Azure Jane Lunatic (Azz) 🌺 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
azurelunatic) wrote2014-10-19 12:37 am
azurelunatic) wrote2014-10-19 12:37 am
Entry tags:
Big Damn Hangar
The streams have crossed. I've now met two of Purple's good friends from non-work (tentatively dubbed Catboy and the Antisocial Butterfly) and they now know that I say "As helpful as a ferret in a bowl of packing peanuts" when Purple is being super helpy.
The event: an open house at the NASA Ames Research Center, attended by like fucking half the goddamn sf bay area.
Despite the woeful elements of my day, I'm feeling really pretty damn good about the whole thing, which is great -- the same series of events could have resulted in a really kind of terrible day. Happily, they did not.
I went to bed early -- I would say in bed by 10:30pm and out by 11. Then I woke up at 5, was back in bed around 8, and wasn't really super into the idea of getting up around 10. But I realized I had to. So I got up, stuffed things in a backpack, got dressed, donned sunscreen, and headed for Millbrae.
I got a text from another friend who was already there, mentioning the really epic lines, and that we should come early if at all possible. I therefore determined to not put off getting there, and was at Mountain View around 1 instead of the already agreed upon 1:45. The line for the shuttle was amazing. I called Purple; we talked at cross-purposes for a bit. I was kind of hysterical about the lines; he said that there was not much he could do to speed the arrival of his friends for the carpool, and maybe I should grab a snack while I was waiting. I thought that was a good idea; a quick trip around the block established that no, the Subway with the immensely long line was in fact my best bet for a snack.
Some law enforcement of some badge or other got in line behind me, whereupon I learned that the Bay Area takes its space super seriously, that none of the agencies which should have been preparing to deal with this level of crowd had in fact been adequately notified, that several of the agencies were in fact super cheesed, and that on the whole they were glad that this was a family-friendly sort of affair, because it was a lot of families and not a drinkin' crowd that was prone to fights. Also, that at some point they had given up on the ticket-taking and were just letting anybody who wanted to show arrive for free. I was able to inform them that the original price of the tickets had also been free, which did ease their minds a bit.
I had spent fifteen minutes in line but was still a good ten away from getting served when my wrist started buzzing (well before my earpiece actually started ringing; this earpiece is perhaps not the best I've had). It was Purple, who had arrived. I abandoned the line and soon found myself being introduced to Purple's buddies, although absentmindedly under the wrong name. I corrected the introduction, as I only use that name at work. R and the Other Guy soon joined us. After some discussion, we determined that we would queue up for the shuttles rather than the VTA light rail going approximately the same place, with the understanding that the shuttles would get us closer.
In taking the non-sidewalk route to the nearby end of the line, I snagged my ankle-length skirt on a rosebush. Rosebush 1, skirt 0. I will likely darn it sometime this weekend.
Catboy mother-hens about Purple getting sunscreen on his bald spot too. :D
One of the officers directing foot traffic convinced us that the VTA would get us there faster. I'm not sure if that was ultimately the case. R and the Other Guy got on through one door. Purple, Catboy, and I got on through another. We'd thought that the Antisocial Butterfly was with us, but he was nowhere in sight; when he didn't pick up his phone, we hoped he'd got on the tram okay and was just not noticing the call. (Yes, he's a grown-ass adult; Purple and Catboy are also very aware that interacting with humans is just not his thing; from the various things mentioned over the course of nearly a year interacting with Purple, I am reminded of myself in ~2002 when I had problems navigating most forms of interaction with strangers.)
The VTA tram was kind of crammed. Catboy was wearing the sleeping Nyan Cat shirt. I mentioned that time that fhocutt had coordinated the organ intro music to that same shirt at a keynote. I observed with some amusement that the guy standing behind Catboy had a Virtual Hammer hat, just as Purple was talking about experiences in breaking various VirtualH products and tools. Good times. There was a little bit of personal space, but not much. That changed as soon as we arrived -- there were a terrifying number of people now coming back, and we all had to be instructed on how to arrange the swap without anyone getting smushed. There was no personal space on the platform. The party reformed, only to get split again (but not as badly). We did locate the Antisocial Butterfly, which was good.
Meanwhile, my friends who were already there were fading fast and heading out, so we didn't wind up running in to each other.
The queue to just *get off the platform* was also terrifying. We decided that we'd try and take the shuttle bus back.
It was a bit of a walk in. I did need to holler at someone to slow down because I wasn't keeping up; that someone was Purple, since I'm comfortable hollering at him in a way that I'm not with the rest. There was some clowning where I mock-threatened to trip Purple if he didn't slow down. He pointed out that in order to do that I'd have to catch up with him. I declared that I would bribe Catboy, with (a few bad guesses later) catnip. Catboy: "If 'catnip' is code for something else..."
