The Scratching Post: WWDC, Bonnaroo, and sunscreen

Posted Jun 17 2009, 07:13 PM

After the tedium of grey clouds, ice, and snow that comprise so much of the yearly weather up here, it is finally looking like summer time in Rochester, NY. The sun is out, Hector is singing longingly to her birdie brethren, and the temperatures are quite lounge-by-the-pool-worthy. If you were to walk into the Ambrosia HQ, however, you might have a hard time believing me once you saw our staff, still decked out in long pants and sleeves!

With all the constantly running electronics we have in the office, air conditioning is a necessary evil, and man do we *ever* have air conditioning! Of course, as one of those people who is constantly cold, I really lucked out as the one who gets the first blasts of arctic air under her desk. I'm thinking a Snuggie may be the only preventative measure to take to avoid becoming Frosty's wife this summer...

Over the past week, the office was lacking the usual click clack of our programmers hard at work, as they were all in San Francisco attending the Apple World Wide Developers Conference. This Monday, they returned to their desks with all sorts of upgraded knowledge and visions of new iPhones and Snow Leopards dancing in their heads. Of course, in typical Ambrosia style, WWDC was not all business no play; the guys all had a great time meeting and mingling with fellow programmers. Drinking, dancing, and Tweeting the night away -- party hardy Ambrosia!

In the glorious summer spirit, I also took a couple days away from the office last week to attend the Bonnaroo Music Festival in Manchester, TN. After four days of frying my translucent Irish skin under the southern sun, it's safe to say I qualify for the "burnt to a crisp" cliche. The miles of walking and late nights of dancing took their toll on my winter-lazed anatomy, and on top of that, el' Presidente has taken to referring to me as Typhoid Kat, due to the ferocious hacking cough that has plagued me the past two and a half weeks. Standing, sitting, breathing, and blinking are just a few of the tasks which are currently painful to perform. I'm beginning to consider investments in Ibuprofen and aloe stocks to be a rather viable venture.

In the tech world, it seems everyone has been a-flutter about the iPhone OS 3 release. Our developers and testers have been diligently preparing our various iPhone games for the update, and earlier this week our in-house Apple genius Evan put the beta version on my iPhone. Now, not to undermine my claim to geekdom -- I get my Leia costume dry-cleaned only, thank you-- but, I am not exactly the most advanced cog in the machine around here. Having been a PC convert (don't judge me!)(editor's note: or do), my Mac experience can, at times, be pathetically limited.

That said, I was rather grateful for Evan's assistance until, in the process of updating to the new OS, we managed to experience an "undefined" error (clearly the best kind) not once, not twice, but three times. After working through all this and getting the install finalized, you can only imagine the joy I experienced upon realizing I'd lost all my music, programs, notes, and ringtones. To his credit, Evan did spend some time with me restoring my iPhone, and everything seems to be running smoothly. The lesson to take away from all this, I suppose, is that I'll never be trendy or tech-savvy, and my continued attempts are futile. It's definitely a bad omen when an office full of Apple gurus can't save me from my own technologies!