Author: alohawild

I rose at 6:30 after sleeping well, but with non-remembered vivid dreams. I was still getting in 7,000 steps during the conference, which made sleeping easy, even with the time changes. I do run late, as it is after 11 before I pack it in for the night. I do the usual run of Quicken downloads to check all the transactions and balances. I often, if your are wondering, dear reader, check my balances at US Bank; I don’t totally rely on Quicken. I read my email and news on CNN and NYT, and drank my industrial room coffee, which I ran through the hotel-supplied coffee machine. I once again discovered that we liberals have an endless opportunity to improve the world by bringing Justice with Compassion. There is hope, and if you can ignore Trump’s headline baiting, and despite the damage from DOGE, we are still able to forecast hurricane paths — it will miss me.

I got a text that friends I met at HOPE_16 cannot join me in NYC, they are too tired (they have been doing back-to-back computer conferences). I had breakfast down in the lobby. It was less busy on Monday morning, but the US Open was still going on, and many people at breakfast were heading to the event. There is even an ESPN bus that takes folks from these hotels (the Courtyard is next door) to the tennis event.

I wrote a postcard for Mom Wild, a NYC-themed one, walked to the mailbox (it still amazes me that there is one, slightly graffiti-ed, here), dropped it in, and then found a local MTA bus to get me to NYC. I connect the bus, as before, with the E train, and then start to read on my iPhone using the Kindle App. I have taken the trip a few times, and I think I can read now instead of watching every station. I just realized at the last moment that I am already at my transfer. I have to do a few short hops/transfers to finally get to the A train, which runs to the extreme uptown, where the MET Cloisters museum is.

There are a lot of steps. So many that I have to stop a few times. A few bemused young people walked past me as I rested a few times. The stairs suck. I am getting my workout today. My balance isn’t an issue when going up the stairs, but later, I am challenged, and it takes some moxie to descend those sharp-edged, irregular, cliff-like stairs. I reach the top winded and my back hurts, which makes the trip less pleasurable since I am in pain the whole time I am in the museum. The M4 MTA bus pulls in as I walk to the entrance of the MET Cloisters museum. F**k, I will take that next time! I may have condemned the authors of the Maps software on my iPhone to eternal torment and damnation for not including the M4 in my trip.

There are more stairs. I have to wait on steps while folks buy their tickets. I am given a Senior discount, and after the steps, I do not object. I grabbed a physical map, and that was a good idea (though I just got lost over and over and discovered the map was vague). Later, there are more stairs because the bathrooms are a floor down!

The MET Cloisters museum is a built showcase of medieval and some Renaissance architectural pieces, now built into the museum. All reflecting a religious element, the building’s stone construction makes it seem as though the monks and nuns will appear at any moment to show us away. Stone-sculptured doorways from the 1100s are mixed with modern wooden, older-style doors. Pillars, everywhere, are built into the wall, suggesting a religious cloistered community building, and are often reused, with nearly a thousand-year-old original stone carvings. Stained glass that is five hundred years or older is incorporated into modern lead and glass work. To say this is a permanent display is not quite getting it. This is a built museum.

The unicorn tapestries have been here since the 1960s, when the Billinares families still built museums to take their loot and display it. The Museum of Pop Culture, built in a more recent time, is one of the few exceptions, founded by Paul Allen. The herb garden was recommended by a docent, and it was lovely and a mix of useful and often dead plants (all carefully marked). I found the cafe, and a friendly gentleman recommended the chocolate croissant with coffee, and it was excellent.

I spent a few hours and then dared the steps again. And while I survived without injury, my left knee actually started to fail once after the stairs, and I am grateful that I did not have that on the stairs, though I held the railing for most of the walk. I am also thankful that the honey bee that I somehow got in my bag of goodies (mostly postcards) did not sting me when I inadvertently pulled it out of the bag! I had not squeezed it as I did not know what it was (thinking a bookmark was added to my bag). That was a moment between staircases, which I am also grateful for.

I rested for a while and called Deborah, and we chatted about how lovely the Cloisters museum was. I then walked on Arden Street and then a block to the 1 train. I was wondering how much an apartment here costs. It was lovely ($1800 rent for a 350 sft studio on the third floor, a million for 2-bedroom condos). I found the 1 train and took it back to 79th and Zabar’s (Zay-bars to pronounce it) and ordered a bagel. I also bought a few easy-to-pack items (except for the coffee).

