Coit Tower as seen from the top of Lombard Street

Here are a few more pictures from SF. Heavy on the the Golden Gate and Alcatraz, but that represents a good bit of our one full day. We had a great time on the cruise boat. 

Click the image to see more photos on Flickr.

At "The" Bridge

Ann and I celebrated our 25th Wedding Anniversary last week in San Francisco. We both ended up there by way of the Winter 2009 Educator Conference which was jointly sponsored and organized by the National and Mid-Pacific ICT Centers. She as a participant through the Convergence Technology Center and I as a presenter representing my company Avalon Consulting, LLC where I’m the e-Learning Practice Manager. We offer a variety of e-Learning solutions to our clients.

Ann had been going to these conferences for several years and I’d never had the opportunity to go. The stars and planets aligned and things work out for us both to be able to go – and during our anniversary no less!

One of the great benefits of going together was to finally have a chance to meet many of the folks that Ann was forever talking about who were deeply involved in Information and Communications Technologies (ICT). I encourage you to visit the links in this post to learn more about the work that the National Center for Information and Communications Technologies is involved in. It’s fascinating and important work. Those involved in the national and regional centers are passionate about what they do and it shows in their enthusiasm when they talk about their mission.

One of the people I had heard Ann talk about a lot was Mike Qaissaunee. Mike is an Associate Professor of Engineering and Technology at Brookdale Community College in Lincroft, NJ. Mike and I hit it off and enjoyed having some time to “talk tech”. Mikes the “real” geek. I’m just geeky enough to be dangerous! It was great to meet him. Ann was left to watch in horror as her worlds began to collide! But let Mike tell you about that. You have to read his When Worlds Collide post. His Seinfeld analogy hits the nail on the head.

The closing night party was a big event held at Fishermans Wharf Pier 31. The location was right at the base of the Bay Bridge. It was a nice night. Temperature was a little chilly, but nice compared to the 100 degrees in Dallas! While the whole 40,000 attendees weren’t at the party, there was a huge crowd none-the-less. The line for libations was too long to justfiy standing in line for 20 minutes only to get a 6 oz. cup for beer.

There were several bands slated to play including Fountains of Wayne (famous for “Stacy’s Mom”), Berlin, Bow Wow Wow and the Motels. The featured band was Counting Crows.

The Crows put on a great show (in my opinion). Train played at the PeopleSoft Conference last year and – while not bad – only played for about an hour or so. The Crows played a nearly full set and were on stage for almost two hours.

Bought a new Sigma lens for my Canon 350XT and got some great shots. Kind of grainy because I had the camera set at ISO 1600, but still nice. You can check’em out here