that connects the front landing gear to the vehicle that pushes the plane back had broken and we had to wait for another one (which surprised me—seems like airports would have lots of those hanging around).  I was worried that we had lost our takeoff slot, but that turned out not to be the case.  We zoomed down the taxiway, held at the runway for less than half a minute while another plane landed, and were in the air about one hour after the advertised push-back-from-the-gate time.

They served us a late breakfast.  I opted for what was said to be scrambled eggs and sausage; but what I got was a pastry shell holding what was supposed to be scrambled eggs, but was nothing of the sort.  There was no egg flavor and no yellow yolk color.  There was lots of red and green in it, though.  It was edible, but IMO yet another example of food that was more pretentious than tasty.  The sausage was a bit mild, but otherwise OK.

The rest of the flight “met expectations”, and we touched down a bit after 13:00−10, just about half an hour late.  (Anyone who enjoys riding on Amtrak certainly can’t complain about that! 😎 )

ca. 13:30:

After a while, the equipment that lowered the wheelchair passengers from the aircraft door to the ground showed up, but it wouldn’t lower all the way.  Two airport employees, the operator of the equipment and I guess a maintenance person, kept trying and trying but couldn’t get it all the way to the ground.  The old saw about trying the same thing and expecting different results came easily to mind.  Finally, one of the wheelchair pushers noticed an external microswitch that hadn’t closed, so he flipped it up with his fingers and everything worked as designed. 😎

About that time, I noticed that the pocket I usually carry my wallet in was empty.  Oh, no!  My driver’s license, credit card, debit card …!  I distinctly remembered putting my wallet in the tray that goes through the TSA scanner at SFO, but I had no memory of putting it back in my pocket on the other side.  Suddenly my stress level went way up; and because I was wearing a suit* (not the proper attire for Hawaiʻi when it’s 80°F in the shade), I was now sweating like a pig.

Fortunately, I had enough cash with me to pay for the taxi from the airport to the hotel; and I was able to check in to the hotel because they already had the credit card info from when I had made the reservation, and I had brought my passport along “just in case” and so was able to prove that I was indeed the person I claimed to be.

My room wasn’t quite ready yet, so while waiting, I had occasion to reach into a front pocket, and lo and behold, there was my wallet.  I had stupidly put it in the wrong pocket in San Francisco (*duh*).  Please feel free to laugh at me; I don’t mind a bit being laughed at when I deserve it:  it’s a learning experience, and that’s a Good Thing. 😎

So I’m now stress-free, all cleaned up, dressed in more Hawaiʻi-friendly attire, full of a good supper, and ready for my meeting in the morning.

*I always wear a suit when I travel, partly because I guess (without evidence) that I get treated better, but mostly because I like having the coat pockets for all my stuff.

2023-11-04, 04:00 UTC−7

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I had crashed early last night and got a good night’s sleep, so I woke up at 4 in the morning wondering what to do with myself.  I got caught up on my e-mail and wrote and published the days 0-2 trip report.

07:00:  the “complimentary breakfast” was a dismal affair—paper plates and plastic utensils, you’re supposed to bus your table when you’re done.  They had the usual breakfast buffet stuff, but nothing special.  I had scrambled eggs, potatoes and sausage which was real food; but it was cold by the time I got to it.

Hyatt House Emeryville:  convenient to the Amtrak station, and the folks at the front desk are very nice and helpful; almost no food service.

12:00:  check-out time.  I was expecting to have to be out earlier than that, so that at least was a good surprise.

13:30:  my taxi arrived.  I decided not to try to use BART since my old back was complaining a bit.  When I said that I was going to the Grand Hyatt at SFO, the driver asked me for an address.  That surprised me:  surely he knows how to get to the airport, and surely there’d be signs directing us to the hotel once we got there.  That was indeed the case, but the signs pointed only to “Hotel”.  I guess the Grand Hyatt is the only hotel on airport property.

The freeway was stop-and-go at least half way to the airport, maybe more.  That didn’t bother me since I had all day to get to the hotel, but I was sorry that I had put the taxi driver through that.  I gave him a $40 tip, which was probably too much since it was almost half the regular taxi fare; but I was very happy to get an easy (for me) ride.

All the folks at the Grand Hyatt were very nice and helpful, even lugging my luggage all the way to my room.  I was even able to arrange for wheelchair assistance all the way from my room to the terminal for tomorrow morning.

The room itself is very nice, but I needed to close the drapes to keep folks from looking in:  the AirTrain rolls right past my window.  Also, there’s not a proper desk for setting up my computer.  There’s a table with a comfortable chair, but it has a marble top which doesn’t allow my optical mouse to track well.  Fortunately, I had an A-size sheet of paper left over from the Varna trip which worked OK as a mouse pad.

17:30:

The restaurant opens for supper at 17:00, but I decided to let my laptop battery charge completely.

The menu should have been a warning:  they handed me a tablet-like device that was much more flashy than useful.  This old fart would have preferred a conventional menu.

I opted for the pork fried rice which was the only dinner entrée that I could identify.  The waiter warned me that it came with kimchi which I hadn’t had since I was stationed in South Korea near the end of the Vietnam war.  I was expecting a fermented cabbage salad, but what I got was just bits of rotten cabbage mixed in with the rice.  There were rather large chunks of pork sitting on top of the rice.  It was all more pretentious than tasty.

I don’t think I’ll bother with the restaurant for breakfast, mostly out of fear that I’ll run out of time:  the restaurant opens at 06:00 and my wheelchair assistance will show up at my room at 07:00.  There’s a shop that sells snacks and beverages on the fourth floor which is open 24/7.  I’ll probably just stop in there for a Danish and a cup of coffee in the morning.  I expect that I’ll get fed again on the airplane.

My goal for the rest of the night is to repack for flying rather than riding trains.  This mostly involves moving anything that might freak out the TSA folks to my checked bag, principally my scanner, various cables, and a box that I can plug into the earphone jack on the scanner which generates a bluetooth signal that feeds my hearing aids.  I’ll probably get some more blog reading done, but that’s not essential.

The good news is that the U.S. is switching from summer time to winter time in the wee hours of the morning, so I’ll get an extra hour of sleep.