So it’s Tuesday, the morning of the Keynote. Today is probably the most anticipated day of the year for some of us Apple nerds. It’s currently 5:50 a.m and Sean and Rick are still semi-asleep, I was able to take a fast shower and get ready pretty fast, so I have some extra time to blog a little.

Where did we leave off…

So after getting new badges at Cupertino and meeting up with everyone for the first time, we headed back to the city to check in. Our hotel is actually very nice and clean, considering we’re in “the tenderloin” area part of town (used to be a rough area). We checked in, got settled in and went to sleep, lol. 

For dinner, our old FV friend, Robert wanted to show us a Spanish Tapas restaurant in The Mission district. We decided to take the BART down there – it was pretty interesting. First of all, the lady at our hotel gave us wrong directions how to get to the the BART station. I know the SF layout a little bit, so I know where Market street is…and she had us walk three blocks deeper into the tenderloin. Once we figured that out, we didn’t know which train to take, so we asked a local. Turns out he gave us the wrong fucking directions and we went on the northbound BART for about 3 stops. We still managed to get there before the other group (Genii ) and dinner was pretty good. I shared a Paella with Ryan from UTC and there was still enough food for another person probably. Paella is a Spanish dish with rice and toppings stirred in a pan with a special technique so the rice gets soft and creamy with bits of crispy areas as well, ours had shrimp, mussels, calamari, chicken – it was great. 

After dinner, I get a phone call from my cousin, Viet from LA. Viet and I are very close, more like brothers than cousins. He asked me where I was and I told him on 22nd and Valencia. He said he’s about 10 minutes away and could pick us up if we wanted to. Wanting to  avoid another public transportation debacle, I happily obliged. The 4 of us had a great time, Viet has lived in SF his whole life and knows it like the back of his hand, he drove us around basically half the city, pointing out key points of interests for us. We later went to some bar on the 22nd floor of a really nice hotel. The views were a magnificent, almost 360 degree view of the city. We had some drinks and had a great time. I especially had a great time since I was able to see Viet, I don’t get to see him that much anymore especially since my return to Apple and Viet starting the whole Firefighter thing, I was very thankful to have gotten to see him. 

So we got back to our hotel and called it an early (12) night, it’s been almost 2 days since any of us have slept in a bed. 

We’re at Town Hall now, so we’ll update once the keynote is over.

-Alan