Every year the Apple Worldwide Developer Conference starts out with a keynote speech and people line up for hours for the 10AM event. It’s the only event that’s not under NDA and has press in attendance as well. Every year I take a picture of the media wall for some dumb reason and this year wasn’t any different.

This year WWDC sold out in less than a day and so I figured lining up at 7AM (a sketchy prospect at best) would be too late. I woke up at 4AM because of jet lag from being in Cambridge for the reunion and I couldn’t get back to sleep. I ended up in line at 5AM. The people ahead of me in line were from the art and IT departments of the Watchtower so I was on my best behavior and they were quite friendly as well. So my week had lots of weird sleep deprivation keeping me going, but I was able to hang out with Megan and Nadeem a couple of times. They took me out to get the best hamburger ever, even better than my old favorite at Laurelhurst Market, at Citizen’s Band on 8th and Folsom. Or 9th and Folsom. I always get it wrong. (It’s 8th and Folsom.)

I even made it to Nelsoen’s birthday gathering and hung out in the hotel bar a few nights, talking to all sorts of random people. It was great fun. The only disappointment was that I didn’t know the band playing at the bash. I’d never heard of Michael Franti and Spearhead, but they were fun. They just didn’t have the name recognition, for me, of the previous bands: Ozomatli, Bare Naked Ladies, Cake, or OK Go.

They did have Buzz Aldrin as the final speaker on Friday. I ended up going to a barbecue on Friday night with a bunch of small developers and flew out of San Jose on Saturday. Once again, I almost missed my flight because I was eating. I was in downtown San Jose buying namagashi for my mom and sister and I checked my flight. It was 1 1/2 hours before the flight and I should have been at the airport. But I had to make one last stop before going to the airport.

That’s right. A double-double animal style.

My computer is still being difficult and it is my own fault, but it’s working fairly well. I have the GM of Mac OS X Lion installed and most of the things I use on a day-to-day basis are working fairly well, so I can get back to my usual routine of breaking things on my own.

Here’s a bunch of pictures from my reunion. When I was training for the marathon, I remember there were three goals to have. A realistic goal, a stretch goal, and one that you’re sure to meet so you aren’t disappointed. I remember those were beat Oprah (4:30), 3:30, and have a good time. For my reunion, I only had a couple of goals of having fun and eating a lobster roll. I hit both those within my first 24 hours. My first night, I had dinner with guys I hadn’t seen for twenty-five years. I figured they still wouldn’t be talking to me, but the stress of senior year at MIT was far in the past and we all got along as well as we did in earlier years.

From the left, that’s Ron Duncan, Dr. Mike Malaska, me, and Dr. Juan Alvarez. Ron works at Synopsys, and Mike and Juan are pharmaceutical researchers. Mike was the guy who I was afraid wouldn’t talk to me but, like I said, we’re not in our senior year at MIT any more.

My other goal was easily met because Legal Seafood is next to the Marriott where I was staying.

Reunion weekend is the same as graduation, and I stopped to watch the parade of graduates come from Kresge Oval on the way to Killian Court.

Kresge Oval was also where we had a barbecue on Friday night, which reminded us all about MIT food. It was expensive ($38?) and awful. But it did give a chance to hang out with even more friends.

There’s Mike, me, Banleng James Toh, Ron, and Henry Woo. Henry’s the only one from the MIT Class of 1986 I’ve seen in the intervening 25 years.

Saturday night was our class banquet which coincided with MIT’s 150th. I didn’t take all that many pictures, but I do have prof that I saw Bobby Satcher, who is now Dr. Robert Satcher, M.D., Ph.D., Astronaut. You can see the MIT 150 on the Hancock Building, or whatever it’s called now.

That’s Mike, Henry Dr. Satcher, me, Randall Nelson, and Ron.

Sunday I left pretty early to make it to Apple’s WWDC in San Francisco. I did have a chance to meet the guys at a café, including Dr. Paul Dimilla before I got in a taxi for the airport.

That’s Henry, James, Paul, and Mike.

That’s all the MIT pictures I have so far, and I think 25 years was too long to wait to see those guys.