San Francisco Web 2.0 Trip

San Francisco trip for Web 2.0 conference was super short and really sweet. We stayed at the Westin St. Francis on Union Square and because of a complicated situation (one night on my Amex card, next three nights on corporate card) they bungled the reservation which resulted in an upgrade to ... Room 1221!

Where Fatty Arbuckle -- the scandal-plagued silent film comedian -- ended his career one boozy night in which a starlet died and the room in which, later, Al Jolson suffered a fatal heart attack while playing gin. Haunted? Possibly. While we ended up moving to a new room the next day, the ghosts came with us and had a gay old time unplugging every appliance we plugged in. Seriously.

Now, I lived in SF in my late 20's, after attending U.C. Berkeley for 2 years and again, later, working for Levi Strauss. But I hadn't been back in a very long time. Highlights of the trip included the whacked out horrible Pier 39 with its crazy lazy sea lions; great meals at The Slanted Door in SF and Chez Panisse* in Berkeley; the Berkeley campus and Berkeley Hills; a burrito in the Mission District; a 2.5 second walk along the Pacific Ocean (windy and freezing). Photos here.

* I had the Baked Sonoma goat cheese with Viki's lettuces; a thin-crusted pizza with nettles, the artisan cheese selection (Dante, Tome des Recollets, and Pavé) and a glass of the most delicious Muscat. All incredibly tasty.

Web 2.0 highlights included watching Google head Eric Schmidt chat with journalist John Batelle. There was also much a-twittering, flickring, digging, swiveling and so much more. I of course, also opted for a truly exciting session on networking. I had thought it would be vaguely about social networking but it was ... well, let's just say I know now more than I would want about linear load-balancing, SSL and TCP.