As predicted, the morning was not productive at all. At one point I slightly
became concious and saw sladen fetching his bike, opening the door and saying
me "Back in two hours!". We didn't know anything about him until 24 hours
later. As we started waking up, we tried to think of a plan for the day. The
morning was gone, though.
Clint took us to a restaurant two blocks away for breakfast, or actually
brunch, because that was the only food in many hours. I ate some "pancakes"
with banana in them, and barely could finish them; they are very filling. We
went to the promenade for a last look at the Manhattan skyline and took some
pictures while we tried to figure out what to do.
A last view over Manhattan
Mako was developing a plan in secret, though, which involved micah and his
car. Micah found out soon after. We went back to Clint's, expecting to find
sladen somewhere, but we didn't. I packed my things, and when we really needed
to go, we resolved to put his things in the entrance so he could find then and
do whatever he wanted on his return.
We went on the Metro to Union Square, where, hear this helix, I saw TONS of
raperos doing their break-dance thing (ok, maybe not tons, but I did see them).
And two blocks away, we arrived to the most incredible book store.
Mako has blogged many times about buying very rare books at the Strand for
ridiculous prices, but this was totally unexpected. The Strand is
huge. On the outside, there's carts with hundreds of second-hand
books, all for one dollar. Mako used to go there and browse the books to find
interesting stuff. The Acetarium is full of them! Most of the dollar books are
total crap though. A very high percent talk about god, religion, "our troops"
and stuff like that. Mentally filtering what might be good and what is not is
not easy when you haven't done it before.
Mako started scanning the shelves as soon as we arrived, and every now and
them he'd pick some totally stupid title. I was on my own shelf, missing many
good stuff, while mika, Clint and mako did their own. Clint found quite a few
titles, but mako didn't find anything good. I got lucky though, and found the
precious book of the day: The Spanish Anarchists. The heroic years
1868-1936, by Murray Bookchin. Although old, it was in very good condition,
and mako immediately asked if I was taking it. :) I won!
The inside of the Strand was incredible too. Three very big floors packed
with books, plus the half-priced "reviewer's copies" at the basement. I was
totally overwhelmed by the amount of books I'd be interested in buying, and the
limited weigh I should be carrying back, so I did my best not to look too
carefully.
For a few hours, I didn't have a too clear idea of what mako's plans were.
At some point, micah phoned him and we rushed to the PATH, the train that goes
to New Jersey. Apparently we were meeting micah at Newark, but I still didn't
know why we had to go there. During our ride, I could see how pleasant New
Jersey is to the human eye. Miles and miles of heavy industries. I'm pretty
sure it's the ugliest place I've ever seen. What I couldn't see, and I'm still
disappointed, is any of the viciously arrogant rats of the New York metro
system. Mako had told me about how they look at you, like saying "if you come
down here, you'll be left with 9 fingers", and the incredible number of them on
the tracks. Unfortunately I couldn't see any. I blame Michael Bloomberg.
At Newark, micah appeared in his car, and we all hopped into it. We
apparently were going by car to Boston... including Clint. I was puzzled, as he
had to work on Monday, but he'd said that he'd simply "come back". There was a
problem though, mako had dilinger's keys, and he was going back to NYC from
Boston, and we didn't have time to get to Boston before he left, so we had to
find a way of leaving the keys in NYC so he could get into his appartment.
Finally, mako resolved that Clint would be left in a cold street, in a rough
area of NYC, and he would handle the keys problem. I still didn't understand
what was going on.
We headed North, and I quickly fell asleep on mika's nap. I'm getting old.
When the car stopped again and I suddenly woke up, I looked ahead and...
HORROR! We were at the door of a McDonads. WTF WAS GOING ON? So it seems that
when you're on the road, there's no much other choice than shit food. After a
quick discussion with mako about how badly those burgers taste, I quickly went
back to sleep, until we were in Boston. It took a while to find a parking spot,
because all of them "permit only". It's impossible to park if you come from
somewhere else.
I was finally at the Acetarium, a
very cool flat in Cambridge, 15 minutes away from the MIT. It was 3:30 in the morning.
The day after, we woke up pretty late, and as I opened my laptop and found a
privmsg from sladen, he was was knocking at the door. This man has an
incredible ability to disappear and reappear when he's most unexpected.
Apparently he managed to grab his stuff in NYC, fetch the bus and arrive at 2
in Boston, meeting dilinger at the station, and mako as he went out to MIT.
micah and I went to explore Boston, but never managed. We consumed a few
hours when trying to ship some equipment to micah's colo, and then trying to
find food. When we were ready to go, micah got a very badly timed call, which
made him go back to the Acetarium: a server at work was dying or dead. At one
point, it was late enough that going to Boston wasn't worth it, so we went to
visit the Media Lab instead.
On our way there, micah and I kept chatting about this and that, and found
out how small the internet is. We both know a bunch of common people from
uncommon places like Per , from our involvement in social projects in the net
like Indymedia and Sindominio.net.
The MIT is incredible, specially the Stata Center by Frank Gehry. We
wandered around as we only got voice mail from mako, until an hour later we
found we was like 20 metres away from us. He gave us a tour through the Media
lab, and it was incredible. I had never seen something like that. Every lab was
colourful and fun, and very cool developments were going on everywhere. I also
saw the coolest mame box ever, with an arcade case and everything.
The Stata Center, right next to the Media Lab
After the tour, micah and I headed back, while sladen stayed to have a look
at one of mako's projects. When we got back to the flat, there were a few
people already there for mika's sushi party, and I rolled my first sushi rolls,
which was fun. A bunch of Debian people joined us, including zufus and gravity,
and had a great chat with them. The party ended way too late and after too many
beers.
sladen used his secret disappearing abilities, and a few colleagues from
mako crashed, so there was a bit of overbooking. Mako's solution was simple.
mika, him and I could share their bed.
I can't say I have slept too much, because mako would keep pulling the
blanket and leave me out in the cold, and I was trying not to squish mika. But
it went ok, although we discovered too late that mika was hot while I was cold,
and we swapped our places too late.
Today, we'll go find the Freedom Trail and walk a bit around it, meet
gravity and zufus for lunch, and I will sadly have to go back to Cambridge,
quickly pack and head to the airport to catch my plane. My hours in North
America are expiring.