The naked hangar was impressive. I took a number of pictures which I'll have to retrieve from my iPod, because I didn't want to wear down the battery in my phone too badly (its battery life is not as robust). (And the battery on my real camera was sadly flat.) Purple declared an interest in climbing to the very top. I declared my non-interest in that very thing. Catboy declared it was perfect for a rave. R suddenly noticed a nearby conifer, which was dwarfed by the skeletal hangar.
By the time we were done taking pictures in the hangar, everyone was very hot and tired and needed a cold drink. We made our way to the closest of a few areas with food trucks and got a cold drink. By this time my legs had expired, and I had to find a shady place to sit down. So everybody else headed off (with my blessing, as I am self-entertaining when I have the internet, and this is not an opportunity to be missed if you have the endurance for it). Even though I was just tired and didn't actually *hurt* hurt, I took ibuprofen, which was a wise choice. At length, I had energy enough to navigate the porta-potty (yay porta-potties with grab bars) and then start heading towards more of the action. I got to see a few things; the area I was looking at was mostly non-NASA stuff. In particular, there was a pretty nifty power analytics thing which goes kind of next to your breaker box and takes its best whack at what devices are drawing what power; since I rent and they have sub-meters, I'm not likely to be the target market. I rejoined the rest of the gang, who decided it was time to go (aww).
The hovercraft in the kids' area was small and barely got off the ground at all. There was some discussion. Sadly, we had no eels, though the Antisocial Butterfly suggested (apropos of some of the shrieking we heard just then) that the small children were really Screaming Eels.
"But nobody loves me enough to abuse me!" Purple said to Catboy, just as I tuned back in to the non-eel-related conversation at the head of the group. Since it was impeccable timing, I reached out with my cane and tapped him in the back with the handle. "Sorry, but it was perfect timing," I said when he turned around to grin at me. We laughed.
Purple and R were feeling a bit of time crunch, as they had purchased tickets to a play with an 8pm start time, all the way down in San Jose. There were some logistical debates. Ultimately they decided that Purple would ride back with R. Purple had carpooled up in the Antisocial Butterfly's car. This concerned the Antisocial Butterfly a bit, that he might be abandoning Purple, but we ultimately decided that he had discharged his duty to Purple after making sure that Purple had a ride back.
This did mean that Catboy and the Antisocial Butterfly would have to make their own way back to the car. It seems that the friend of Purple's whose driveway they'd parked in was not in fact Catboy or the Antisocial Butterfly, but a third party. "And if you get lost, you can call me," Purple said, after locating the spot on Catboy's phone. There was a short discussion of how having the driver call the owner of the driveway would not be good. In fact, setting up the Antisocial Butterfly with Ms. Antisocialest Butterfly (the owner of the driveway is also the former co-worker from a past job who is his standing Friday night dinner companion unless something else comes up) seems like a super bad idea. Antisocial Butterfly, sounding interested: "Is she single?"
I was hoping that I'd have pen and paper in my pocket, because I wanted to give Catboy and the Antisocial Butterfly my contact info; to my delight, I had one of my little notebooks in which I'd used my business card stamp.
The shuttle bus was very nice, but only took us as far as the VTA platform. This was possibly as crowded as previously, though I found that hard to imagine. This time there was basically no personal space. We did all get in the same car this time, so that was good. Purple was visibly exhausted; apparently 4 hours of sleep are not enough.
Purple and R had decided that they needed food before heading off to the play (rather than after). The Other Guy lives in the area and was happy to come along; I was hungry and needed food. The Antisocial Butterfly was not particularly hungry, and Catboy wanted to get home also. So they wandered on their way. The remaining party selected a venue by walking down Mountain View's Castro Street (important to distinguish in the SF Bay Area) until there was something that served burgers. The Other Guy ordered a burger with an egg on it, then realized that he should have asked for the egg to be cooked differently, as he was not up for dealing with the mess of the soft yolk. I had ordered the same burger, but without the peppers.
Naturally, some time later, I bit into the burger and was rewarded with an epic spray of yolk, mostly all down the front of my blouse, including the fitbit. I mopped at myself, but ultimately decided this needed a bathroom run. Fortunately I also found this hilarious, and the fitbit is okay.
Purple and R needed to get to San Jose, so we all headed out. Then R realized they were going in the wrong direction. So I hugged them both goodnight, and the Other Guy kindly walked me to Caltrain. We saw a train depart, and he hoped that this would not mean that I would be waiting an hour. (I was, in fact, waiting an hour.) I settled in on a bench and the Other Guy headed off.
