One of the fun things about doing no-frills book tours is how much I have to rely on the kindness of strangers. People can be cool if given the chance. Matt Belge, chair of the Boston ACM-CHI chapter, kindly offered to give me a ride to the meeting in Burlington, MA. We quickly hit real traffic, east coast traffic, not the wimpy arterial kind Seattlites are fond of complaining about. Matt wonders if we’ll be late, but then we laugh as we realize that with the chair and the speaker in the car, the event starts when we show up.

Stupid mistake #1: At Sun, the host for boston-chi, I realize I left my power cable back at Northeastern. Yes, I made the same mistake on tour #1. And yes, I am a moron. A quick call to Peter and there’s a shot it might still be in the room (it’s recovered later thx to him).

Nicole Yankelovich graciously donates her Powerbook, who’s screensaver provided entertainment at various intervals during the talk (I made up stories about the photos every time they came on: improv training comes in handy).

The crowd of about 50 people was great: they asked good questions, played along with my jokes and we had a fun time. I spoke about What to do when things wrong (slides / audio), a topic from the book.

Relying on kindness again, I snagged a ride from the rising design star Sam Aquillano from IDSA Boston. I see great things in his future. Plus he has an ungodly gift for finding his way through dark and confusing parts of Boston.

Back at the hotel at 9:30pm, I snagged another cab (#3 for the trip so far), met Peter at Northeastern, and then doubled back to the hotel, power cable intact. Back at the hotel at 10:30pm, I realize lunch at O’reilly was the only meal I’d had all day. I stay up late preping for Wednesday’s lectures at MIT and chowing down on the most expensive Turkey sandwhich in history via room service. 2 lectures down, 7 to go.