The bookstore across the street was great, and I found three cheap books on history and for $6 had them shipped. I paid no tax as I was making an out-of-state purchase of something being mailed. That paid for half of the shipping!

On the way back, I met a young woman and her son. He was sporting an A Train T-shirt and loves the subway. They take different trains based on what her son wants to see. An excellent plan, I thought. I will try to ride them all on one of these trips. Just keep transferring until you have them all!

I met friends I met at HOPE_16 (now rushing as I am out of time to write) for dinner, and we tried another kabab place, and it was terrific. We talked about programming, computers, and the upcoming trips. We ate fast, and I was back at the hotel. Deborah and I planned and built a trip to Michigan for me over Labor Day. All booked and added to TripIt. I also booked part of the November trip.

I finally slept, but woke often from dreams. My usual travel day reaction.

Thanks for reading, and sorry for rushing the last bit.

I felt a bit sad today as HOPE_16 was wrapping up. I rose at 5:30 to start my day early and finish writing the blog. I started in my hotel room and made coffee. I miss the mornings when I’d rise and make Deborah coffee after spending so many weeks in hotels with her. We talked often on Sunday and used FaceTime; it is good to see each other.

As usual, I went to Quicken and started downloading all the financial transactions on my various accounts and credit cards. There was no criminal activity, and I updated some of the categorization so my reports and screens in Quicken better reflect the reality of my finances. I have a pretty good picture every day of my income and outgo. I was annoyed that the Bank of America website was down and disconnected from Quicken. Apparently, they had an outage, and Quicken required me to re-enter my connection information on Sunday evening. This happens when any connection breaks, but it does make you recheck that you are on your private network and not on something pretending to be the hotel or other “friendly” networks! While it is unlikely a criminal would raid me, it is possible I would be reminded, possibly quite spectacularly, had I lost my password to a hacker at HOPE_16. I would expect to discover, later, that I had a thousand one-cent transactions (500 +1 and 500 -1) in my account, serving as a reminder to be more careful with rather direct text on each. But nothing like that happened.

I remembered to keep my phone locked down and did not bring my laptop with me, though I saw more and more laptops as the weekend went on. I am unsure if Smithers, the name of my laptop, is secure enough for the Hackers’ Conference, as it’s still set to be very friendly. It did warn me that the hotel Internet connection certificates were bad, and I told it to ‘forget’ them.

I returned to the lobby after I showered, dressed, and all of that. A week of hotel life doesn’t bother me, but I do miss knowing anyone here. I have made a few acquaintances, and I am sure that at the next HOPE, I will feel more comfortable and bring my laptop (with it set to be less likely to wander, with VPN definitely running), which would open more workshops to me and make note-taking digital. I am writing everything in a book my sister gave me (though I broke the supplied pen).

I put away my laptop, looking a bit longingly as I do miss having Smithers, and grab my bag, the Strand Bookstore bag I bought for $1, and head out with my analog solutions to notes taken, pen and paper, and my iPhone. I put an apple, the fruit, and a bottle of water from the hotel in my bag. Victoria, a woman I met at the bus stop, complained that the last Q30 bus had ignored her. She is from DC and was upset that the buses here were not as friendly. I reminded her that she was in NY and told her I chased it down the day before, and they opened the doors in the street. I dodged cars to get on board. She laughed when I said one of us would have to take ‘one for the team’ and literally throw ourselves under the bus. Victoria, I learned, is IT for a non-profit in DC and does, among other things, InfoSec for her employer.

We soon had a whole crew of folks waiting for the bus to travel to HOPE_16, and the bus did stop for us; nobody had to stop the bus. We arrived, and, being hackers, half went one way in, while the others walked to another entrance. I said many good mornings as I am beginning to recognize folks. I headed to a talk on the impact of Quantum computers on security.

The presentation was high-level as this emerging technology, Quantum Computing, has been, well, emerging for a long time (and I have very little faith that it is real or usable). The presentation, with a non-English speaker, had CC running and covered the current state of the technology (very much still a lab experiment with rumors that sovereigns have it working and that China has already broken encryption with it).