And now I am home. I had a great time! I am enjoying the endorphins that come after hitting my safe walking limit. There are ways it could have been better, but I thoroughly enjoyed myself.
The event: an open house at the NASA Ames Research Center, attended by like fucking half the goddamn sf bay area.
Despite the woeful elements of my day, I'm feeling really pretty damn good about the whole thing, which is great -- the same series of events could have resulted in a really kind of terrible day. Happily, they did not.
I went to bed early -- I would say in bed by 10:30pm and out by 11. Then I woke up at 5, was back in bed around 8, and wasn't really super into the idea of getting up around 10. But I realized I had to. So I got up, stuffed things in a backpack, got dressed, donned sunscreen, and headed for Millbrae.
I got a text from another friend who was already there, mentioning the really epic lines, and that we should come early if at all possible. I therefore determined to not put off getting there, and was at Mountain View around 1 instead of the already agreed upon 1:45. The line for the shuttle was amazing. I called Purple; we talked at cross-purposes for a bit. I was kind of hysterical about the lines; he said that there was not much he could do to speed the arrival of his friends for the carpool, and maybe I should grab a snack while I was waiting. I thought that was a good idea; a quick trip around the block established that no, the Subway with the immensely long line was in fact my best bet for a snack.
Some law enforcement of some badge or other got in line behind me, whereupon I learned that the Bay Area takes its space super seriously, that none of the agencies which should have been preparing to deal with this level of crowd had in fact been adequately notified, that several of the agencies were in fact super cheesed, and that on the whole they were glad that this was a family-friendly sort of affair, because it was a lot of families and not a drinkin' crowd that was prone to fights. Also, that at some point they had given up on the ticket-taking and were just letting anybody who wanted to show arrive for free. I was able to inform them that the original price of the tickets had also been free, which did ease their minds a bit.
I had spent fifteen minutes in line but was still a good ten away from getting served when my wrist started buzzing (well before my earpiece actually started ringing; this earpiece is perhaps not the best I've had). It was Purple, who had arrived. I abandoned the line and soon found myself being introduced to Purple's buddies, although absentmindedly under the wrong name. I corrected the introduction, as I only use that name at work. R and the Other Guy soon joined us. After some discussion, we determined that we would queue up for the shuttles rather than the VTA light rail going approximately the same place, with the understanding that the shuttles would get us closer.
In taking the non-sidewalk route to the nearby end of the line, I snagged my ankle-length skirt on a rosebush. Rosebush 1, skirt 0. I will likely darn it sometime this weekend.
Catboy mother-hens about Purple getting sunscreen on his bald spot too. :D
One of the officers directing foot traffic convinced us that the VTA would get us there faster. I'm not sure if that was ultimately the case. R and the Other Guy got on through one door. Purple, Catboy, and I got on through another. We'd thought that the Antisocial Butterfly was with us, but he was nowhere in sight; when he didn't pick up his phone, we hoped he'd got on the tram okay and was just not noticing the call. (Yes, he's a grown-ass adult; Purple and Catboy are also very aware that interacting with humans is just not his thing; from the various things mentioned over the course of nearly a year interacting with Purple, I am reminded of myself in ~2002 when I had problems navigating most forms of interaction with strangers.)
The VTA tram was kind of crammed. Catboy was wearing the sleeping Nyan Cat shirt. I mentioned that time that fhocutt had coordinated the organ intro music to that same shirt at a keynote. I observed with some amusement that the guy standing behind Catboy had a Virtual Hammer hat, just as Purple was talking about experiences in breaking various VirtualH products and tools. Good times. There was a little bit of personal space, but not much. That changed as soon as we arrived -- there were a terrifying number of people now coming back, and we all had to be instructed on how to arrange the swap without anyone getting smushed. There was no personal space on the platform. The party reformed, only to get split again (but not as badly). We did locate the Antisocial Butterfly, which was good.
Meanwhile, my friends who were already there were fading fast and heading out, so we didn't wind up running in to each other.
The queue to just *get off the platform* was also terrifying. We decided that we'd try and take the shuttle bus back.
It was a bit of a walk in. I did need to holler at someone to slow down because I wasn't keeping up; that someone was Purple, since I'm comfortable hollering at him in a way that I'm not with the rest. There was some clowning where I mock-threatened to trip Purple if he didn't slow down. He pointed out that in order to do that I'd have to catch up with him. I declared that I would bribe Catboy, with (a few bad guesses later) catnip. Catboy: "If 'catnip' is code for something else..."
