I spent last weekend in San Francisco for a convention. Nope, not WWDC, or JavaOne. Angeline was giving a presentation at the American Diabetes Association conference, and I stole along. Here’s the breakdown:
day 1:
Landed in SF about noon localtime after many hours of flight. Took BART to the hotel, checked in and headed to the conference for registration. Then off to the Mission district for lunch at Tacqueria Can-cun, where the burritos are excellent. Too full and tired for dinner, we went to bed early.
day 2:
Walked around the city a lot, saw a 15-person “parade” in Chinatown. Homeless guy said of me, “I can tell, that guy is law enforcement.” Met DA for lunch at Mo’s grill, then chilled in the park. Homeless guy tried to sell us his “book” — aka stapled sheets of paper — of poetry. Saw several random people on the street not wearing clothes, and ballet dancers. Got a nasty sunburn.
Went to Sultan’s for Indian food – not bad, but the place was empty. Cheaper place next door, Naan & Curry, had all the business.
day 3:
Hopped on BART this morning, then took Caltrain to Mountain View. There, in the drab, continuous office park that is Silicon Valley, just a few blocks south of the Googleplex, is the Computer History Museum. Wandered through it taking pictures of computers from my childhood, and saw a demonstration of a Babbage difference engine.
Went to R&G Lounge in Chinatown for dinner with Ange, her sister, and a third doctor. Food was great but the staff was a little bit racist. (They are only serving the red bean soup to persons of East Asian descent now? And, “Fried noodles are crunchy. I recommend the soft noodles for you [, white guy].” WTF.)
day 4:
Met up with more doctors for lunch in the mall near the conference center. Quite good for food court.
Ange had her presentation at 5pm. I sneaked in with her sister’s badge, which I had to flash at Security. Thankfully, they didn’t ask why I had a girl’s name. Angeline gave an excellent talk though all way over my head.
Had dinner at Ame, very expensive but possibly the best food we’ve ever had. Sashimi, potato soup, black cod, braised pork cheeks, chocolate cake and rhubarb-strawberry pie were consumed.
day 5:
Sitting here on the plane back. Not writing complete sentences.
Some photos of computers are on my flickr stream.
