Macworld San Francisco 2004 Special Report #1

Macworld San Francisco 2004 Special Report #1 by John Nemerovski, with support from Owen Rubin

Thanks in advance for reading our series of commentaries and reports, live from the showroom floor at 2004’s Macworld Conference & Expo, held at Moscone Center in downtown San Francisco. I’ll be submitting articles, as will our newest writer, Owen Rubin. Here’s my preview diary.

Departed home in Tucson early, driving 110 miles up to Phoenix for the flight to Oakland airport. Huge crowds at PHX, due to the post-holiday period. Travelers were patient, cheerful sheep, waiting in enormous lines for check in, security, and boarding. Why is this process so awful, and so necessary.

I lucked out, obtaining window seat in spacious exit row in cramped Southwest Airlines plane. Aisle seatmate admired my sturdy Brenthaven rucksack and Willow Design iBook sleeve. IMPORTANT: many thanks to Tekserve in New York City for providing iBook with AirPort, to facilitate our live coverage.

I read Wired magazine, the August issue, getting caught up on my “summer” reading. Articles are consistently mediocre, which has always been my opinion of Wired, but I learned about a couple of interesting new products, which I’ll investigate after Mac world SF concludes.

Colorado River meanders gently off to the left (south) as we fly westward, heading to Ontario (near Palm Springs), California, a quick stop between PHX and OAK. Stark desert just outside the lush agricultural band that parallels the river. Terrain looks like infamous Area 51, or land featured in Gene Steinberg’s “Rockoids” fable.

Travelogue to be continued — running short of time.

Owen Rubin generously picked me up at Oakland Airport. We got acquainted during our drive into San Francisco on this gorgeous, cool afternoon. Owen is intense, extremely qualified, and delightfully opinionated. He’ll make an excellent member of our MyMac.com staff!

After obtaining our media credentials, we grabbed a quick snack and decided which products to cover tomorrow, Tuesday, after the morning’s keynote speech. I’ll have my digital camera, iBook, and passion for the showroom floor, so please check back often for both features and blogs, plus plenty of photographs.

See you at Macworld!

Nemo