Category Archives: Treo

Travel: The Americas, travelbunny, Treo

CHICAGO: Day 00 (!)


I’m here.
Originally uploaded by fredlet.

At the corner of Clinton and Van Buren in Chicago cooling my dogs after flying all night (and surprisingly, *sleeping* on the plane all through the SAN>>ORD leg in the center seat) then taking the CTA to Union Station-ish area where Amy and I ended up last time we passed through here.

I dub thee MY STARBUCKS! They even got my triplebrevetepidnofoamlatte right.

Hell’s bells.

I was kinda sweating it taking the blue line since I didn’t obsessively plan this trip like the last time I was out here… and I have slept since then so the details didn’t stick too well.

In fact, I’m surprised I am not freaking out right now… could be sleep deprivation, since I didn’t put EVERYTHING into my Treo (though having an unlimited wireless connection helps my Asperger’s more than you’ll ever know) such as the station I should get off of to get to Union Station, the exact name of the hotel (but frankly, I googled it earlier and only found one of that general name, and can google it from the Treo – see? Calming effect.)

One would think that I am calming down, but I think its just that I have found a suitable remedy for my neuroses.

I was walking from the plane to the blue line and was thinking about how other cities *in the U.S.* make me nervous, but other countries don’t.

Haven’t figured that one out yet.

Also haven’t figured out what makes me such a nervous nellie at times and yet, some people tell me I’m very brave… I think I just fake it well.

We shall see.

I’m really looking forward to this weekend. (think JournalCon without those pesky conferences and all the food, drink and more shopping with the same crowd. JournalNon if you will)

I was reading TranceJen’s entry about this weekend and was happy to note that it wasn’t just me who is in a state of awe at the friends I’ve found on teh intarweb. Now I kinda groc the whole letter writing culture of old that has been resurrected in a slightly updated form.

Well, there’s your disjointed entry for this weekend. I’m going to have about 3 hours sleep in the next day (added to the distinct lack of sleep I inflicted on myself by leaving getting ready until almost last minute before I left… (Hey, I think I’ve been kidnapped by aliens and my pod person is a slacker.))

It reminds me of going to Paris and the resultant out of body state I usually have getting used to being at home again in my city and th 9 hour time difference between SFO and CDG.

More later…

Treo

[REVIEW] Pattern Recognition


Pattern Recognition (Unabridged)
Author: William Gibson
Narrator: Shelly Frasier
Unabridged Fiction
Audio Length: 10 hours and 7 min.
I actually read this book before I got it on Audible (and I still have it on my bookshelf in hardback).
I’ve read a bunch of good and bad reviews (they seem to be polarized-its either really good or really bad) and I can identify with most of their points. Yes, there are plot holes, yes there are issues that normally wouldn’t magically work themselves out like they do here and some splintering of the story takes place with characters that normally would have been more important… normally, I say, because your average novelist follows an established framework.
Gibson does not.
His splinter characters do contribute to the mood, and to the aura of Cayce and her unreal labors. It worked for me.
But, continuing in its defense, there are also avalanches of words that are beautifully written (the first paragraph knocked my sock off); their reading hypnotic. On a personal level, there were so many references that trigger things which instantly made me sympathetic to this book and Cayce.
The whole discussion of jetlag resonates with me and my own travels. Cayce continues to deal with her father’s disappearance in the Sept. 11 attacks, and while I am far removed from New York, I have special people in New York City who’s loss would have simply devastated me. So many little coalescences that make me sympathetic to this character.
Publisher’s Summary:
Cayce Pollard is an expensive, spookily intuitive market-research consultant. In London on a job, she is offered a secret assignment: to investigate some intriguing snippets of video that have been appearing on the Internet. An entire subculture of people is obsessed with these bits of footage, and anybody who can create that kind of brand loyalty would be a gold mine for Cayce’s client. But when her borrowed apartment is burgled and her computer hacked, she realizes there’s more to this project than she had expected.
Still, Cayce is her father’s daughter, and the danger makes her stubborn. Win Pollard, ex-security expert, probably ex-CIA, took a taxi in the direction of the World Trade Center on September 11 one year ago, and is presumed dead. Win taught Cayce a bit about the way agents work. She is still numb at his loss, and, as much for him as for any other reason, she refuses to give up this newly weird job, which will take her to Tokyo and on to Russia. With help and betrayal from equally unlikely quarters, Cayce will follow the trail of the mysterious film to its source, and in the process will learn something about her father’s life and death.
2003 William Gibson; (P)2004 Tantor Media, Inc.