I arrived in San Francisco on Wednesday just fine (though late) and thanks to a coworker’s brother who lives in the area made it to the hotel. The hotel itself is very nice, though I’ve got some gripes (no free WiFi in a four-star hotel? bah!). We then went to a creperie restaurant called Ti Couz for dinner (I had a savory crepe with sausage, cheese, and tomatoes, yum!). That night my coworkers were babies and went to bed around 10pm, but I was eager to walk around a little bit so I went up to this pub called Johnny Foley’s for a couple beers before going back to the hotel to sleep.
Yesterday I had to get up pretty early, as registration started at 7am. Got up, got registered and got breakfast nice and early. Then we filtered into the event hall and got sat down up close for the first half of the day. The first half of the day was great, with great speakers and interesting topics. After a lunch break, the last half the day was a bit less interesting to me, but ended good.
After the conference was the hosted after party at a wine bar up the street. Had a fun time meeting people, including a customer of the product I work on for SuperSweetCo. After spending a couple hours there, I left to visit another pub I wanted to stop by (Elephant & Castle) and had a couple pints and a meal before walking back to my hotel.
On the way home however I decided to stop into a spot across the street from the hotel, House of Shields, which was a great old spot, and there were several other people who were attending the conference there that I got to meet and hang out with. After being there a little later than I’d hoped I went to the hotel and to bed.
Today my phone decided to thwart my plans. I woke up at 9am (the same time the first speaker goes on). I woke up at 9am because my phone (which I use for my alarm clock) decided to power itself off overnight. Urgh. So I missed breakfast, and was starving by lunch. The day has been a mixed bag of good presentations and some that are less interesting, but overall it’s a good conference.
I’m set to fly out at 6:45pm, getting home around 8:15 or so. Hopefully it’s not late departing like the flight here was. This means I have to leave shortly so I can use mass-transit for an hour to get to the airport.
4 replies on “San Francisco report”
I’ve never been to the SF E&C, but the PDX spot was a lifelong haunt for me; my mom and grampa played there (band) as I was growing up. Tasty fish and chips, too.
Dammit, I don’t wanna do the capcha thing. Make it stop :p
Dude, Johnny Foley’s has “Beef and Guinness Soup with Barley & Onions”? Mark that one down.
Bummer about no damn signal. WTF?
Double bummer about the ‘alarm phone’ failing you. I take no chances and get a wakeup call. Hotel phones always wake me up.
Snooks: yeah, the E & C here was a good spot, and I’m still sad it’s not there. The one in San Francisco was pretty decent actually, though it felt more like the chain restaurant it really is than the one Portland had. Also, if you’re signed in, you don’t have to deal with Captcha’s. I know you’d tried to retrieve your password about the same time I was having all the server troubles, it should be good to go now.
GD: yeah, I wasn’t there for food, but that does sound delicious. And yes, I should have either set the alarm clock in the room, or arranged a wake-up call. I’m just so used to my phone (it’s what I use daily at home) that I didn’t think about it. This mess has only added another reason I should get me a new phone.
A bunch of babies eh? Who made it to the conference just fine without the aid of an alarm clock eh? Who was up till 4 making videos while you got said sleep? Huh?
Babies!
Phaw. I fart in your general direction.