I'm sitting here at the Boston Logan airport, waiting for my flight to Frankfurt. I spent the last four days in the Boston area, visiting companies in Waltham and North Andover. During the drive to the airport to day, the driver of my Limo showed me some of the nicer places around Andover (houses with Bentley's in front of the Garage, and the like). This helped to set my impression of the Andover area straight. During the drives between my Hotel and the company, I mostly saw lower-class neighborhoods and industrial areas - both not very visually appealing. Unfortunately, I haven't seen much of Andover. My hotel was somewhere out of town, far away from any place worth walking too (in San Jose, I could at least walk to the supermarket/Starbucks). Also, I did not have much time for sightseeing anyway. Maybe next time.
What I noticed in North Andover were lots of really old industrial brickstone buildings, some of which have been or are currently being turned into office spaces or lofts. Seems like most of the manufacturing industry has been moved to China, and what remains here are the cubicle farms.
Spent a great afternoon in the Greater Boston area. First I visited a software company in Waltham that is using POCO in their next generation product. I always enjoy it to people who are using the software I write, and this was no exception. Patrick Demasco, who contracts at that company, originally introduced them to POCO, and who invited me to that visit, later drove me to Cambridge in his shiny M3 (cool car!). We enjoyed a beer at Grendel's and had a nice walk around the Harvard campus. I had no chance to visit this place the last time I went to Boston, so I really welcomed the opportunity to see this place. Thank you Patrick!
This is my last day in Silicon Valley. I'm getting ready to head to the airport for my flight to Boston. Following a few random thoughts about the US and Silicon Valley/the San Francisco Bay Area.
I really enjoy coming to the Bay Area. I mean, for a computer geek like me, this is the center of the universe. This was my third time here, and I still find it fascinating to just drive around here randomly (even though my driving around here was limited this time). I mean, all those "historic" places are only a few minutes away, no matter where you are in the Bay Area. Which brings me to the issue of getting around here. This time I chose not to rent a car. Big mistake. Almost getting anywhere here requires a car. Okay, you could take a cab (that's what I did), but that's a rather expensive way of getting around. I was lucky in that my hotel was within walking distance of a Safeway, so at least buying some food only required a 10 minute walk in one direction.
Speaking of food: a highlight for me that's available in the San Francisco area is the Sourdough Baguette. It's some kind of baguette with an extra sour taste - I really like it. Fortunately, the Safeway had it. Some say that this bread can only be made in San Francisco, but apparently they were successful making this bread elsewhere, too. Another highlight is the ubiquitousness of Starbucks cafes. After all, this is the easiest way to get some great tasting coffee in the USA. (I noticed the Adobe offices in both San Jose and San Francisco are strategically located within easy walking distance of a Starbucks. Or is it the other way around? ;-)
To be continued...
The singing Tesla coil. That's what I call electronic music.
Made a trip to San Francisco today to visit the Adobe (former Macromedia) office. Yes, that's the home of Flash and other great stuff. What a great workplace. Even the meeting room (which they also use for video conferencing) is somewhat spectacular. And a Starbucks within walking distance. Met some really nice people there, including Dominic who gave me a demo of his iPhone. Wow, what can I say. It definitely lives up to the hype. It's a pity I have to wait at least another four months until this thing comes to Europe. Sometimes living in Austria really sucks.
Just arrived at my hotel in San Jose. I again had the pleasure of flying first class, and again the flight was delayed for about an hour (notice a pattern here ;-) - this time due to a thunderstorm near the Dallas airport. Much to my surprise, even my suitcase made it to here ;-)
Just arrived at Texas Ft. Worth Airport. Unfortunately, due to a delayed flight from Frankfurt, I missed my connecting flight to San Jose, so I'll have to wait for the next one.
The flight from Frankfurt had a very nice surprise for me. I had booked economy class, but, after boarding, I was paged by a flight attendant. He asked me to move to seat 5A, which, as you can guess, is in business class. So I enjoyed a business class (and the new Lufthansa business class is really nice) flight to Texas. Well, life is really good to me sometimes ;-)
Time for me to travel to the United States again. Tomorrow I'll fly to San Jose to deliver a POCO training at a customer on Friday. I'll spend the weekend in San Jose to relax, visit The Tech, and the local Apple Store to see the iPhone. On Monday, I'll fly to Boston to deliver a three day training at another customer. More posts when I have arrived there.