Back in action on the east coast. San Francisco and the bay area was incredible! I landed early Friday afternoon in Oakland, and took the BART into Powell St station where I was only half a block a way from my hotel. I stayed at Hotel Palomar, which I highly recommend. I am a BIG fan of Kimpton Hotels.
After settling down, I linked up with a good bro of mine that I went to high school with back in NJ. We hadn’t seen each other in over 5 years. I prepared myself for a good time, catching up and seeing all that I could see in the next couple of days. Little did I know what he had in store, but I found out what was possible in less than 48 hours.
Here is the progression starting on Friday:
After checking out my bro’s offices around 4:30pm, we set out to Houston’s close to the Wharf for a quick happy hour. We then proceeded to check out the Sea Lions on Pier 39, followed by a quick run through the Museum de Mechanique. That was followed by a crab salad sandwich, some oysters and a brew at Sabella’s outdoor stand on the wharf. We then headed up to Ghiradelli square and checked out chocolate and ice cream heaven.
From there we headed to The Haight and checked out some good ol Grateful Dead history, including 710 Ashbury. We cruised through the neighborhood, and I dug checking out Amoeba Records on Haight St. It was wild, being an old deadhead, my friend themed his whole tour around Grateful Dead history and influence in terms of landmarks and sightseeing. It was pretty cool 
We finally ended up in an area called The Marina and had sushi, then headed back to the Union Square area where we went to the 39th floor of the Marriott and checked out the scene for a nightcap. I was done after that.
Saturday:
First stop was the Union Square scene, doing one big loop around and ending up at the Apple store to pick up an extra battery for the MacBook Pro. We then went through the Mission all the way up to telegraph hill / twin peaks on a CRYSTAL clear day, wow what view! Unreal.
After getting a birds eye view and tour of the city from telegraph hill we headed down to Golden Gate Park, where we scoped out the Rose Garden, the De Young Museum, the Japanese Tea Garden, & the San Francisco Botanical Garden. Talk about a dose of nature and art.
From the park we drove to the Pacific and rode along the shore line and went over the Golden Gate Bridge into Sausalito. A very cool town, we chilled at Scoma’s for a lunch and did a little shopping, good stuff!
If you can believe it, we then went out about another 20-30 minutes to Muir Woods, and did the 2 miler. I think at this point there were at least 10 solid miles walked since my arrival to San Francisco.
After a brief rest over a couple of beers at the hotel, we headed to the Warfield Theatre to check out Steven Wright, who absolutely rocked. Then headed out to the North Shore for a fat Italian dinner. I wish I could remember the name of the restaurant, they had an incredible eggplant parm.
Sunday:
After a very chill morning and grabbing breakfast at a local diner, I grabbed coffee and a quick bite with Colette in the afternoon, and then hung low at the hotel for the rest of the day. After a rigorous two days of touring, the downtime was nice.
Monday:
Click Z on Monday was great, David Daniels, Research Director and VP of Jupiter Research gave a great Keynote, and I spoke on the topic of “Cutting Through the Clutter Creatively” as well as participated on the final session of the day “5 Experts / Five Minutes.” Now that was a trip
I rolled out early Tuesday am back to the east coast. I had a great time out west and at the same time I can say, its good to be back home! Lots of stuff coming up soon. Stay tuned!
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