Though I thought it was too early, there are recommendations to change encryption in the future to much more expensive and challenging to break methods. The suggestion is that organizations need to be ready for the new future in ten years and should start planning. Again, I thought it all very speculative, but I took notes on things to learn: Grover’s Algorithm, Shor’s Algorithm, Python Quantum called QuTip (yes, that is the name). Lastly, anything encrypted now and saved might be breakable in ten years. That presents some interesting challenges for long-term secrets that are exposed as encrypted material. Hmmm.

Next was an interesting group that was building drones in Mexico using 3D printers to deliver medicines to hard-to-reach communities in the mountains. I discovered it was the same guys who were doing the jewelry from the day before. Their most complex issue, I learned, was actually flying and not crashing the drone. The selected drone was more of an RC plane than the typical up-down drones you usually see. They are now trying to set up non-profits for this, and I did talk to them about checking with their local liberal churches, which they thanked me for, but I felt that was not going to happen.

Victoria, while we were talking, I mentioned my church, and she then suggested that we drop ‘Christian’ as it was too toxic now. She said the history and association with the far right made it a threat, and we liberal and moderate church-goers needed to drop the name church and find more friendly terms that are not associated with hate and a bloody history. She said this to be helpful. An interesting observation from Victoria.

I watched part of an OOCRO.org, Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, presentation. This is a journalist project that helps reporters work across county borders to report on crime. They have an online tool, Aleph, with an excellent multilingual search that can take a word like ‘Putin’ and find the Russian version and use that too in the search. I tried it out during the presentation. I found lunch after walking out early — it was more of a sales pitch and something I am not likely to use. They did cover how they built the search, but I decided lunch was a good idea.

OOCRO.org has just implemented a 25% layoff following the USAID funding cut.

I made an error; I thought the book binding workshop was at 1, but it actually started at 11. I made a mistake when I wrote it down (dropping a 1) and did not double-check. I missed the workshop, but I had picked replacement items in case the class was full.

Instead, I attended a standing-room-only ATM Hacking presentation. The presenter, Roman Pushkin, an ATM expert, covered the history of ATMs and their hacking. He broke down how an ATM card strip is populated and how to hack one. He made it clear that hackers are different from criminals; hackers want to understand how things work and point out failures, whereas thieves steal. There seemed to be a general agreement on that. He then pointed out that a USB slot on most ATMs is the starting point for successful attacks.

Roman then produced a coin machine you see at grocery stores in the US, and pointed out the USB slot, and showed the manual for the coin machine online. He even built a machine to take over the coin machine. “We are Hackers and love little black boxes,” he said, demonstrating his ability to extract all the coins he wanted. He did not demo the hack of the cash dispensers in an ATM, but suggested that they, too, are USB devices and can be taken over in the same way. It was an impressive display, and he pointed out that ATMs could be better built to avoid this issue. It is just banks being lazy, he suggested.

(Please see my previous blog for a note on this, if this is shocking to you.)

For those who do not know these words, Large Language Models (LLMs) are a means to make chatbots and ChatGPT (and like tools) understand and produce meaningful text. The following presentation focused on hacking LLMs and exposing forbidden, protected, or claimed-to-be-excluded content. It seems that the LLMs are used even in video games, with Darth Vader being assigned one that was hacked (and using the now AI-controlled voice of James Earl Jones to spout facts once it was hacked; insane!). The presentation demonstrated how to exploit these LLMs to perform odd and sometimes awful tasks. The presenter has made the vulnerabilities clear to officials (yes, some folks monitor and report on this stuff). Still, a few of the LLM owners are actively pursuing more protections, and the new Trump laws will remove most requirements to address these issues. Yikes!

Lastly, ICEBLOCK’s creator gave a speech and was then verbally beaten up a bit by the Hacker community as he, Joshua Aaron, refused to make the code for the app open source. The community seemed more than willing to help, but Joshua was clear that he felt he and his family were endangered by the reaction of the Trump administration, the right-wing news agencies, and trolls. I felt for Joshua as did all the Hackers, though they were clear they disagreed with Joshua.

