Tag: San Francisco

Posted on

WordCamp San Francisco 2014

Day 0: The Flight, Pre-Registration, and Long Walks

I was up at the usual time and ready and waiting for the Aeroport Limo service to arrive at 9:00 AM … the flight was at 11:45 and I wanted to ensure I would be at the airport in plenty of time. Aside from some minor turbulence, the flight itself was rather uneventful … and the California Roll Sushi for lunch in flight on Air Canada 755 was actually pretty good, too.

I rolled into the hotel right at check-in, the flight was early so this was a timely good fortune.

I got settled in, unpacked, and called my wife on FaceTime. We chatted for a little while then I headed off to the Automattic Head Quarters for pre-registrations and volunteer orientation. I was scheduled as a “Casual Runner”.

On my way into Automattic, I ran into Kim … a down-to-earth lady and very much the same person offline as on; something I noticed with almost every person I met that I had previously only known via social networking and/or various interactions on forums, mailing lists and IRC chats.

Once inside and registered I met with several more online people (Emil, Jose, James, Mike and Tyler to name a few).

Afterwards, I walked back to the hotel and then wandered up 8th Street to the Harvest Urban Market to pick up some fresh fruit (and, as it happens, my favorite beer Stella Artois).

 

Day 1:

Saturday, first thing came early … I needed to be at the Mission Bay Conference Center by 7:00 AM. I set my alarm for 5:30 AM. Got myself organized and headed out the hotel door just after 6:30 AM. Although still before dawn, it was a beautiful walk down 7th Street with a jog over to Owen and finishing up at “Mission Bay” right at 7:00 AM.

Once I got myself organized and sorted out Andy (the volunteer organizer) asked me to help Nick with getting the Swag Store set up. With the help of Nowell, Jenny, Courtney, Marko and a few others we managed to get everything taken care of and ready to role well before the 9:00 AM “opening” time. To finish up everything, I made the first purchase at the Swag Store to ensure the “connections” were all working correctly.

During the rest of my volunteer shift I met Aaron, Andrea R, and Andrea M as well as many more. The Lipinski brothers from CyberChimps, Guillermo Rauch (who presented Socket.IO) and I had an interesting discussion related to theme review guidelines as well.

To end my shift, I helped Michael with the vegan/vegetarian/gluton-free special dietary table prior to lunch being served.

This left me with the afternoon free which I more or less spent in the upstairs presentation room. Mark Jaquith‘s talk on using Backbone.js was quite notable and left me with some ideas to consider for future projects, too.

 

Day 2:

I started the day a bit earlier than strictly needed. I planned to have breakfast at Rocco’s Cafe but it did open until 8:00 AM. I walked back to the hotel and decided I would wait until they opened and while I waited I downloaded the Uber app … an adventure after breakfast to get to Sunday’s kickoff by 9:00 AM.
Rocco’s Ham, Cheese and Mushroom Omelette ordered, I enjoyed a very good cup of coffee.
The Uber ride was interesting with a small tour of the area around the Mission Bay Center before being dropped off at the doors.
I wandered for a bit then settled in with the Support team. The group consisted, for the most part, of James, Jan, Mika, Sarah (the Living Child-Theme), Marius and Keith. I was also promoted in the forums while I sat with them, and my forum title was adjusted to read: Theme Review Team Admin, The JellyBeen Man (possibly only a temporary thing).
The current Support team also gave me a crash course in some of the “administrator” duties and functionalities that followed with the promotion.
Some of the most fun at WordCamp San Francisco came form sitting and chatting and laughing out loud with the Support team and those that wandered in and about the area we were sitting in.
There are no words for this …
I sat in the Theme Reviewers’ quick talk at 2:00 PM done by Tammy, but returned to more fun and games with the Support Team, especially some of the ribbing we were giving Marius about WordPress testing the Slack service as an alternative to IRC.
Probably one of the most interesting and memorable quotes from the afternoon came from the quick-witted Mika, “on a scale of one to firemen, where is this folks?” as some anonymous person’s car was announced would be towed away momentarily. This is really more an inside joke but in reference to a first at WordCamp San Francisco … a full building evacuation due to (at least as far as I know) some unknown “emergency”.
As the afternoon wore on so did my energy levels, and I thought it best to choose to return to the hotel and prepare for the following days. Tomorrow is expected to be essentially a sequestered day long session known as the Community Summit; no ‘net, no phones … no kidding?! Something to consider on my walk back to the hotel.

