I’m sitting on a surprisingly comfortable chair at the Firewood Grill in San Francsico International Airport. I’ve just finished a bag of barbecue-flavoured Kettle Chips and am about to start on the last cup of Peet’s latte of the trip.
Across the table from me is Andie, who is furtively glancing at her phone and flicking the screen in such a manner as to indicate she’s either refreshing her Twitter app, or playing Bejeweled Blitz.
“You know that option that says ‘watch a video’?” she asks, referring to the hoops you have to jump through in order to access the “free” Wi-Fi here at SFO. So that’s what she was doing. “You can’t watch it on the iPhone, so all you have to do is wait fifteen seconds.”
I laugh. It’s a bit of a marketing failure to make the sponsored video for such a service to be incompatible with a device as common as an iPhone. HTML5 is growing at such a pace now, and iPhones are becoming so ubiquitous as the de facto smartphone that it’s surprising more people haven’t cottoned on to this fact yet.
To my left sits a pair of gentlemen. One of them is fondling a Blackberry — poor bastard — while the other is discussing something to do with the rival smartphone platforms out there. I can’t really make out the gist of his argument as he’s facing the other direction to me, but he certainly has a pretty deep, booming voice which would be good for public speaking.
Andie pulls our new iPad 2 out of the bag and rests it gingerly on the table. She doesn’t get on well with the Smart Cover we picked up with it, but has managed to make it rest comfortably on the table without collapsing for once. She’s fired up Plants vs Zombies, a game which she has already played to death on both iPhone and PC, but had little hesitation in grabbing the HD version for iPad.
“Don’t we look social?” she says with a grin before turning back to the screen. She’s playing by tapping gingerly with her middle finger, the same way my mother does. In my experience, using an iPad this way indicates a user who doesn’t want to smear greasy fingerprints all over the screen. It’s a losing battle, however, for as you’ll know if you’ve ever seen a well-worn iPad, it is impossible to keep those delightful greasy smears off that lovely big screen. The nature of the beast with a touch-based device, of course.
I take a sip of my latte. It’s still slightly too hot to drink, but it tastes good. The milk is nice and creamy and the milk isn’t too bitter.
“If you want any of this, just help yourself,” says Andie, indicating the bottle of Sprite we ordered before sitting down. “I know you’ve got your coffee, but if you want something cold…”
She turns back to Plants vs Zombies. It is serious business, as anyone who has ever found themselves in the clutches of that game will attest. Personally, I never got into it but I know plenty of people who lost a good few hours of their life to it.
“Oh noez!” Andie cries, holding up the iPad for me to see. For a moment it looks like it’s frozen, but after a moment the fateful message “THE ZOMBIES ATE YOUR BRAINS!” comes up on the screen. It doesn’t take long for her to restart the level and try again.
Suddenly my phone goes bananas. A push notification from Twitter referring to a mention I’ve already read; another from Hero Academy telling me it’s my turn with a bunch of people; three text messages from my good friend Chris whom I had the pleasure of seeing this week for the first time in about a year.
“If you want to move, just give me a shout,” says Andie. I’m not sure she’s aware that I’m blogging our every move right now.
“Okay,” I reply. I glance at the clock in the top bar of my iPhone’s display — 15:15. The gate for our flight will be opening soon. I have 15 minutes in which to gulp down this coffee which is — yes — still slightly too hot too drink. But that’s okay.
I smile, thinking back over the past week. It’s been a good one. I got to be a part of my brother’s surprise 40th birthday celebrations, which he claims really we’re a surprise. I got to hang out with my buddy Chris. I got to visit the city of San Francisco, ride the cable cars and be a bit of a tourist. I got to spend a day working with actual people rather than isolated in my home office. I got to show Andie a part of the world I really love for a wide variety of reasons.
Now, though, it’s time to go home. I hit “Publish” on this blog post, gulp down my coffee, and we head for our gate just across the way.
See you back in the UK!
Discover more from I'm Not Doctor Who
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
So glad you enjoyed San Francisco. I loved it when Pete and I visited there. We went with a coach tour up the coast from LA to Vancouver. We had a few days in San Fran and loved every minute of it. When I went back alone on long flight from Perth to Syracuse I ended up in a hotel near the freeway on the mainland instead of on the island as I instructed and had jet-lag as well. So I didn’t end up going into town by myself – and I regretted it ever since. I was so mad at the Travel Agent, because if I’d been where I asked her to put me I could have walked out the door into familiar terrain, gone for a meal, and felt secure. I so want to go back again.
On a different note – my grand-daughter showed me that clicking Like on facebook for something means that all your friends get to see the connection as well. She’s a darling. Now if I could just get some friends to click Like for my facebook Pages that link to my Website, I might get some more traffci to the sites!! Do you have any other suggestions? That don’t entail begging, paying, or downloading huge or scary files. I’d love a little help Pete.