The closing ceremonies were late and confused. The report on the network, traffic, malware discoveries, and evaluation of the security of individual users was interesting. This is, I learned, a reason to show up for the ceremonies. About 30% of the folks on the network needed, according to the report, more security training. The number of folks connecting to their banks using open access was disturbing. Had HOPE_16 been a man-in-the-middle attack, it could have been unfortunate. They also identified various hacking attempts and malware running on some users’ computers. They supplied the device name so the impacted folks could kill the malware. They brushed off the attacks. China accounted for a significant portion of the traffic.

I walked back in the rain to the bus and caught the Q30 back, and then walked some more in the rain, getting damp, but not cold (until the AC from the hotel hit me). I ordered veal and mushrooms from the local Two Brothers Pizza (I had promised to try the veal) and talked to Deborah for a while. I walked for ten minutes, took a break, picked up my dinner–they remembered me, got back to the room, and spilled the salad dressing on myself, but I still enjoyed the food. Deborah and I ended our day together on a FaceTime call, and soon I was asleep.

I had a nightmare about 3ish, kicked off the covers, and then kicked the AC machine, and the pain woke me. No damage to me or the AC, and soon I slept again. I was reading a horror/SciFi book before sleeping, and it leaked into my dreams. Ugh! I dreamed I was on a burning hot floor with bare feet and had to get away. Some kind of trapped environment; the details are fading from my memory.

(Small rainbow as I walked back in the rain)

My foot is good. Thanks for reading!

 

 

A Note: For the readers, HOPE_16 is the good guys. For instance, the hack and ATM class highlights the sloth of banks, which, rather than addressing vulnerabilities that hackers can easily exploit, should focus on improving testing and delivering enhanced protection. The hope, thus the name, is that the banks will listen, fix, and improve. Remember those ATM fees? They are there to partially cover the banks for not fixing the issues. Corporate sloth. It is all our money, and they should do better.

I woke before my alarm and started at 5. It was easier than I expected, as I slept well and managed to get a few extra hours too. Rising, I started in on my usual checking of my accounts and emails. I made a cup of coffee in the room, missing Deborah, whom I would make a cup for first. I texted her and heard back soon after she started her day while I worked on the blog. Then, I showered and did all that. I headed down to the lobby, which was busy with the Fairfield Inn’s complimentary breakfast.

I wrote in the morning, trying to finish as quickly as possible, as I had to arrive at St John’s University by 9:45 for the first speaker at 10. I did get a bagel with cream cheese, banana, and a decent apple to take with me for later. I ate it around dinner time, as I did not get dinner until about 7 at night (missing a lecture from a lawyer I wanted to see while I waited). I published the blog, returned to my room, and then headed out.

I was offered a ride in a Lyft, but I had to mail a postcard, so I declined. I waited ten minutes instead for the Q30 bus and was soon early at the campus. Excellent! I walked into the campus, talking to another attendee, and soon did my first lecture.

The first lecture was also the worst as their demo and presentation were ineffective. They finally got things going, and while the presentation was embarrassingly bad, the idea of SD Cards as jewelry intrigued me. Also, the concept of splitting data between the cards and needing, say, 3 out of 5, to reassemble the data sounded like a brilliant protection with a possible extra physical secret to protect it all. No sharing it. You could wear your data and protect it. Hmmm. I was already thinking of a new SciFi story about a rich uncle passing away and leaving you some SD Cards, and you having to find the secret and the extra cards to get access to his BitCoins.

The following lecture was about the harsh truth of body autonomy, given by the senior technologist, Daly Barnett of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which fights many legal battles and is on the front line for abortion and trans rights. I learned that the abortion pills, though strongly controlled, are not as controlled by locals as some of the transition drugs are. Wow, justice with compassion seemed so far away after listening to Daly.

Next, I grabbed a prepackaged sandwich and more coffee, paid $15, and quickly ate them. I found the presentation by the Free Software Foundation (GNU, to some of us). I learned that the idea was published by Richard Stallman and got started back in 1983 (while I was in college). The presenter, Craig Topman, sought a solution to help the world and alleviate some of the madness. He found that working for the Foundation allowed him to make a meaningful difference. He made a strong case for us to join, listing volunteer positions that need to be filled immediately. There was some interest. I resisted (everyone wants me).

