Back to the Moxy

L.A. Trade Show journal #5
Back at the hotel · Wed, 17 Sep 2025. 10:30pm

It's after 10pm now and I'm settled in back at the Moxy hotel. It was a long but good day at the AWS Summit trade show. Alas my day was not over when the show was over.

First I had to walk back to my hotel...



...which as I mentioned this morning, is right across the street from the LA Convention Center. Again, that's why I chose it despite knowing it has laughably tiny rooms. But that was also not the end of the day. I merely stopped by my room to drop my bag before heading back out. My company sponsored a reception this evening at a bar a few blocks away.

As I passed through the hotel I noted that one or two other companies were hosting receptions at this hotel. Why couldn't we have done that? (Rhetorical question; I know the answer is a combination of "Because we don't plan things far enough ahead" and "It was probably too expensive".) So I walked about 6 blocks over to our party location.

"You walked?" all of my colleagues at the bar asked in separate conversations after I arrived. They were incredulous that either I (a) knew the dire risks and did it anyway or (b) didn't know how direly risky it was and foolishly did it. Okay, it wasn't so much option (b) because they know I'm not foolish. But, c'mon. It was 6pm. Daylight. And just a handful of city blocks. Yeah, I passed half a dozen homeless people (or wandering drunks) along the way. But let's not get overly paranoid about big cities. They are not the violent crime cesspools they're routinely made out to be in parts of the media and social media.

The reception was good. I took advantage of the company's generosity to knock back 5 drinks along with a few tacos served buffet-style. Hey, it's not like I was driving home; just walking. Though one of my colleagues practically insisted on driving me home so I didn't have to walk the 0.4 miles solo.

Back here at the Moxy I decided to check out the action at the rooftop bar.



The reception party that was up here was winding down at 9pm when I arrived... and the outdoors bar was surprisingly closing early. The bartenders had just about everything packed away when I arrived. So after taking a few pictures I went downstairs to the restaurant on the first floor to seek out some food. Now I'm really kicking myself for not going up to the rooftop bar last night. But last night I was pretty tired and just couldn't be bothered leaving my room.

Speaking of tired and not leaving my room, that's where I am and what I'm doing now. I got some dinner at the lounge downstairs. It was busy but I ate quietly, by myself, then came back up here. Tomorrow's going to be a busy morning, and I'm pooped after a long day. I think I'm going to be lights-out by 11.

Keep reading: the next morning I navigate $25 bagels and flying pigs in Leaving Los Angeles!

Leaving Los Angeles, $25 Bagels, Home Early

L.A. Trade Show journal #6
Back home · Thu, 18 Sep 2025. 1pm

Today has been a story about "early". In some ways that's been good, in some ways it's been bad.

One of the bad parts is that I was up early. I woke up before 4am feeling a bit ill. I tossed and turned for an hour but couldn't get back to sleep. Laying down wasn't making me feel better so I sat up with my computer. It was just as well I was up early because I had two early meetings to join. By the time I left the hotel to head to the airport I'd already put in 2 hours of work.

By the time I hopped into a Lyft to the airport I was feeling better... enough. Better enough not to get sick in the car. 😣

I got to BUR airport with enough time to spare. Enough time to get breakfast or an early lunch, even. Except at BUR there's, like, one restaurant in the terminal, and it is stupid expensive. They were serving breakfast only, no lunch, and just a bagel was $25. Granted, the bagel was loaded. It came with smoked salmon. But still, $25 for a bagel?!?!



If they had bananas there I'll bet they would've been $10.

I grabbed a seat in my gate area and waited. I've remarked before that BUR is a small airport. And bare-bones. Today I was boarding at Gate 2. That means from security I had to walk past... Gate 1... to get there. Oh, but the $25 bagel restaurant was across from Gate 3. So I had to walk up there and back on my unsuccessful food foray. 😅

I just kind of vegged in my seat at the airport. I read some news, answered a few Slack and email messages from colleagues, stared out the ground-floor windows at the mountains in the distance, and mostly tried not to think about whether my bowels were still hurting. Eventually it was time to line up and board.

Boarding the flight was a no-nonsense thing today. There were no pre-boards. And with only 80-some passengers we all got boarded in less than 15 minutes.

Boarding quickly meant the flight was able to depart a few minutes ahead of time. In addition to the time savings there we also experienced no delays in flight. It's only 48 minutes from wheels-up at BUR to touchdown at SJC... even though the scheduled gate-to-gate time is usually 75 minutes.

I was surprised when, 35 minutes before our schedule landing, the pilot announced over the intercom, "We're on final approach to SJC". I looked out the window to see where we actually were, as I recognize many of the landmarks on the NorCal <--> SoCal route since I fly it so often....



Yup, I recognized the outskirts of San Jose below us. And I saw pigs flying, since this Southwest flight was not only not arrive late but actually arriving early! 🤣

Landing almost 30 minutes early was cool with me as there were no constraints on the rest of my schedule. I had parked at the airport in the daily lot, so once I de-planed and exited the terminal it was only a 5 minute walk to my car. Most of that 5 minutes was because I had to park on pretty much the far side of the lot, all the closer spaces having been full when I arrived on Tuesday.

By 12 noon I was already sitting down for lunch at one of my favorite spots in Sunnyvale. By 12:45pm I was home and unpacking my suitcase. Now it's 1pm and I aim to get some more work done today from my home office... though I'm already tired after such an earlier start to the day I'm unsure how much more work I'm good for.