dcdc

As I boarded the Metro this morning on my way to the Drupal Conference, I couldn't help but notice I was the only white person in the car I had boarded. I can't say I was pleased about this realization, but my displeasure was most likely not for the reasons you may think.

I was annoyed by this realization because I realized that as soon as I walked out of the train, up the escalator and into the convention center, I was going to move from a spot where 100 people were black and I was the only white person, to where 1000 people were white, and more than 90% of them male.

The contrast of the two locations was the source of my annoyance: the large difference between the "haves" and the "have nots," between those who grew up with technology for whom this tech stuff is second nature, and those who flinch when a petite white woman talks to them on a train (which is what happened when I talked to the large black man sitting next to me on the train yesterday).

I don't know how to address this annoyance, other than to comment about it, and continue to break the commuter taboo and talk to the people on the train.

On the surface, Washington DC seems like every other metropolitan area: lots of buildings, lots of people, a reasonable public transit system, some culture, diverse ethic groups oddly segregated, lots of good restaurants.

The differences, however, are in the in the details, and ooo, boy, are they annoying.

Take the diffference between where bathroom orientations.

Here in D.C., perhaps all along the East Coast, I don't know, I haven't checked, the men's bathroom is on the right, and the women's is on the left.

Which is the COMPLETELY WRONG ORIENTATION.

Sure, the doors are marked with big Ms and big Ws. Doesn't help. I've walked into the men's bathroom not once but TWICE today alone.

The women's bathroom should be on the right and the men's on the left.

Everything here is automated, to my annoyance. As if touching a toliet handle, or soap dispenser, or water fountain is beneath the dignity of anyone who lives or visits Washington D.C.

As a result of this mis-configured automation, I've managed to flush the toliet an median of three times for every time my ass has actually touched the toliet seat. That median, however, does count as one all the times I leap off the seat to avoid being sprayed by the toliet that has decided to flush WHILE I'M STILL DOING MY BUSINESS.

The soap dispensers are fine, I can deal with them for the most part. I've finally figured out how to hold my hands when pulling them out of the automatically flowing water from the faucet, so that I don't manage ANOTHER spray of soap on my freshly rinsed hands (which of course, prompts ANOTHER rinsing - vicious cycle that).

The water fountain, oh, the water fountain! It turns on with sensors. Except that, if you don't know this, and push in on the sensors, which is the same as, oh, covering the two sensors and triggering the water. Unfortunately, it doesn't turn OFF until you walk backward away from the sensor by three feet.

I figured I had broken the damn thing.

With a title like "Advanced Theming," a theming session is guaranteed to attract a whole lot of people into the room. When the outline of the session is posted online and includes such goodies as how to

# keep themes compact and easy to manage
# take advantage of Drupal 6's sub-theming features
# use the more flexible hooks available to modules to do theming
# use Zen and the Themer package to reduce amount of theming required
# take advantage of existing styles to solve common problems

the room will be PACKED.

Oh, and hey, it was.

The session had so much potential! It was a session I was REALLY interested in attending. There weren't many sessions I figured I'd learn from, this was one of them.

Until less than halfway through, I had to think, "Hello, Tim."