A bright high school kid gave the best history of the actual means to break the old Enigma machines. He covered how the Polish mathematicians solved it first. He then demonstrated how the updates to the machines necessitated additional assistance and how Alan Turing utilized both manual and electric machines (nearly computers, but specially built for a single task) to crack the code, building upon the partial solutions derived from the manual work. I did not know that Ian Fleming was the Intelligence Officer for the Enigma decoding effort. It was an excellent talk.

For the Enigma talk, I was able to answer a question because I had met one of the folks who worked with Alan Turing, and he had answered the same questions for me back in the 1980s. I repeated Dr. Peter Hilton’s answer that the Germans generally did not guess that their codes were broken, except Rommel, who gave many deceptive reports that understated his capabilities.

Lastly, I caught a lecture on how to build a police scanner system that logs all traffic calls and lets you listen to them in near-real time. It can track the frequency trunking done by the P25 system. It involves multiple radios and a Linux system to receive traffic files.

I headed out and soon found myself on the Q30 bus, but I got off at a stop a block from my usual one by accident (I couldn’t see that well in the dark). I reached my room without any issues, washed up, and then headed out to the dive bar, Emerald Pub, next door. There I got a beer, and then talked to some lawyers (whose lecture I missed).

Savy, along with a friend and her husband, was out smoking by the unfinished new phone tower. I chatted with them and they were friendly. I shared my phone number, and we will try to connect today at the closing ceremonies, and then they may join me for a trip into NYC on Monday and a museum or two.

I returned to my room and stayed up until after 11, chatting, texting, and doing some work on my laptop (none of which was hacker-related).

In general, I noticed the positive and friendly “you do you” vibe at HOPE_16. In many ways, Hope_16 is the after-party for Defcon in Las Vegas. About half of the folks I have met at HOPE_16 were in Las Vegas a few weeks ago. I was told that Defcon is a hacker school and that this is the fun, learn crazy crafts, and meet fun people conference. There are some learning options (there is a lecture on how to hack ATMs on Sunday — I will likely do a class on bookbinding instead), but it is more of a party and celebration. It is definitely not corporate.

I liked it.

Thanks for reading.

I woke at 6, and while I had slept well, 14,000 steps that day, it seemed way too f**king early when my alarm woke me. The skies, resembling Oregon in the fall, were gray, but the sunlight was bright. It would be another hot and humid day in Queens and Fresh Meadows. Deborah was awake, and we talked by phone and text much of the morning. We enjoy starting and ending our days together.

As is my habit, I started the blog in my room, 302, at the Fairfield Inn with coffee made in the room. I used to bring Deborah coffee when we were together, and I think of her when I make coffee in the room machine (she always gets the first one). I later showered, dressed, and went to the lobby for a better breakfast. While not a treat, it is better than most industrial breakfasts I have had free at other hotels. I wrote the blog through most of the early morning, and noticed many folks heading to Hope_16, which made me realize I should switch to a more sinister T-shirt. I had the Kickstarter Night Stalker one with me, and I changed to that after breakfast and getting myself ready for my first exposure to a Hacker’s conference.

I dropped off the postcard for Mom Wild at the mailbox (surprised to see one), and waited a short moment for the Q30 bus ($2.90). I boarded the bus and took the short trip in a nearly empty bus, and soon I was off the bus and walking into St. John’s University. The place was filled with NY’s Finest. There was a police academy for kids, and the police were often in their dress blues. Quite a startling moment for folks headed to a Hope_16!

With something like, “Surely, this can’t be right,” going through my mind, I returned to the area where I was registered. It was a kind of polite chaos of a mix of a rock concert, but for introverts and computer geeks. I did not bring my laptop, and my iPhone was set to no WiFi or Bluetooth, as I had been warned. I would do my note-taking on a pad, totally analog!

My notes indicate that my initial impression was that the attendees were quiet (though the noise level increased throughout the day as people became more comfortable) and predominantly male (though I would later decrease my estimate to be 80% male, as more attendees appeared and clearly identified as female). Dark T-shirts were the de rigueur. Many folks were reconnecting from what I witnessed, and young, especially those projecting female, were the usual, with only a few people with gray hair and even fewer folks in their 60s.

