I write this from sunny (but a bit chillier, Aurora, CO). The conference wrapped up yesterday, my flight landed at 11:30 last night and I just woke up (it's 9 am!) The end of Day 2 saw the election of Barack Obama to be our next president. In keeping with the style of this blog, I will not express my political feelings (as they are much too involved to put in a blog entry; a new blog might be appropriate just to capture them) about this major event. The excitement in the streets (at my hotel) was intense. I always love to see lots of happy, cheering people, but I don't love it when I feel that it could turn into a crushing crowd at any moment. My hotel (the Westin St. Francis) was the site of the No on 8 proposition party. The police had good control so the happy people stayed happy and I was able to come and go from my hotel without too much trouble.
Malcolm Gladwell was a keynote speaker and was, by far, the best speaker of the conference. He spoke on human capitalization and it appears to be the topic of his next book that's coming out in a couple of weeks. I think it's a must-read for our society. What a funny guy, but he does informed research and it gives one a lot to think about how we approach things that are so second nature to us in how we operate.
Yesterday morning I started with a beautiful road ride over the Golden Gate bridge. It had to be a quick ride due to packing and needing to be back for the first session at 9 am, but I couldn't leave town without one more adventure and some fresh air away from the too many people and confines of the conference.
Day 3 of the conference was fairly uneventful. A few speakers, a few more technical sessions and it was time to pack and get to the airport. Packing was tricky, I acquired a few things on this trip and with the bike, it was tough to make everything fit right. Worse yet, when I got to the airport, they weighed the bike and it has always passed, no matter how much I've loaded it down. Guess what? It was much too heavy so I had to unpack all of the clothes from the bag and put it in my already-full duffel bag. Somehow everything fit, but it was a very stressful situation.
Getting to the airport much too early & being unable to get on a wireless network, I had a chance to make some phone calls (I'm still far behind on them). But good chance to sit down and take a deep breath and think about coming back to real life.
San Francisco was such a treat. This was the best possible vacation, I wouldn't have changed any of it. I'm refreshed and ready to get back to life in Denver, but I also didn't get to the point of being sick of traveling. Perfect.
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