Which would make more sense had I bothered to note that I was going to WWDC, but I didn't really have time for it. For the past several days I've felt like I'm made of recycled sneakers, because WWDC is always more totally, completely exhausting than I really want to imagine or I'd never go.

People always ask if I'm going to this show or that show, and I always say no, and they don't seem to get it. "It's tiring on everyone but it's a lot of fun," and that's true, but it's more tiring here. Your average developer spends eight to twelve hours at the WWDC site, and then goes out to a good dinner with friends, heads back to the hotel, reads through some new technical material, and goes to sleep.

Me, I spend eight to twelve hours a day on site, then rush through dinner, get back to the hotel room, and spend another five to eight hours working on the issues. On the days we don't publish, it's four to six hours; on the ones we do, it's several more. MWJ got published on 2004.07.03 about nine minutes before I had to vacate the room. (This was still better than in 2000, when the bellman was at the door and the taxi waiting to take me to my flight as we were uploading the issue files. That was an intereting definition of "fun.")

The only way I can get through the days is to load up my bloodstream with sugar and caffeine, when I normally try to watch sugar and completely avoid caffeine. I'm still not the average programmer, but a few Krispy Kreme doughnuts each morning, a Pepsi in the morning and another in the afternoon, and chocolate during the slow periods are a lot more than my body is used to. It's how I got to 9 AM sessions after publishing and going to bed at 4:30 AM, and that's on top of my normal medicine to try to keep my sleep cycle from breaking orbit and chasing various NASA probes.

The days after the conference are even worse - without the caffeine that my doctor says I shouldn't use anyway, and without regular Krispy Kremes and Ghirardelli chocolate, my energy craters. For two days I can barely plod from one room to another, and I tend to nap several times per day, usually in a convenient chair. It's now been four full days, and I'm just about back to being able to eat right and sleep through the night. It never helps that my brain finally gets its best energy of the day right when my body sends the alert that it's time to go to bed. If I ignore the alert, I'll be up 20-24 consecutive hours, and I'll get things done, but then I'll be useless for the next 30 hours.

Oh, and my office chair, the one I use for my bad back, is broken, and the store that has the 12-year warranty on it has not come to repair it in the week since it's been reported, so now even more phone calls on the agenda. It broke again while I was posting this, so there's another fifteen minutes gone to try to screw it back together until they can come fix it, which should have been last week.

Thank God it's a slow news week between WWDC and Macworld Expo, or I'd be a huge mess. I'm also working with The Weekly Attitudinal, a favorite of the readers, but it's somewhat like trying to push string across flypaper. At least I have the clothes washed, and everything is almost unpacked and back to functional status. Almost. Next up is fixing the chair, then the articles. Then me.