I’m composing this post at Oakland airport. I’m here ridiculously early because the bus to BART only runs once an hour and doesn’t always turn up so a certain amount of risk avoidance has to be done. This has, however, given me an opportunity to check out the facilities (and get some exercise wandering around the terminals).
Oakland is doing a lot of rebuilding, and the end result will, I think, be rather nice. Right now, however, there are an awful lot of “under construction” signs. I’m flying Southwest, which means Terminal 2. When you first get into the gate space it looks like everything is under construction. I ended up walking all the way through to Terminal 1, where I finally found an open Starbucks that had a queue rather longer than that for Terrorisation Security. However, I later found found that if you walked right to the end of Terminal 2 there were actually a lot of shops and food outlets. There are also some nice views out over the Bay, which is a smart touch.
On the other hand, the choice of food is pretty much carbs and dairy or carbs and dairy. Farah, if you are reading this, I do not recommend using Oakland.
The airport is a lesson in unforeseen design choices. There are a bunch of seating areas that are designed for the use of people who need to work while they wait. They come in two types. The first are armchairs with power sockets in the arms. The second are tables with bar stool seating, with power sockets in the tables. Neither are usable by people trying to work unless you are very lucky, because both types of seating are preferable to the normal gate seats. The armchairs are big and comfortable – much better than the terraced seats you normally get. And the table space quickly gets filled up by people with food. To actually be able to make use of the power sockets you need to get to the gate very early.
I, of course, do not need a power socket, and I’m composing this on the Asus, which continues to attract “aw, isn’t it cute!” comments from passers by.
Talking of the Asus, I did have a look to see what WiFi options were available. A search turns up two options: something called Boingo, which is a paid service, and something called Free Public WiFi, which might be free but every time I try to connect I get an error message telling me that there are no free connections. Definitely a case of getting what you pay for.
lack of internet access while travelling was a pain for me in Finland too, although the XO’s internet setup is much less standard than that on the Asus I suspect (and after a frustrating time of it and a lost file or two I think I’m going to stick Ubuntu on the thing). Assembly was thick with Asuses (somehow that sounds wrong) and the company put down some serious bank to sponsor the event . . .
how long have you had the machine, and what do you think of it so far?
I’m not in the market for one, but I know my bf may be as next time we go to Europe and environs he wants to bring something its easier to get onto networks with than his DS or my XO.