BizTrip to San Francisco, Napa and San Mateo

Departed Narita on Sunday afternoon and arrived in San Francisco on Sunday morning. First thing I did was to put my bag in a locker and jumping on the first BART for San Francisco’s Union Square. The weather was great and I enjoyed walking around, relaxing and soaking in the atmosphere.


Union Square
By 4:45 pm I was back at SFO and had arrived at the rental car offices. There I met two of my work colleagues as we had planned, they had arrived later than me.

Once we got a rental car we were off for Calistoga in Napa. That’s where this year’s Open Source Think Tank was held. But before arriving in Calistoga we had a stop in Napa where I had a Buffalo Burger – tasted just like a normal burger though 🙁

The Think Tank was good, but not as good as the previous years. However, I attended a side track the first day – Community Leadership Summit by Jono Bacon. Great!

Tuesday in the afternoon of the second day there’s usually a social activity and I had signed up for the bike ride. However, it was raining so it was cancelled. Instead I went out for a run in the Napa valleys. Beautiful run. Though I had a plan to take the Oat Mill Hill Trail but I decided not to when I read the sign at the trail head… Warning rattlesnakes may be on the trail and mountain lions may attack humans, don’t go out on the trail alone. Well, I was alone and though it was not a day for rattlesnakes to be sun tanning on a trail I kind of thought it was best to take a safer route. And so I did.

After a 7-8 km run and a shower I was back at the conference where I joined with my case study group to finalise our presentation on the role of open source in the Internet of Things for Automotive.

At 6 pm we all were loaded into busses and shipped to a nearby vinery where we had dinner. The vinery was built as a castle in an old Spanish style, though it had an Italian name (Amoara or something like that) and many of the staff spoke English with an Italian accent. The food was great and I had a chance to talk lot with a super-long distance runner (50-90 km) from Red Hat. Nice guy and interesting talk!

Oh, across us were a Korean couple. She was a teacher back in Korea, dinner etiquette teacher. Perfect for us simple people as we could ask her how to use all the forks, knifes and spoons that they had lined up at each table seat 🙂


Vinary
Wednesday at lunch time the Think Tank was over. We spent some more time at the conference place to talk with Black Duck Consulting about an assignment they are doing for us. Good meeting and we decided to meet the next day in San Mateo for lunch so that we could finish the discussion.

Before heading to San Mateo we had a lunch in Calistoga. Then a 2.5 hours drive passing by Oakland, Coliseum (home of the Oakland Raiders) and the Half Moon Bay Bridge. Once checked in at the hotel we had a quick dinner at Redwood Shores, then back to the hotel for some sleep.

Thursday we spent at our office in San Mateo that is now at the same buildings as PlayStation. So there’s a lot of monsters hanging around the complex to promote PS games 🙂 Most of the day we spent in meetings. Very good meetings.

However, the evening we had off. And we headed to Stanford Shopping Center for some serious shopping. Well, I did actually not buy anything for myself but I bought a lot of things for Chie. Just as it should be, according to her 😉

Friday morning I headed to the airport again. Spent some time in the Delta Lounge, eating breakfast and watching some videos on my tablet. Relaxing. Then it was a looooong flight back to Tokyo, without much sleep.

Saturday evening and I am back in Tokyo again. Arrived at home and was welcomed by Japanese hoe cocked food. Life is great!

Lately… Busy

Been quite busy lately, both at work and privately. Last week I was on a business trip to our San Mateo office. Privately I’ve been engaged with Global Leadership Cafe. We are planning another World Cafe. This time about Feminine Leadership. I am helping out with setting up the event as well as setting up our website. Have a look at glcafe.asia and let me know what you think.

Although both Chie and I’ve been busy lately we will have time for a short vacation trip this weekend. Tomorrow we are flying to Hokkaido to return on Monday evening (Monday is a national holiday here in Japan). Looking forward to it 🙂

San Francisco

This week I was on a business trip to our office in San Mateo. A busy week with many meetings. One of them with a colleague at a sister SONY division.

I arrived at the San Francisco airport on the 20th and had a plan to take the BART to downtown San Francisco. However, BART was on strike so I had to revise my plan. I got on a Super Shuttle instead and it dropped me off at Union Square. It was a wonderful day with blue sky. I enjoyed it walking around doing some window shopping… Well, I did some real shopping too. At the Icebreaker shop. Stocking up for the winter.


Tram in San Francisco

In the afternoon it was time to return to the airport to join my colleague from Lund, he was arriving late in the afternoon. So I got on a bus back to the airport. It took about 25 minutes longer than what was mentioned on the schedule and I got about 5 minutes late to the planned meeting time at the SFO rental car station.

The rest of the week was filled with meetings, American food and sleeping. Had a plan to go to the gym but never made it. Too tired. After a week in the US it is really nice to return to Tokyo, even though the flight was long. Once I got home Chie had prepared a Japanese dinner, which I enjoyed very much!