An hour away from the start of www2004, I'm in my hotel room at the Sheraton, listening to the coffee brew and my wife Paula prepare for her bus trip back to Pennsylvania. We've been here three days, starting with an Ani Difranco concert in Carnegie Hall on Saturday, then roaming round Greenwich Village, South Street Seaport, and lower Manhattan on Sunday, then sleep and work on Monday, topped off with Times Square and Super Size Me, a film that cured me of fast food forever.

Now Paula's leaving, which is making me sad. I wish she were staying the whole week. In my nine years living with Paula a hundred miles from here, we've made it here a half dozen times, usually for brief visits. It's been fun sharing my city with her, even for only three days.

Actually less, if you consider the time I've spent working frantically on my laptop, preparing for my time here. Yesterday, I designed our handout for the show while we lunched at Lindy's across the street. Putting that thing together so quickly had to be some kind of land/speed record. Today I get to create the website it references, which currently doesn't exist!

Here's the handout, front and back:

Again, the website it references will be live later today (hopefully). The illustrations are by Isabelle, our wonderful "illustrator du nord".

Ah, well, my coffee's done. Time to get downstairs and see timbl and danC talk about n3. Hope to see many of you here and put faces to names.

It's funny, but I once lived half an hour from the last W3 conference I was at (Sanibel) ... now it's another former backyard, New York City. I feel like a hometowner at these things :) I'm sure that will change!