On Tuesday I took the CalTrain to Sunnyvale. (I kept hearing Californians complain (apparently seriously) about their poor public transit. Huh? The public transit there is incredible.) I took a cab to Apple and met Kevin Marks for lunch. We talked about various things and he explained mediAgora to me. Quinn and Danny picked me up (an hour late) and we drove around (they’re very funny; it was a laugh a minute) and then went to an Ethiopian restaurant. Gilbert later joined us. Then they dropped me off at Google (an hour late — at least they’re consistent) where I met up with Lisa and Cory. I met lots of cool Google people including Larry Page. Then I squeezed in Lisa’s truck with her and Cory and they dropped me off at Chef Chu’s for the Levien-McCusker dinner. Liam Quin, Andy Hertzfeld (Apple, Eazel, Differnet, OSAF), Bram Cohen and Drue Lowenstern (Mojo Nation, Gigagig, Khashmir) were also there. Drue and Bram couldn’t fit into our table, so they went with David to a satellite table. (deltab wonders if the satellite table had satellite dishes.) I spent most of the dinner at the main table, but switched to the satellite table towards the end. Most of the time when I hear about an interesting party, I regret not being there. This was the first time I can recall being at the interesting party, but sitting at the wrong table! McCusker’s description and comments from others make me regret not sitting at the satellite table. After dinner Drue drove us back to San Francisco, while Raph and Bram had a fascinating discussion about trust metrics and related things.
On Wednesday Lisa and I went to the Internet Archive to talk with the leader of the SFLAN project. (The goal is to give free wireless to all of San Francisco; Brewster Kahle is willing to fund it.) They have the bandwidth and the equipment, but they need a geek to just go out and make it happen. Volunteers? Then we went to Belmont and I had lunch with Mitch Kapor and saw the OSAF offices. Then we went back to San Francisco and saw the new LOTR movie with the EFF Staff. Then we went to the EFF Staff Xmas party. Then Ren (EFF) drove some of us home and I went home with Seth and Biella. Then Leonard and Sumana came to Seth’s house and we talked (Leonard’s report and photos). Seth cleaned out his room and found an extra copy of the O’Reilly SSH book which he gave to me. Sumana (whose intials are SSH) and Seth (SDS — SSH without integrity checking) signed it for me. Lisa came to pick me up and take me home. I realized this morning that I left the book at Seth’s house. Oops!
On Thursday (today) I went home. Now the sun is setting behind a wall of clouds, making everything an eerie yellow. I wonder how life can be so much faster in San Francisco — I didn’t do anything of interest today!
I think I packed a lot into the trip; it was certainly a lot of fun. If the plane tickets weren’t so expensive, I would have stayed until tomorrow. I could then go see Raph’s family, Kragen (and fiancé/soon-to-be-wife, Beatrice), Ka-Ping, Mark Nottingham, Bab5 (Thursday nights), and the weekly Internet Archive staff meeting (Fridays). I might also be able to see the EFF offices, Stanford (and the CC and CIS offices), and Berkeley.
I think San Francisco would be a fun place to live, but Cory said that it’s not usually this interesting, I’m just lucky. It seems the older people are all trying to get out of San Francisco and the younger people love it there. Cory says I’m a “punk kid” for this comment. ;-) (I’m probably overgeneralizing.)