SolidWorks 2009 Barcelona press event: arriving

The flight from Atlanta to Barcelona was as good as an 8 hour red-eye can be. Air travel is so undignified. After the sun came up, we passed some of the lower Pyrenees, which were amazing. Very stark, bare, and dry. You can see some in the distance had snow on them.

Once on the ground, we were through customs and baggage claim with amazing rapidity, and I ran into Mark Schneider from SolidWorks, who was apparently on the same flight with us. Mark was very kind, and waited for us as we got our bags, and then paid for the cab to the hotel.

Mark and I talked about some of the functionality in the new version, and what I could expect from this press event. I admitted frankly that I wasn’t sure why I needed to fly 3000 miles to see a version of the software I’ve been using for months. It was good to get Mark’s perspective on some of the changes, and if I had been thinking, I would have asked some different questions, but there will be more opportunities. I’m not sure if it would have been fair to pepper him with on the record questions in the cab to the hotel. I think it took a while for him to realize who I was. He just spotted my SolidWorks Beta Tester backpack, and started a conversation.

There is a 6 hour time difference between Barcelona and rural central Virginia, and my internal clock was already a mess when I left. I had been on the sleeping schedule from 4 am to 12 noon due to a book deadline. The 6 hours difference was in the wrong direction, putting me going to bed at about 10 am. So after a sleepless night on the plane, and a long nap this afternoon, I think I’m on my 2 am to 8 am sleeping routine again. But this will only last for the next week. Making the change back should be easier.

I wanted to arrive a day early and to stay a day late. In part to make sure I didn’t miss anything that was happening, but also to enable me to get around to see the sights of the city. It is a remarkable place to visit.

Kim could not pass up the opportunity to go to Barcelona. She is an architect, and this is an amazing architectural city.

Of course our hotel is a block off the beach. The topless beach, I should point out, although the women without are not always Pam Anderson material.

And after the topless beach, you can confess your sins at la Iglesia de San Miguel del Puerto, which had a plaza in front of it with a small tapas restaurant, where we had a little lunch. The words tapas and topless are often and easily confused, and I found it interesting to find the words in such close physical proximity here in this city.

Speaking of sins, Barcelona has two large breweries, Estrella and San Miguel, both of which you can get in the US. I don’t know if the San Miguel brewery is related to this iglesia in any way, but I do think that my beer experiments in this country are over until I find some microbrew. I think I’ll stick to the cava and sangria for the rest of the trip.

Tomorrow evening is the first scheduled press event, which is a dinner with all of the press and SW employees. In some ways I dread these events, because I generally want to hang with the guys, meaning the other bloggers, but I sometimes get pulled into side discussions which are better left for times when there is less alcohol involved. Regardless, it’s always interesting. Come back a day from now, and I’ll try to have a run down of anything of significance that happens.

I won’t be blogging this event live. I think information needs some time to sink in. The “real” press probably takes too long to publish something in a real publication, and by that time the event is largely forgotten. Plus, if you spend the time you should be paying attention to what is actually happening in the here and now doing blogging instead, you’ll probably miss something. It seems strange to come all the way to Barcelona to talk about life instead of participate in it.