1995 Eivissa & Gran Canaria: Three Months Away From Home

Toy Plane My three month working vacation - during which I plan on writing my second book (I've just finished my first book, Internet TV with CU-SeeMe) - begins at 2200, when my TowerAir Boeing 747 leaves San Francisco International Airport (SFO). [Just like the plane shown at left.] The TowerAir flight is a relaxing red-eye. I'm able to sleep most of the trip, with a small exception of a rousing chorus by the members of the "screaming babies from hell" section (which, of course, is only a few rows behind me).

I'm lugging with me my Newton (notes for the book, phone numbers, and addresses for the obligatory postcards), my Apple PowerBook 520c (for writing the book), an IBM ThinkPad (which we'll get into at a later date, if at all), and assorted hardware I want to give as gifts and/or demonstrate, including a Connectix QuickCam, several PCMCIA cards, and an Apple QuickTake 100 digital camera (with which I've taken most of the images you see on these web pages).

Flight Progress One thing I'd not seen before in my plane travels was an animated progress display. During the entirety of this flight (and the trans-Atlantic trip to follow) - with the exception of when the movie was being shown - a computer-generated video image of our location was shown on the movie screens. (The image at right shows a false-color correction of the photo I took of the screen in a dark airplane at night.) What you're seeing is an image of the USA and Canada, with a border at the bottom that contains the name of the nearest town to our present location, a line showing our flight path, and an airplane icon properly oriented to represent the craft's heading. It was very nice to see.

I land at John Fitzgerald Kennedy International Airport (JFK) in New York the next morning.

Have you found errors nontrivial or marginal, factual, analytical and illogical, arithmetical, temporal, or even typographical? Please let me know; drop me email. Thanks!

What's New? • Search this Site • Website Map
Travel • Burning Man • San Francisco
Kilts! Kilts! Kilts! • Macintosh • Technology • CU-SeeMe