Next Conference: San Francisco

Our big academic conference in December was in San Francisco last year. It was exciting. No one wanted to go out to restaurants — or, at least, not like I thought they ought to. The city is hilly. I went to Alcatraz for the first time in my life along with a few other people.

The flight in was pretty nice. Over Lake Tahoe, we saw a couple of KC-10s engaged in a refueling maneuver, which just seemed like two really big planes flying too close to each other. Here’s a photo.

If you look hard enough (you probably need to click on the photo to get an expanded view), you can see the boom connecting the two. Also, the airport in the foreground is Truckee and the ski resort you can see there is Northstar. I’d like to ski Northstar some time, but I don’t see how/when it’s going to happen.

Flying into the city, there were no clouds, which I found weird. Also, we flew in from the north, then circled around the south, so we got some views of the bay that I’d never seen from the air before (that I recall).

I dunno. The conference was at the Marriott Marquis, which was fine except that it was under construction and all the conference rooms were underground, which made it really easy to wander back upstairs and away from the conference.

Also, here’s what it looks like when you’re on the boat approaching Alcatraz.

While pretty cramped, it otherwise seemed like it’d be a nice place to be in prison. Really nice views of the city, plus fresh breezes off the water. A little windy.

And then I took no photos of the conference itself.

• The breakfasts at the hotel weren’t great, but they did exist.
• It’s predictable but interesting how the specific location of the conference determines who does and doesn’t attend.
• There are way too many Germans that attend these conferences regardless of location. It’s unnerving.
• My room was fine.

And then I went home. Except that the morning of my flight I got a text from Alaska Airlines saying that my flight would be leaving from San Jose instead of from San Francisco. So I got to SFO three hours before my flight was supposed to leave and Alaska paid for an Uber to take me to SJC. And then I went home.

bkd