3 posts tagged “san francisco”
I mentioned in my last post that I felt like I had to write a little bit about very short stay in San Francisco.
After the madness that was CTIA in Las Vegas, stepping off the plane that Thursday evening at SFO was like a breath of fresh air...
I flew to Las Vegas (via Dallas Fort Worth), on Sunday March 31st.
Did a bunch of SpinVox things (worth a click through - great video) for them whilst I was at CTIA.
Lots and lots of fun.
I hung out with some cool folk, took part in some cool events and generally just had a good time... You get the idea.
The following Thursday however, I had to fly to San Francisco.
THANK YOU LORD.
I don't think I can actually find the words to say how much I love that place. Really. It's just... Brilliant.
Regular readers will know that this wasn't my first trip to SF, so I kind of know my way around a little bit.. which was nice.
I landed at something like 9pm and I was scheduled to fly home the following evening around 7ish so I had :
*adopts film trailer esque voice*
"Less than 24hrs in San Francisco!"
:)
So what did I get up to?
Well, after sharing a cab with some new friends that I met in Vegas, I must've got to my hotel around 10ish I guess?
Checked in, took my cases up, chilled out... I was gonna hit the sack then and I thought...
"Y'know what? I love the bar here. If I'm only here for a short amount of time, I best make the most of it. I think I deserve a Gin & Tonic..."
So off I trotted down to the Redwood, (beautiful bar this - it's got Harry Potter Paintings on the walls... if you know what I mean), ordered myself a glass of Tanqueray & Tonic (extra lime) and just sat... and chilled.
Lovely stuff. About a half hour or so later I decide to go for a wander outside, get some air etc... and I end up chatting to this random guy, Tomas was his name, Danish chap, chatting to him about SF.. where's good to go out etc.. He was in town on business with a couple of friends and had just been turned away from a club as they weren't allowing large groups of men without any women. It happens.
Anyway - he and I head back into the bar and there are his (also Danish) mates talking to these women.
"Right, I can see where this is going..." I thought to myself "...I'm gonna have one more then head to bed"
I got it half right...
I was chatting away to Tomas just off to the side of the group when one of his mates called over to get the round in...
"Gin & Tonic!" I replied... and suddenly I had a LOT of attenton!
"Oi! You're not Danish!"
"I never said I was!"
Que much laughter and explanations etc... These girls were in SF for a friend's wedding. Great bunch they were too. The lot of us all ended up going clubbing together. (A place called 'Slide' - Yup. It had a slide. Brilliant).
Fantastic night. Great company too.
Was really refreshing to be out with a group of girls who weren't out on the pull or who weren't looking for anything etc... They just wanted to have a drink and a chat and maybe a little dance and generally just enjoy their evening.
The Danish guys were mental. But we loved them for it. Hehehe...
All in all a great night was had - :)
Friday rolled around so I went shopping... Bought LOADS of T-Shirts (more on that soon), some new boots, some DVDs and, surprise surprise, a new suitcase to bring it all home in. Heh heh...
Before I sign off - A blog post wouldn't be complete with me adding in some relevant media...
First - some photos from SF.
A few from my recent trip but most from my trip in October last year... Hope you enjoy them.
Oh - and as a point of interest - ALL of the photos below were taken with a Nokia N95.
LOVE that phone! :)
One of the great things about being in the States is you get to see some of the latest shows/films etc...
And you also get to see some of the awesome posters etc and you often get a hint for what's coming too...
So for instance, last year, there were Heroes posters everywhere.
This year however I kept seeing things like this one ----->
And variations thereof...
Had no idea what it meant. No idea what it was about. Nothing.
For some reason I kept thinking of The Sarah Connor Chronicles.
Good thing is these posters became suddenly very clear to me upon my return, when my new (and actually quite cool) friend sizemore invited me along to a 'Blogger's Screening' of the new comedy, 'Forgetting Sarah Marshall'.
And bloody good it was too, (thanks dude).
Full write up to follow...
:)
"I'm holding a phone! I work with phones. That counts as work"
Anywhoo - if that's the case then that's me over there
------------------------------------------------->
Being busy.
:p
Ok ok ok - so I've been neglecting my VOX a little bit of late. I've had some good reasons mind. Most of which will hopefully become clear by the time you finish reading.
Er... that is if you finish reading at the end of this post. Not if you finish reading NOW for instance.
That'd be rubbish.
So let's crack on shall we?!
Right - the 'to-blog' list from my last-but-one post read a little something like this:
- My business trip to San Francisco, (well - everything that happened after the first 24hrs anyway)
- Social Networks through SpinVox
- And all of the news and coverage that followed that... Because it's NOW LIVE folks! Go! Get it!
- A couple of other blogging projects that I want to talk about
- Mobile Geeks of London III (I'm waiting on ONE PERSON to come back to me before we move ahead)
First up:
My business trip to San Francisco
I'm going to duck out at this point at say that it deserves a post all to itself. So I'm going to cheat a bit and defer that to another post. Not the best of starts.
Next:
Social Networks through SpinVox
Again - saving this for a separate post - it's a bit of a SpinVox love in to be honest - and I can't wait to share it!
(the news and coverage falls into this too)
What else:
Mobile Geeks of London III -
The plan was to get this out and done by the end of November - but what with it being two days until December you and I both know that that just is not going to happen. However, the ONE PERSON who I was waiting for DID get back to me - and we're making plans to get it up and running early 2008. So watch this space.
Finally:
The couple of other blogging projects that I've been working on - this is the thing that's been taking up my time - hence the VOX neglect - but hey - I'm back now huh?