I have met many people over the last few days and look forward to the next few days working closely with some and meeting even more … if we met and I did not happen to make note of you specifically, please feel free to remind me in the comments below.

 

PS: For anyone counting, I only collected seven T-shirts during this WordCamp. There were more available but I had to keep in mind the limited space I have for packing things to return home with.

Posted on

San Francisco to Big Basin Redwood State Park

Piano on the beach

I expect this will be one of many posts describing our vacation in Monterey and San Francisco.

A little back story before the first gallery of pictures …

… Terri was away for business in Fort Worth, Texas. She knew this a few weeks in advance and suggested we take this opportunity to have a “real” vacation since it had been 15 years since our last one. So, our plans were set in motion. I would meet her in Fort Worth on Thursday Night and then we would fly to San Francisco Friday morning; pick up a rental car and head south to Monterey. This is when the fun begins.

Terri drove out of the airport and we found our way heading south to Monterey. We knew our check-in time was after 3:00 PM, and it was just past 10:00 AM so we thought some site-seeing along the way just made sense … and with the sign pointing to Half Moon Bay we were off to Highway 1 and an adventure. We found Half Moon Bay State Park and stopped there to see the Pacific Ocean first-hand. A first for Terri and 40 years since I last was near enough to see it in person for myself. We found some interesting sites and even some interesting sounds with a weather-beaten stand-up piano on the side of the road over-looking the beach and the ocean (rumor has it belongs to Neil Young whom supposedly lives nearby where we found the piano).

At this same time, the US government in their infinite wisdom (really, you seriously decided to put all of those people out of work because of some sort of pissing content?!) closed and therefore all of the National parks were closed, too (with serious fines for those found “trespassing”). This made us go looking for other parks where we could see the majesty of the Redwoods which led us to Big Basin Redwood State Park.

Now, let me tell you a story about why you should not turn on the “Avoid Freeways” option with a GPS. We call our GPS, Maggie (short for either Magpie or the actual brand Magellan) … and Maggie did a phenomenal job of leading us on a beautiful scenic route to the park. She said, turn left onto El Honda Road, we turned left. She said “Warning”, to tell us we were going over the speed limit. She reminded us to stay on the road … well, the mountains were making it a bit difficult to keep the satellite lock but Maggie was diligent in making sure she told us to stay on the right road. We stopped at a local deli/market for lunch then got back on the road. Maggie told us to carry on to Old El Honda Road and follow it … and the adventure got real.

Old El Honda Road winds and turns and follows the mountain up … and up … and down … and up … and up some more. All that would be fine, except it also essentially turns into one of those one-lane, nothing on one side and a mountain on the other which can be quite terrifying for someone afraid of heights, like Terri. She did amazing given the challenges of the drive but soon enough we switched places as the emptiness over her left shoulder was just too much. I drove the rest of the way to the top of the mountain, only about five more minutes of hell but we ended on a more proper road that we followed to some similar but not so severe roads that eventually took us to the park … just when we thought we had enough we turned a corner and there was the park ranger station.

These pictures were mostly from the passenger seat of the car as I tried to capture the essence of the drive …

Posted on

Monterey and San Francisco, California

Terri and I have been vacationing on the West Coast for the last week (we still have a couple more days ahead of us) but I thought it would be a good time to get the ball rolling on what to expect for the next several posts.

After meeting Terri in Fort Worth, Texas we flew to San Francisco, California the following morning; rented a car (a lower-end version of our own Chevrolet Impala); and, headed south. We had an adventure in Big Basin as we followed El Honda Road to Old El Honda Road. As a side-note, the Old El Honda Road into Big Basin is not for the feint of heart as it basically narrows down to a single lane mountain side road with no guard rails or any sort of safety measures aside from your driving skills and nerves of steel. Once settled into the seaside city of Monterey we took day trips and visited the famous Monterey Aquarium and Cannery Row as well as the 17 Mile Drive and some of the State Parks found nearby.

After four days, we headed back north to San Francisco to spend the rest of our vacation time in and about the city. We cruised the bay, visited with the Sea Lions, spent some time on the more famous Whaler’s Wharf and also the world re-known Pier 39 as well. We visited the Golden Gate Bridge via boat tour, bus tour, and even made our way to Sausalito for a quick pass through visit.

I have over 2000 pictures (so far) to review and process … and share. I hope you will enjoy them as much as I have enjoyed this vacation so far.

To see the NB click here.To hide the NB click here.
NB: I’ll be editing and updating this post to link to future posts with galleries of pictures from each day.