Opening comments included the observation that “you can’t possibly pull this off.” And that it always works anyway. “Do the impossible anyway,” was the advice. But to do this in the “most positive way.” “It is hard,” they told us. Volunteers are needed, and thanks for the help. “We evolve” was shared as the reason it was still working, and that “goodwill makes it work.” And the last comment I recorded was that they “shone light where it is needed.”

Kody Kinzie was my first speaker, and I would take multiple workshops from him and paid a few hundred bucks for those workshops and the interesting devices for hacking and running a Meshtastic network (and how to break one). Kody runs the Hack.gay website and is a security researcher on the open-source side of things. He is also good with small devices, and I enjoyed building my own hardware in his class (just a few through-hole stuff, but still fun).

Kody demonstrated how to utilize his devices, specifically older Chinese-made hardware capable of modifying packet headers, to both scan and attack. Parts are about $3-10, making it almost throw-away stuff. I was happy I did not have a laptop with me, though I could not run the things myself, and my iOS stuff likely would not work anyway. Hmmm. I needed a throw-away image and a basic laptop next time. Double Hmmm.

Next, I listened to a talk about security for small to medium-sized businesses and learned that these are the usual targets of criminal computer attacks. I was told that, on average, an attack costs $200K and that 60% of the victim companies shut down within six months of an attack. Sobering. I also learned that Amazon shares its security training for its employees for free.

I skipped a Python class as it required a laptop, and instead did some lectures.

I listened to a rambling but interesting presentation on a person’s experience with their aphantasia, the inability to visualize while thinking. He suggested that AI has this same problem, and he, Dr. Brown, showed how chatbots tried to help him build his presentation. Dr. Brown was clear that he saw no intelligence, imagination, or clear reasoning being demonstrated, just a kind of pattern application. He implied that AI has aphantasia and worse.

Davis DeWin, a YouTuber, covers how he built a robot for a movie, including how to make it cute and sort of lovable for a kids’ movie. The movie did not want CGI but real machines. The machine used parts I know well, and the body was all 3D printed. DeWin says he learned a lot, including the challenges of 3D printing something that needs to be used as a robot, and he suggested, “Try to build things that don’t make sense.” This will yield 1) Increased options, 2) Allows for unconventional questions, 3) and “Build it for you.” He also suggests that getting help for what he did not know how to do was important to his success.

I met the designer, Clyde, of GameTank, which is an old 6502-based game console (that is the chip from the original Apple machines) with plug-in game cartridges. It was fascinating for me, and Clyde was happy to talk to someone who understood what he had done. I often daydream about building a 6502 machine when I see the chip set for sale. Clyde did it, and his colleague has a Rust port to build 8-bit games for it. I am really tempted to buy a pre-built model ($250, using SMD) and pick up some games ($30 or so each), then start coding for it. Do I need another thing to do? I will try to resist, but it is a daydream brought to life by Clyde!

Lunch was my leftover sandwich from last night. It was excellent cold. I found that in the evening, the conference had a food truck, and I had chicken fingers with a waffle and syrup. Not exactly low sugar for me, but pasta (!) was the other option. I brought an apple (the kind from a tree) from the hotel, but it was bruised to an uncomfortable level, and I did not finish it.

From the 2600 store, I got the conference T-shirt (black, no surprise there, with terminal green print), a mouse pad with their government-like seal, and a copy of the magazine with my story.

I was sleepy before the food, and there was no coffee (yikes!).

I found the Q30 bus and was soon in my room and chatting with Deborah. I was thinking of going to the pub next door or writing, but I just put my head down and soon I was asleep.

I did meet the pizza guy from Two Brothers in the elevator; he was delivering a meal. He did not remember me, but I again thanked him for the excellent pizza.

I woke up at 10:30, put on my PJs, and slept until 5ish with the sunrise.

Thanks for reading.

I rose early at 6, showered and all that, and then headed down to the lobby for breakfast. There, I found a slightly better-than-industrial complementary breakfast. The place was busy; I ate and then wrote until about 10ish and closed the breakfast. I published the blog, read my email, and updated my transactions in Quicken. I paid some of my bills and checked to see if they had cleared.

Boring, I know. Today was a work-like day, starting with registration at 4:30, followed by dinner with Cat at Junior’s in Manhattan’s theater district. I returned to my room (which would not be made up until after 4), wrote a card to Mom Wild, and worked on some church paperwork. I was in my room until near noon.

