Business Trip: RSA Conference, Day 0

This week I'm in San Francisco on a business trip -- I'm attending the annual RSA Conference, at which a bunch (thousands) of security geeks (such as myself) get together and talk about information security.

It looks to be a very interesting time; I'll be attending a lot of sessions and presentations. However, being in a strange city (which I'll likely see very little of) actually out doing things means I will actually have something to write about, and thus I plan on actually posting to LJ pretty frequently this week (albeit not between 8am and 6pm, as I'll be at the conference.)

sheeplass is also out of town this week, for a totally different reason, so we got up early and had a nice Valentine's Day breakfast at the Kirkland Pancake House (where we both ate pancakes, of course.) I gave her her present (a Wireless Notebook Optical Mouse; geek romance at its finest) a couple days ago since otherwise she'd have bought one for herself by now. She gave me a card, and packed some truffles in my suitcase (Seattle Chocolates Toffee Truffles; I am eating them as we speak since I didn't get lunch.) We then went off to the airport, picking up my friend microgrl along the way, as she was flying out on the same flight as I was.

Upon arriving at the airport, we checked in and I went off to sheeplass's gate with her so that I could spend the waiting time with my lovely wife while we did sappy things like give each other hugs and tell each other how much we'll be missed. I love my wife so much. :)

After saying farewell, I then meandered back to my gate to board a plane to San Francisco. The flight wasn't full, so microgrl managed to swap seats with someone to sit back by me. I had an uneventful flight, and upon arrival we decided to share a taxi since our hotels are far, far closer to each other than they are to the airport. So we got in the taxi line, and waited our turn, at which point we saw the taxi driver who would be transporting us.

He was wearing a red sequined suit... possibly a leisure suit, not that I'm well-versed in polyester. We got into his cab, which has a ceiling lined with blue and green miniature Christmas lights, which hold up an array of fake roses with a big heart in the middle. Now, I would think this was just a Valentine's Day thing, but considering the effort involved in the display, I think there's a substantial chance that his cab is decorated in this fashion every day. Ah, well, he has nothing on sheeplass and pyran's stories of Alabama. Even though halfway through the trip he turned on the radio, which was tuned to precisely what I expected -- romantic Mariachi music. I don't know about microgrl, but I at least was trying very hard to stifle a laugh at this. :)

I checked in at my hotel, and made the pleasant discovery that unlike the last two hotels I stayed in, this one was not lying when it said it had in-room Ethernet access. It's free and it's broadband, which is all I ask. I forgot to bring any patch cable, but conveniently there's a sack of USB and patch cables in every room's closet, so this is no obstacle. I unpacked (like, completely -- shirts hung up, underwear and socks in drawers, etc.) and set up my computer, wherein I decided that the taxi driver was reason enough to make an LJ post.

After this, I'm off to the Conference Center to register... if I don't register today, I have to do so between 6:30 and 8:00 tomorrow, which does not sound like a good time. Then I'm going to have dinner with microgrl, who also didn't get any lunch. As for the evening, I have no idea; I'm sure San Francisco has many interesting tourist sites, but I don't know that any of them are interesting on a Monday night in dense fog and pouring rain. Or any other night with dense fog and pouring rain, which is unfortunate since that's the forecast for the entire week. Well, if all else fails there's always World of Warcraft. :)

Well, as it's technically speaking a work day, I should check my work email before going off to register for the conference. And at 8:00, I get to call my sheeplass and ask her how her trip went as well. :)

RSA Conference, Day 0

I walked over to the Moscone Center to register for the conference. It's only three blocks; it really is so close as to make taxis completely unnecessary, even in the pouring rain, though I will need my umbrella. I took the laptop bag I bought a few days ago (without the laptop) because I figured they'd give me a ton of conference crap there, and I'd want something to carry it in. Turns out they gave me so much conference crap that they also gave me a satchel to carry it in. On one hand, this means that buying a laptop bag was unnecessary, but on the other hand, I like the one I bought better than the one that was handed to me (which is significantly larger.)

After registration, I went to dinner with microgrl and two of her friends (one named TJ, and the other a British guy whose name escapes me.) We went to a place called the Thirsty Bear Brewing Company, which -- though one would never suspect this from its name -- serves tapas, which are basically Spanish appetizers. So we ate a wide variety of small foods (e.g. crab dip, scallops, sausage, potatoes, and some other things). Afterwards some people were considering dessert, but considering the glacial pace of the service decided it was not worth the wait, so we went our separate ways.

Meanwhile, sheeplass should be landing from her trip any time now. I'm sure she'll give me a call. Until then, there is email. A day spent not at work invariably means a great heap of email.