Ed Brill

With all the distractions last week, there wasn't much time to blog about the trip to Linuxworld itself.  I was at the conference briefly on Tuesday & Thursday; Wednesday was a local press tour.  In the end, it felt to me like Linuxworld is a show mostly about the exhibit hall and keynotes at this point -- there are breakout sessions, but not too many and they weren't particularly well-attended.  The keynotes, however, had queues going out the door well in advance of opening times.  And the exhibit hall was pretty crowded -- we even spied a Microsoft guy and his WaggEd handler during Heidi Votaw's presentation in the IBM booth.  There were about 300 IBMers at LinuxWorld -- and a big "IBM day" on Wednesday (I didn't participate at all).
In terms of San Francisco treats, not too much to write about here.  The hotel of choice was the Palace Hotel,  a short walk from the Moscone Center.  It feels exactly as described -- old school classy, with high ceilings and a tile bathroom.  The dining room near the lobby reminded me of the Metropole Hotel in Moscow, though I'm sure they bear no architectural relation.
Wasn't around long enough for much in the way of culinary experience, either, though Kathleen McGivney and I did manage to get in a dinner at my favorite SF stop, the E&O Trading Company.  The waitstaff apparently forgot about us, but this was made up for by the free martinis in the bar.
Next travel is Southern California, for customer and internal meetings.  It looks like I'll probably be driving all over the SoCal area in a short 72 hour visit.  Maybe that's the trip to rent a convertible. :)