My first impression of San Francisco: it's like a really old library, where they've forgotten to weed out the books.
First off, it's HUGE. Now don't get me wrong, Orlando is a BIG city, but the land under it is as flat as a board, so you can't see a lot of it all at once. And because of the hurricane codes, Orlando is a short city, it's only downtown where things start reaching up toward the sky, and even then they don't get very high. It sprawls instead, for miles and miles, greedily sucking up it's suburbs until there's little to no definition.
San Francisco is HUGE and crammed tight with people. The buildings are all tall and thin and squished so closely together that they're actually holding one another up, like books on a shelf. Helping the impression are the hills. They really weren't joking about the hills. So now you've got your line of books, and above it and behind it is another line, and then another, and another. And stuck in there, in some places you can see the old ones, that are more than a little shabby and falling apart, and probably ought to be pulled out and kindly deposited in the book sale or, not so kindly, in the dumpster. Even downtown, where you have stores, they're all packed side by side so tight that I'm surprised they can breathe.
Our hotel is one of those places, tiny and antique looking, but clearly well preserved and loved. Our room is about the size of a postage stamp, but very pretty and efficient, with a great big bed, and old fashioned white wood furniture, and a big old clawfoot tub dominating the bathroom. I loved it immediately. The room, not just the tub.
Checked in, napped a bit to recharge my dying batteries. Then went out to meet people.
Went to dinner with Shawn and Lesa (hosts of Your Mac Life), Schoun (who John says is running the Mac IT track for the conference), Sarah (Paul Kent's right hand, and mastermind behind the Macworld advertising), and Sly (YML's IRC babe and a good friend).
Understand, please, that I have very little idea who some of these people are, and there are times when I'm introduced to people and the person doing the introducing is looking at me, waiting for the moment of awe or whatever, and I'm thinking: Oh, okay. Another name to remember. What do you do again?
I've talked to Shawn and Lesa quite a bit, though, and it was fun meeting them for the first time and seeing them life size, as I'm much more accustomed to seeing their faces about an inch high in my quicktime window. Shawn seems to be laboring under the mistaken impression that I'm going to be nicer to him to his face. We'll see how much I can abuse him of that notion by the end of the week. :) He's a jolly giant, though, I'll grant him that, and I liked both him and Lesa on sight.
After a long, long, do-you-think-we're-lost? walk, we ate at a nice little Mexican place that was far too free with their guacamole, chatted, and then headed off again into the streets.
We met up with Jim Dalrymple and Colin, who I'm told are also something like gods in the Mac Pantheon. Colin is the little Welsh one, and Jim is Bacchus in the flesh. I liked Jim immensely. Especially because when you disturb him his face does its best to curl into a small place (probably behind his immense beard), and think happy thoughts that probably involve giant tits full of Heinekin. He's got the temperment of an adorable grumpy baby bear, and the appetite of a full grown one, and you do not, under any circumstances, get between that man and his cheese/beer/tits.
We curled up in a little dive bar for a bit, while Jim grumped and nursed on his beer, then wandered over to Dave's, which, I'm told, is this crew's main stomping ground during the expo. About now my batteries were flashing empty and Sly looked ready to yawn wide enough to crack her skull wide like a true South Park Canadian. So John kindly (after being kicked in the shin a couple of times) brought us back to the hotel for the night.
This morning we're off for Sonoma to tour the wineries. I'll bring the camera and actually USE it today.