Early this Thursday Lindsay and I left my home to fly to the lovely town of St. Louis. This flight was a two parter half to Denver and the other to St. Louis. Our transfer time was about 20 minutes from the time our plane let the first of its passengers out to the time our next plain departed. As it would turn out, Lindsay and I would come to know Denver’s airport rather well over the next eight hours. The day went like this, we missed out transfer by minutes, as we needed to walk about 40 terminals. Two hours later (12:15 Denver Time), we then were standby but didn’t make it as there was only one seat available. We then got seats for a flight out at three but that flight was then delayed another three hours. Flash forward to the present and we am FINALLY sitting on an airplane headed towards St. Louis. I would go into more detail but it would likely only aggravate me more so I will leave it at that, however, let me say this. There was a point when this whole situation could have been made a bit easier with some simple customer service. I say this because I understand and ultimately take responsibility for not making our transfer. I also understand that the nature of standby is not a guarantee. The kicker is, when the United airlines system has a problem I don’t think that the burden of responsibility then changes hands. With that I mean this. There are times when extenuating circumstances warrant special care. In the case of Lindsay and I we are flying to St. Louis for my Grandfathers funeral. We then missed our transfer and couldn’t grab a standby spot. So at what point in time do does a company like United say to themselves “these two really need to get to St. Louis now”. Well, apparently they don’t and given our situation I think they could have been more accommodating. That is all I have to say about the issue.

::Update:: On our way back through Denver our plane broke, apparently the baggage hull couldn’t seal properly. They told us they were going to fix it in an hour and a half only to find out they didn’t have a replacement seal for a 757. They then told us it would be two hours before another plane would arrive that we could use. Another great Denver experience that adds up to a total of 12 hours in delays over the course of four days at the same damn airport. All of this has taught me a few things:

1. DO NOT FLY THROUGH DENVER
2. DO NOT FLY UNITED
3. DO NOT FLY UNITED THROUGH DENVER (that one is probably the most important)

I am finally home from a wild and crazy four days and now I am finally able to show and tell the world all the Google Developer Day goodness. I took a number of photos but unfortunately most are not that great only giving enough information to give you an idea of what it was like to be there and such. The day consisted of seminars at the San Jose Convention Center on all of Google’s different API’s and an evening at the Googleplex. The seminars were great, very informational, and full of fellow geeks. Most of what was talked about was largely of no immediate use to me and my current projects but the experience will likely prove useful for later projects. I did, however, find the talk on the Google Maps API and the tiles over lay to be rather interesting because of the future possibilities this type of flexibility offers.

The real fun didn’t come until later in the evening at the Googleplex. Google threw one hell of a party and boy do I mean it. They basically had every kind of food imaginable and open bar. Everything tasted great and of course it was all free. All of the table surfaces were white boards so people could leave notes and messages, they had Google cups that lit up in Google colors, and they opened up there night club/play area to the party goers. I met a tun of cool people and networked until the moment it was over. As promised below are some of my favorite pictures and I even composed a panorama so… enjoy… and of course I posted all of the photos in the gallery for you all to hunt around and look at. Lastly, for more information on the talks and presentations from Google Developer Day 2007 be sure to check out the Developer Day website and the YouTube channel for videos of all the goodness.

Adept

Click Here For Panorama

The Arcade Fire just played an amazing - wait slash that, awe inspiring show. It is getting late and I am tired because it has been a super long day. So… more to come later.

Adept