Yesterday Shawn and Lesa rented a car, and along with Sly (and John of course) we all headed up (down?) to Napa Valley and Sonoma for a tour of wine country.
Confession: I don't drink. Not beer. Not vodka. Not gin. Not wine. Especially not wine. And I could give you several reasons that all pretty much boil down to: don't like it. Does that mean I'd pass up a trip to see these places? Hell no. I'm sober, not stupid.
We set off fairly early, and spent a rather large chunk of the day in the sunshine under one of the bluest skies I've ever seen, going up and down mountains along winding roads, and looking at vast acres of property covered in sticks.
It's January. They don't have grapes, they have sticks.
It was still beautiful though, and the wineries themselves are well worth the trip. We stopped at two: The Rubicon Estates Winery (used to be called Neibaum-Coppola), and the St. Francis Winery. The first was simply beautiful. The winery itself is an old chateau style building built in the 1800's by a sea captain, and currently owned and run by Francis Ford Coppola (of movie fame). The second was nice, but not as impressive, and, I'm told, the wine mostly sucked compared to the first.
It was a good day, the kind that makes you happy just to be out in the sun and doing something fun with friends.
Afterward we met up with more people than I can possibly remember, and went out for Indian food, and then came back to the hotel early. I'm told this is the calm before the storm, and that there won't be too many other opportunities for relaxing like this, so I'm glad I got a chance now.
This morning we went over to the expo hall and picked up our badges/passes, and John got his Bag o' Swag, which made me wish I was smarter or more famous, or something, so I could be a speaker. Cause, well, DAMN.
Made it back to the hotel at a run, and hopped on the YML bus trip to Cupertino, where I got to see Mac fans in a feeding frenzy. I've never seen people swarm a store like that before, and that's saying something, because my mother is a master shopper. Grabbed lunch and headed back.
The phone calls have started up again, and John is currently on the phone doing a podcast interview with...er... I've lost track. We're heading out in a bit to two separate parties, and then tomorrow: the Keynote.
The debate on the bus was raging fast and furious, and even now John's fielding questions about the speculations on what's coming out. You'd think that whatever they're releasing was going to revolutionize the world, somehow, the way everyone talks about it. In the end, however, unless Steve Jobs gets up on that stage and demonstrates a teleporter, it'll just be another cool gadget that will be well put together, intelligently designed, and better than whatever else is out there. It will probably surprise people for awhile, everyone will argue about it for a few years, but by next year there'll be something better.
Cynical? yes. I'm not a Mac Mac. I'm Jane Public. I'm a consumer. I prefer my Mac over my PC at work. I prefer Apple products because they're better put together than anyone else's. Has it changed my life: yes, in small ways. Technology does that. Am I going to go and try and sneak into the front row and hope Steve Jobs sweats in my general direction?
No.
Emphatically, no.
Photos follow:
I took over a hundred photos yesterday, but these were some of my favorite.
