Contra Mitchell

"Bows and flows of angel hair,
and ice-cream castles in the air."
You think it's just the kids who dare
to see the clouds that way;
that adults need to close their eyes
to cotton dragons in the skies.
I know you'll laugh and call it lies,
but anyone can play.
I've looked at clouds from both sides now,
and life and love have taught me how
until you hear those angels call
you really won't know clouds at all.

(ref)

Thursday — Both waking and sleeping

Woke up quite early, packed up my suitcase, and hacked for a while. Got stuck on the correct (fairly complicated) commandline to pass to qemu; kudos to Ian who woke up, recited it to me, and then fell back asleep again. After that I went downstairs and had breakfast, then caught a taxi to the airport.

The driver asked us whether we wanted to take the toll tunnel, which costs €3. One of the other passengers said yes, but he only had sterling, and was that all right? The driver made the sign of the cross at him.

The plane ride was long, dull, and uneventful, so I spent as much time hacking as my battery and lack of network connection would allow. I took this photo of another plane out of the window, and wrote about clouds. And it was wonderful to be back with Fin, Alex, and Rio, as always.

It's been quite a conference. Thank you once again to all the organisers, and to everyone who made it what it was. Perhaps we'll all see one another in May in San Francisco.

The rest of my conference posts:

• Sunday: the flight over, church, setting up
• Monday: writing a presentation
• Tuesday: giving a presentation, and a brewery trip
• Wednesday: clearing up, and free laptops

This was running around my head on the plane

Apologies if this is nonsense. It was stuck in my head on the plane.

I was tired of the engine I'd been driving around
Like a worn-out recording of a favourite sound
So while it sat there sleeping in its railway shed
There in the personal column was this letter I read
"If you like steam-engine antics, and getting caught in the rain,
If you're quick to get steam up, if you're hitched to a train
If your face is anthromorphic, with unhinged-looking smiles,
Then I'm your locomotive, you can drive me for miles."