Tikkabik

I flew into San Francisco on Saturday; the flight was a bit late but otherwise uneventful. I had a chance to talk with the event's marketing manager, who just happened to be on the same flight. We've known each other for a while so it was a good opportunity to renew acquantances and find out what's going on at the show -- and no, I'm not privy to any inside information about what Apple will announce on Tuesday -- IDG World Expo isn't either, and even if they were, they have the good sense not to tell a journalist.

The hotel is fine -- I'm staying in the same place I did last year, and oddly enough, the exact same room! I'm only two doors down from Jim, my boss, and a short jaunt to the hotel's club lounge, which serves a continental breakfast in the morning and light fare in the evening. It's oddly comforting to be in a hotel I'm familiar with.

Today was largely an R&R day -- the only such day I'll get at the show this week, since things will start hopping later on today and will continue unabated through much of the week. So I had breakfast with Corey and then we spent part of the day with my father and his significant other. We actually took in some of the sights of San Francisco -- saw the buffalo paddock at Golden Gate Park (it's an inside joke -- my father's nickname is Buffalo) and then had a cappucino at the Cliff House before driving over the Golden Gate Bridge and taking in the sights of the city and Bay Area.

It's been raining recently, which is great -- often times the city is shrouded in haze, but it was clear today, so we got a good view (and a few good pictures as well). After that we dropped Corey off back at his hotel and went back to Benny's studio. She's an artist who works in a variety of media, including glass, and recently she's been crafting glass beads which she fashions into exquisite jewelry. She let me have a go at it, and while I've got to say my attempts were ham-handed at best, I found the work compelling.

The process consists of heating long, thin rods of colored, leaded glass over a hot flame, then fusing it to a metal rod. Once you've got enough glass on the rod, you slowly turn it over the flame, using gravity and various carbon tools to mold the bead into the shape. If you want to get fancy you can apply multiple colors of glass together, or use thinner-gauge glass rods to decorate your bead with dots and stripes.

It's really cool stuff.

So, today (Monday), the show begins. Monday is a conference day, but many vendors are using it to get a head-start on the chaos that's sure to follow on Tuesday, when it's widely rumored that Apple will be making introductions of compelling new products.

Hard to believe it's been a year since the last Macworld Expo in San Francisco, but there it is.