360 iDev Conference, T-Minus 18 hours

It's just about eighteen hours until I leave my house for the 360 iDev conference in San Jose. I'm excited about the trip despite the fact that I'm completely snowed under and behind on my work thanks to a few days of feeling lousy (combined with most of my family and the dog also feeling lousy). Fortunately for me, there's either a loophole in Northwest Airline's elite policy or a bug in their ticketing system.

Since I started the iPhone book almost a year ago, I haven't been traveling very much. Before that, I traveled constantly as part of my consulting work, so I used to have the highest level of status on two airlines and in two hotel chains. That is all gone now. Starting with 2009, all my status is either gone, or reduced to Silver level.

It's a good trade-off. I'd rather be home more with my family more and working with technologies I believe in, but when I do travel, I am going to miss the various perks of status, especially those first class upgrades on long cross-country flights.

But, as it turns out, I won't be missing them on this trip. I still had my status with Northwest when I made the reservations for the conference, and as far as the ticketing system is concerned for upgrade purposes, I still have that status, so it upgraded me for all three flights tomorrow (yes, three flights - urgh). Which means I'll actually be able to get work done on the plane as long as my battery holds out. Of course, now I'm really regretting not pre-ordering a new 17" MBP as I had intended, with its claimed eight-hour battery life.

Anyway, if you're planning on going to the conference, say "Hi" if you see me. If you're not planning to go but you're a reasonable distance from the San Jose, I believe there are still tickets available and it looks like it's going to be a great couple of days.