On the road again: San Francisco, day 3Sasquan, Spokane, day 0

I spent most of the day at the Intel Developer Conference, which provided a lot of intriguing glimpses at computing tech still to come.  Intel CEO Brian Krzanich's keynote address covered a lot of ground and included multiple demos, among them a set of dancing mechanical spiders.  Some folks are definitely going to have nightmares about those.

In the late afternoon, I flew to Spokane for Sasquan, this year's World Science Fiction Convention, or WorldCon.  My flight from Seattle to Spokane was an uneventful ride on a prop plane, but my flight from San Francisco to Seattle was easily one of the least pleasant airplane trips I've recently taken.  The issues began with the smell, which was like distilled ass that was then infused with the stench of a thousand sweaty jock straps.  The plane was very crowded, and I didn't have an exit-row seat, so I had to sit with my shoulders curled for two hours in this miasma of ass.  A little girl, no more than five, in the seat across the aisle from me kept poking me in the arm and asking what I was doing.  Her mother found this behavior cute.  I did not.

After checking into my hotel in Spokane, I grabbed dinner at a funky little place, the Satellite Diner.

Click an image to see a larger version.

A pair of short-order cooks

prepared for me a delicious patty melt

(yeah, I know it looks burned, but it wasn't) and a tasty simple salad.  The atmosphere was fun, the soundtrack playing was awesome (and featured lots of Motown), and I was quite happy to be there.

Tomorrow, I register for the con, and it officially begins.