First up - Remember how I told you that you could Blog through SpinVox?
Well - NOOOOOOW - Yours truly is now officially 'Editor-in-Chief' over at the new SpinVox Blog.
Wheeeeee! Which is just cool.
(remind me to change my email sig - hehe)
It's only been going for a little while now and, although I'm still finding my feet a little bit, I've got some great support from the team around me and hopefully it'll go from strength to strength. Got some great ideas for the next three months or so.... so do me a favour and add the SpinVox Blog Feed to your RSS reader today!
(and if you don't like the content - at least you know who to complain to!) ;)
Ok - so now - onto my other blogging project - and this kind of ties into my last post too - in that you've probably been waiting for 'part 2' of the review. Well - sorry to break it to you - but part 2 isn't coming...
What happened was my mate Ewan Macleod, Editor over at SMS Text News, saw my "Future of Mobile - Part 1" post (which I did, live, from my N95 - thank you VOX - haven't done that for a while), and dropped me a sneaky text asking if he could have a full write-up.
"Sure thing" I said. So he wrote a leading piece and then I followed it up with the full write up.
:)
All of which seemed to go down pretty well. Ewan's a top guy and I've done some things with him in the past so it was nice to actually sit down and properly contribute to his, quite frankly, fantastic site.
Anywhoo - this lead onto another conversation which in turn resulted with the following question -
"How about doing it regularly? Not reporting per se, but more of a weekly opinion piece... "
So with SpinVox' blessing (thanks guys!) "Whatley Wednesday" was born.
Subjects covered so far: Flashmobbing and the Nokia N81 8GB.
Again - quite a new project - but regular Whatleydude content, week in week out?! You can't complain!
;)
So where does that leave my VOX blog?
My SpinVox-y chatter has found a home and now it seems my Mobile chatter has found a home too.
Well as I've already said - I've still got stuff I want to write up - but if you remember - I originally started this VOX so I could blog the Glastonbury Festival LIVE from my mobile.
And even though that had geeky overtones - it was still more of a personal thing.
So... I'm gonna try and take this blog back to its roots!
After all - the address is on my Moo Card so I best make sure the content is up to date!
Until next time....
But the look on my face pretty much typifies the look that's been on my face since the last time I blogged.
I have been at it non-stop.
Hence the lack of blog-love lately I guess...
So this is a quick refresher/breather - I keep looking at this post and realising that there is still quite a lot I need to cover off...
But I'm not going to do it here... Sorry. Still too much to do.
EDIT: Err... Reading this back through - looks like I have! Ha!
So first - a 'to-do/blog' list of things I need to get done...
Without a doubt I need to give up some more love to the guys at Mippin.
My dear friends over in Fulham have just released the latest iteration of their great product which now includes Twitter, Flickr and Facebook integration. Awesomeness...
Full lowdown and (completely unbiased) review coming soon. Promise.
Next: I was going to blog about the FOWAs. But to be honest there were only a couple of things that came out of that that are worth mentioning - so I'll do it here:
- I got to meet Jyri
- I got to meet Vero... aka thatcanadiangirl. She's a great blogger, a great girl and best of all... a great geek!
- And finally.. the best thing about the FOWAs?
Seems like the rest of the world.industry is finally waking up! Rock..
Ok - so that's the FOWAs done. Tick that box...
Oh - and as an FYI - The FOWAs were put together by the uber smart guys over at Carsonified.
Who do a whole host of similar events...
One of which is coming up in a couple of weeks and is called: The Future of Mobile... or The FOM.
I first heard about this event when I was still working with Mippin and was particularly interested because my then CEO, Scott Beaumont (no link - sorry - where's your blog gone Scott?) was scheduled to be one of the speakers..
I'm not entirely sure that is still the case at this time (and am currently awaiting confirmation) but either way it should still be a great event (it's being held at The IMAX for crying out loud!) with some great speakers and a fantastic after-party too.. Hehehe...
Someone who definitely will be speaking is my main man Dan Appelquist (whom I mentioned in my last post).
He'll be talking about: Life Beyond WAP: Advance Browsing, Mobile Ajax, and the Future of the Mobile Web.
So yeah - I've got my ticket... Have you?
Now moving on from the Future of Mobile to the very future-looking Mobile Geeks of London who held their second group meet up recently. This poor boy had to miss the event but the guys made sure that I wasn't missed..
As you can see below...
Anyways - I must take a moment to extend much Whatley-Love to a few people who made sure that even without the host with most - MGoL will still meet & geek!
First up: Peter Romiszewski - or 'Romek' for short, big geek and a great Jaiku buddy to boot.
Next: Richard Hyndman - ex-colleague from Refresh Mobile and master of all things Mippin
(who doesn't actually have a blog so I've linked you to his Jaiku - hope you don't mind Rich!)
And Finally: Ed Cave - Txt2Lock Guru, nice bloke and attendee of the original 'Geeks'.
Cheers guys. Much love and many a beer to be provided at MGoL III...
Something that is currently on my radar and my even sneak in before the end of 2007!
You heard it here first! Shh!
Now - that's covered off everything that I wanted to write about in my last but one post...
But I still have to SO MUCH to blog:
- My business trip to San Francisco, (well - everything that happened after the first 24hrs anyway)
- Social Networks through SpinVox
- And all of the news and coverage that followed that... Because it's NOW LIVE folks! Go! Get it!
- A couple of other blogging projects that I want to talk about
- Mobile Geeks of London III (I'm waiting on ONE PERSON to come back to me before we move ahead)
...so keep checking back folks - more to come... very soon.
Until then.
WD signing off.