I took my Strand Bookstore red bag, put my laptop and other items I might use at the convention, and headed out. I mailed the card (one for Deborah, too, and Dondrea and Z got one written a bit later). Despite the modern email-everything world we live in, a physical card is still something special when sent by snail mail.

I wandered to Fresh Meadows on the other side of the highway, using the underpass, and soon was looking at local joints for lunch. I decided that pizza was low risk. I asked the clerk what was good, and he was at a loss. The cook showed me two plain pizzas, and I decided they were good as-is, with just cheese. I tried a slice with a can of Diet Pepsi for less than $10. Two Brothers Pizza (since 1963) was an old-school NY pizza place where the cook and customers would discuss their annual ticket sales, likely for baseball. I learned that the cook had been doing this since 1982, and we talked about dough and how he has to change his plans based on temperature and humidity. He showed me that he was keeping dough in small containers to keep it cool today.

With enough lunch in me, the pizza was more filling than I expected. I continued walking and walked the circle that is set in the middle of the Fresh Meadows apartments. I found a Starbucks, got an iced coffee, and it was hot and humid. There were no seats remaining inside (the AC was fantastic), and I went outside and got a table with some shade. I looked at the local real estate with prices 30% higher than Beaverton, and some just insane for mansions and whole apartment buildings.

I worked more on my novel and found myself in tears as one of the characters ended its story. I have not written a story like this, and there is some emotion attached to it. I hope it is good. I also have some rewrites to make that story work better.

It was hot, and my laptop was getting warm. I headed back to the hotel, unloaded my bag, and just grabbed my printed ticket for the 2600 Hope_16 conference. I walked back to the bus stop and soon took a short bus trip to St. John’s University.

I had tried this on Wednesday and was comfortable with the trip and walk. I did miss the Q Kosher shop and a pickle shop (!?) on my last visit. Soon I saw a truck unloading, and as often happens at gaming conventions, I noticed that things were behind. I helped unload a bit. Because of my balance issue from the brain surgery removing my balance in my left ear, I try to avoid walking and not seeing the horizon, so carrying and moving are no longer something I do much. I helped out a bit, holding doors open and pushing some things.

I met a few folks like me waiting for badges. Lindsey and Anton got me my badge, and soon I was talking to many first-time convention attendees. I would not tap phones, but instead wrote out my information. I am going analog and have a hand-written plan for the first two days of the conference.

It was nice to hang out for a while, but soon it was time to head to Manhattan again. I found the correct bus, waited only ten minutes, and got a seat. The bus was full, but not packed, by the time we reached the E Train. I was headed to the western part of the island, and that meant I needed a different train. I learned from Cat that the F Train is good too, and it’s only a few blocks away. I took the wrong way out of the subway and ended up a block from F.

I walked around the area. I was an hour early. I found a few places had changed names and saw that Chess, a favorite musical that deals with the Cold War, represented as the game of chess, is being brought back in October. I will have to make a quick visit for that with Deborah. More to come on that.

Cat and I had a lovely dinner with too much food. We both had the pastrami Reuben sandwich and shared a cheesecake covered in strawberries. Sort of a mix of pie and cheesecake–a caloric disaster. Our waiter was terrific and helped us pick these items.

Cat and I caught up; it has been more than a year since we last met. I shared pictures from Iceland and Deborah and me at various waterfalls and sites in Reykjavik. Cat will visit the West Coast this Friday. Next, she is off to Oregon with her sister and brother-in-law to see the Smiths. We might connect there.

It was great to connect, and we rode the F Train back until Cat’s stop. I then continued on to East, where I even connected with my bus late and found my way back to Queens and Fresh Meadows. I walked back to the hotel and all was fine. I was soon asleep. I woke up, feeling jet-lagged, which suggested it was too early to sleep. I looked at my retirement plans for a while, but I was sleepy again after midnight, and I eventually fell asleep before 1. The morning and my alarm seemed too early when it went off on Friday morning.

While I was on the train and bus, I did connect to the Zoom Theology Pub in Oregon, and my friend in Oregon got to see me bounce around in NY. I spoke a few times during the meeting and continued for a while after arriving at my hotel room.

Thanks for reading.