À la maison

We've been home almost 24 hours and I still feel exhausted. There's just something about a 10-hour drive that's really not for the faint-hearted. The journey took us 4 large strong coffees (thank god for Tim Horton's), 2 generously luscious buttery pastries from Premiere Moisson (this was my third visit there this trip alone, but there was one just at the border of Montreal- I couldn't resist...), a large bottle of water, 4 driving shifts, 2 fuel stops, Jude's iPod on shuffle (Cocteau Twins is the perfect driving music my friends), a whole ton of patience surviving the horrendous traffic outside Toronto, and thankfully, each other. I think I would go insane if I had to do the drive on my own...

Anyways, the pics are up on Flickr. They're really a pastiche of photos from a bunch of people. We took some pictures of our own, but there are also some I hijacked from Eric, Amy, Andy Peterson and Brian (who amazingly took tons of pictures at the SV party while managing to dance groovily at the same time...) Speaking of dancing, that party was awesome! As someone astutely observed, from a usability perspective, all the music the DJ played that night was effectively 20-years worth of successfully user-tested music guaranteed to make anyone and everyone dance (Jude needs to so upload the video of Gary Olson dancing to "Holla Back Girl"). C'mon, New Order, the Grease soundtrack, and Toni Basil's "Hey Mickey"? Talk about being a great usability engineer- the guy definitely knew how to design the ultimate user experience... :)

All the travelling this year has been great so far D.C., Chicago, San Francisco, Montreal- and we have a few more to do in the next few months: Kentucky in mid-May to camp and hike (I know, me, camping? Stop the presses!!), New York at the end of the month (I'm still debating if I'm looking forward to 8-hours straight of Sesame Street- if I come out of it speaking in the third-person like Elmo, kill me. Please.), Indiana in June (Jude has another conference, this time in a place I know nothing about so that'll be interesting), and Chicago again in July for the Pitchfork Music Festival. I'm not complaining of course; I just wish travelling didn't cost so much, and make me so tired...

And sleepy...