Off to San Francisco!

Posted Sun, October 11, 2009 - 12:23 AM
travel, sanfrancisco, music

This afternoon I'm off to the airport to get on a plane for San Francisco for four days of Oracle Open World, courtesy of my employer. Sure, it's a technical conference sponsored by a (very) large software vendor who's just gone on a buying spree in the past few years. So there's sure to be a lot of interesting sessions, lots of people to talk to, a great venue (Moscone Center) in downtown San Francisco, and a chance to feel the pulse of the industry's direction - plus just a dash of hype and bullshit, and voila! I'm a professional!

Last time I went out of town for work was several years ago, in October - I went to Denver for a weeklong training session on BEA Systems' application server. They put me up at at the Denver Tech Center in the southeastern area of the city, and it was a very nice time, even though the only good running area was near Cherry Creek Reservoir. Three of the four days I was there, the weather jumped up into the 70s. Mind you, at that time of year, it could also have been snowing. The classes only went to 4 PM each day, sometimes earlier. One of the four days we adjourned at 2 PM! So I took the opportunity to drive my rental car (which was on my own dime, by the way) up to Loveland Pass and hiked east up to the summit of Mount Sniktau in beautiful warm clear, mountain air as the sun lowered to the horizon. Going in, I hadn't expected the chance to enjoy the locale, but I was glad to get it.

This is going to be an
interesting combination.

I'm guessing this conference will be pretty much the same. It's a good time of year for the Bay Area, and the scheduled sessions are over by 5 PM. They do have various mixers and cocktail parties and whatnot scheduled in the early evening, and I'll no doubt attend one or two of them. I'm going with three other people - my boss (the other Pete) and Jonathan and Scott from the marketing division, so it should be a little more sociable than if they were sending me alone. But, I think, there'll plenty of chances for taking advantage of what the city has to offer once the sun goes down. Our hotel is a couple of blocks from the event center, and both right in the middle of everything.

The main after-hours event I've looking forward to is a concert at the Warfield Theater on Tuesday night - Jonathan and I both got tickets to see Devotchka and the Pogues (who, thankfully, are playing with the iconic toothless Irish drunk Shane McGowan.) I'll let you figure out which is which in the photo. Either way, it's going to be one hell of a show.

Then I'll be back on Thursday night, only to turn around and head up to Camp Ripley for the Minnegoat weekend. Such a busy schedule. Sigh... poor me.