Latest Trip to San Francisco
posted at 8:26 am
on Sep. 24, 2012
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I’ve been to San Francisco a few times now. I’m a lucky man.
First time wasn’t as a man at all, but as a boy, travelling with my parents on a trip down to California one summer. I don’t even remember if we stopped there… I think maybe just for part of a day. I remember the Redwoods, and Disneyland, and motels, but San Francisco, not so much.
I next went there driving a red Chevy Beretta, with my friends K.T. and Debbie onboard. We slept in a clean hotel in a slummy area, and I new it was clean because it reeked of disinfectant. One of us had to sleep on the floor. It was so long ago that I forget who it was, but it might have been me. I learned never to drive a stick shift car in this city.
I went there several times with Susie. We stayed once with our friend Chris, listening to his electronic keyboard mixing with the traffic noise rising from the street below.
We also spent our honeymoon there, at the Triton Hotel at the gates of Chinatown, and the hotel’s brightly colored, Dr. Suessian furniture was whimsical and lovely. We walked the dark streets, found a French cafe and had mussels, bought a Tintin bathmat for our new shared bathroom from the official Tintin store, sadly long-closed.
I’ve gone there for conferences, most recently for EECI, where I learned that ExpressionEngine developers are excellent drinkers but yet bad at organizing where to meet for drinks.
This time, I was there for ONA2012, the Online News Association conference that brings the editors and producers of online news away from their computer screens to exchange tips, see new tools, and learn about the latest trends that affect how news is created and distributed online.
I’ve gone to this conference on and off for the last 12 years, and this was a fantastic version of the conference. There were so many people from beyond the U.S. borders (including me, I suppose). And there was a polish and an energy to the conference that really made the experience wonderful.
Compared to the last one I attended, this one had more of a feeling of being about the meetings, the networking, in the vein of South by Southwest Interactive. And yet, the sessions I attended were uniformly excellent, with the best one being Amy Webb’s “10 Tech Trends”, which was not just interesting, but also gave really excellent meta-advice on how you yourself could tell if something is going to BE a trend.
I heard there were about 1500 attendees there, at the Regency Hyatt, but there were basically no problems despite this number; lines were short, wifi ran smoothly, the sessions were on time, and I have moved this conference back onto my list of “Class A” events to attend if you, like me, like online content.
Sunday, there was no conference to do, but I decided to spend the day as a tourist, and I wandered all up and around the city that I first came to as a student. I explored Union Square and Missiona and Chinatown, walked down to the Ferry Building, did some light shopping and ate at Lori’s Diner. I passed 13 Starbucks on my walk, took some amusing pictures, and generally had a wonderful day.
Keywords: chinatown • ona12 • san francisco • trips
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