Day 1 really sucked as my allergies decided to flare up on the plane ride over, and got exponentially worse once we were on the ground.  My theory is that my body wasn't fully prepared for the crazy allergens that exist in California.  After dropping our bags off we drove around Silicon Valley taking in the sights.  It was really crazy seeing the headquarters of like...every tech company I've ever heard of.  

We did a drive by past Googleplex and briefly contemplated pulling in to get a closer look, but Google security seemed to be doing regular patrols in the area with their goofy little Prius patrol cars

Unfortunately my allergies continued to get worse throughout the day, so I was unable to go to dinner with the guys.  Instead I walked to a Carls Jr, took a bunch of meds and passed out around 9.  The next day was an improvement, though I could still feel my allergies lurking.  Its that feeling where one wrong sneeze will cause the floodgates to open, so I spent most of the day combating that.  The summit itself was informative, though a few of the talks were waaay over my head.  It definitely gave me flashbacks of my Computer Architecture and Operating Systems classes in college. 

After the first day of the conference, we all went over to Dave and Busters for the summit-sponsored party.  While I'm not a huge fan of D&B, I am a huge fan of free beer and food, so I ended up having a pretty good time.  I did drink a bit too much, but its not like I was driving so whatever.  We ran into some really crazy guy who used to work for Rackspace like 6 years ago.  He seemed a bit unstable and throughout the night I was trying to guess what kind of illegal substances he was on, but all in all it was an entertaining conversation.  For whatever reason every time I meet old school former rackers they always seem to be of the "angry drunk loudmouth" type.  Day 2 was less eventful.  More talks, more free food, more fighting of allergies.  After the last talk Major and I went to Firehouse Brewery in downtown Sunnyvale to meet up with this dude I've known for over 10 yrs but never met in person.  Luckily he wasn't weird or anything.  After Thursday we were all going our separate ways so I bid my colleagues farewell and went to bed.

Random thoughts:

- I forgot how much I miss seeing real trees.  Silicon Valley is really beautiful compared to SA.

- Free wifi just about everywhere was really nice.  

- AT&T reception is awful in Silicon Valley and the Bay Area in general.  Funny considering Apple's HQ is here.  

- California has no frontage roads.  I didn't realize just how useful they are until I had to navigate a freeway system without them. 

-h

- I have something I really want to get off of my chest, so I decide to start a blog

- Install Wordpress and spend hours pouring through themes before settling on one that I think I like

- Forget what I wanted to write about

- Make a few half-assed posts about what I ate for breakfast

 

At this point the inevitable happens.  I stop updating, and eventually take it down.  Even worse, sometimes I go back and re-read my half-assed posts and cringe and how lame they are.  The fact that people have read some of my blog posts and still choose to associate with me is surprising.  But, I digress.  My purpose here is not to focus on my own deficiencies as a blogger, but to discuss why I'm done trying to blog with Wordpress.  Here are a few reasons:

 

On the one hand, having thousands of themes to choose from is great.  On the other hand, I'm a fairly indecisive person who's also very picky, especially when it comes to UIs.  This combination of neurotic behavior makes theme selection a real pain in the ass.  Speaking of theme selection, its kinda funny how Wordpress themes look 900x better in thumbnail form.  Then you install the theme and start noticing various parts that you don't like.  Sometimes you can edit the CSS and remove these parts, but then you find that without them the theme loses its identity and no longer stands out.  At this point you either have to find a new theme, or just live with your own neutered version.  Some people cope with this by changing out their theme every few months which can work pretty well, except for when they land on a theme that I can't stand.  Sometimes they switch to a theme so horrific that it causes me to stop reading their blog for awhile.

 

If you run your own wordpress install, you constantly have to keep updating it, or else you run the risk of some Chinese hacker stealing your identity and ordering $9000 worth of fortune cookies, or whatever it is they buy over there.  I get really sick of having to drop everything so I can go update Wordpress to patch some horrific vulnerability that allows a malicious user to gain root access, or execute arbitrary code on my web server, or rape my dog. (I don't actually have a dog)

 

Almost everything I wrote about themes also applies to plugins.  

 

For the record, I don't think Wordpress sucks.  Some of my favorite websites run heavily modified versions of Wordpress.  In the hands of a talented PHP/CSS developer, one can do great things with Wordpress.  But for a simple personal blog, like the one I've tried to get off the ground several times, Wordpress is overkill.  Its a broad axe, when all I need is a scalpel.  I'm hoping Posterous is that scalpel.  I'll post impressions after I've logged some more hours with it.

 

-h