Thursday, July 4, 2013
patrick drove me to sfo. security. long line at il fornaio. i returned to firewood grill at 7:50 am because i wanted something closer to table service. they didn't open until 8:00. while waiting at a table i was surprised to learn that sfo wifi was not free. i had thought it was free. waited in line at the register for 10 minutes. i ordered a veggie scramble. she said it comes with bacon. (weird.) i said okay because i haven't had bacon by itself in a very long time. (everything in moderation, including moderation, right?) when my food arrived i was disappointed to have been given plasticware instead of silverware, but i guess silverware isn't permitted anywhere inside the security zone. I was impressed by the JetBlue flight—my first time flying JetBlue. Efficient beverage and snack service, particularly for a short flight (75 minutes). Staff was friendly, seats comfortable. For the snack it was our choice of chips or cookies. At the end of the flight passengers were permitted to alight from the front and rear of the plane. I was also impressed with Long Beach Airport, also my first time. Part of it has open-air facilities, making it feel a little like Honolulu to me. So much nicer than LAX. Immediately after picking me up we went grocery shopping at 99 Ranch Market then returned home to mom and dad's, driving past a home in which my grandmother once lived as well as some apartment properties that my mom and dad still own. Late lunch: assorted dim sum and deli items from 99. Long nap. When I awoke some 5 or so hours later, Dex and Lani had arrived by car. (Lani drove.) Late dinner at home. We realized that it had been about 20 years since we all dined together in this house. Afterwards I did some optimization on Dad's computer and inspected his wifi configuration. New in the past few months he purchased and installed a FreedomPop device. The box claims to deliver 4G speeds, but a speed test I ran found 184 Kbps down and 1158 Kbps up—poor, but better than the dialup connection they had before. He says he paid a one-time $80 fee for the device, then $20 per month for 10 GB. We talked about Gmail. (He's still using Juno.) We talked about iPad and I showed him how to use mine.