The naked hangar was impressive. I took a number of pictures which I'll have to retrieve from my iPod, because I didn't want to wear down the battery in my phone too badly (its battery life is not as robust). (And the battery on my real camera was sadly flat.) Purple declared an interest in climbing to the very top. I declared my non-interest in that very thing. Catboy declared it was perfect for a rave. R suddenly noticed a nearby conifer, which was dwarfed by the skeletal hangar.
By the time we were done taking pictures in the hangar, everyone was very hot and tired and needed a cold drink. We made our way to the closest of a few areas with food trucks and got a cold drink. By this time my legs had expired, and I had to find a shady place to sit down. So everybody else headed off (with my blessing, as I am self-entertaining when I have the internet, and this is not an opportunity to be missed if you have the endurance for it). Even though I was just tired and didn't actually *hurt* hurt, I took ibuprofen, which was a wise choice. At length, I had energy enough to navigate the porta-potty (yay porta-potties with grab bars) and then start heading towards more of the action. I got to see a few things; the area I was looking at was mostly non-NASA stuff. In particular, there was a pretty nifty power analytics thing which goes kind of next to your breaker box and takes its best whack at what devices are drawing what power; since I rent and they have sub-meters, I'm not likely to be the target market. I rejoined the rest of the gang, who decided it was time to go (aww).
The hovercraft in the kids' area was small and barely got off the ground at all. There was some discussion. Sadly, we had no eels, though the Antisocial Butterfly suggested (apropos of some of the shrieking we heard just then) that the small children were really Screaming Eels.
"But nobody loves me enough to abuse me!" Purple said to Catboy, just as I tuned back in to the non-eel-related conversation at the head of the group. Since it was impeccable timing, I reached out with my cane and tapped him in the back with the handle. "Sorry, but it was perfect timing," I said when he turned around to grin at me. We laughed.
Purple and R were feeling a bit of time crunch, as they had purchased tickets to a play with an 8pm start time, all the way down in San Jose. There were some logistical debates. Ultimately they decided that Purple would ride back with R. Purple had carpooled up in the Antisocial Butterfly's car. This concerned the Antisocial Butterfly a bit, that he might be abandoning Purple, but we ultimately decided that he had discharged his duty to Purple after making sure that Purple had a ride back.
This did mean that Catboy and the Antisocial Butterfly would have to make their own way back to the car. It seems that the friend of Purple's whose driveway they'd parked in was not in fact Catboy or the Antisocial Butterfly, but a third party. "And if you get lost, you can call me," Purple said, after locating the spot on Catboy's phone. There was a short discussion of how having the driver call the owner of the driveway would not be good. In fact, setting up the Antisocial Butterfly with Ms. Antisocialest Butterfly (the owner of the driveway is also the former co-worker from a past job who is his standing Friday night dinner companion unless something else comes up) seems like a super bad idea. Antisocial Butterfly, sounding interested: "Is she single?"
I was hoping that I'd have pen and paper in my pocket, because I wanted to give Catboy and the Antisocial Butterfly my contact info; to my delight, I had one of my little notebooks in which I'd used my business card stamp.
The shuttle bus was very nice, but only took us as far as the VTA platform. This was possibly as crowded as previously, though I found that hard to imagine. This time there was basically no personal space. We did all get in the same car this time, so that was good. Purple was visibly exhausted; apparently 4 hours of sleep are not enough.
Purple and R had decided that they needed food before heading off to the play (rather than after). The Other Guy lives in the area and was happy to come along; I was hungry and needed food. The Antisocial Butterfly was not particularly hungry, and Catboy wanted to get home also. So they wandered on their way. The remaining party selected a venue by walking down Mountain View's Castro Street (important to distinguish in the SF Bay Area) until there was something that served burgers. The Other Guy ordered a burger with an egg on it, then realized that he should have asked for the egg to be cooked differently, as he was not up for dealing with the mess of the soft yolk. I had ordered the same burger, but without the peppers.
Naturally, some time later, I bit into the burger and was rewarded with an epic spray of yolk, mostly all down the front of my blouse, including the fitbit. I mopped at myself, but ultimately decided this needed a bathroom run. Fortunately I also found this hilarious, and the fitbit is okay.
Purple and R needed to get to San Jose, so we all headed out. Then R realized they were going in the wrong direction. So I hugged them both goodnight, and the Other Guy kindly walked me to Caltrain. We saw a train depart, and he hoped that this would not mean that I would be waiting an hour. (I was, in fact, waiting an hour.) I settled in on a bench and the Other Guy headed off.
And now I am home. I had a great time! I am enjoying the endorphins that come after hitting my safe walking limit. There are ways it could have been better, but I thoroughly enjoyed myself.