A few weeks ago, I was in San Francisco for a couple of weeks of work, along with attending the IAGSDC convention. Work was kinda wierd: it was the first time I visited our new company location in downtown SF, which was very cramped as there were renovations still in progress.

The square dance convention itself was an adventure. As vice-president for the Gay Callers Association, it was my responsibility to coordinate the annual caller school, this year with coaches Barry Clasper & billeyler. It was a lot of fun and I consider it to be a complete success. Beyond all of the preparation work in advance, I had to emcee the graduation dance, prepare flyers for next year's caller school, arrange official GCA name badges and back-orders of school materials, make file reports & make presentations with both the GCA board and the IAGSDC delegates and a stack of other minor tasks. billeyeler was kind enough (and not yet sick of me) to invite me to join him as a paenlist for the "Intro to Calling" discussion. I think we were all delighted with the excellent turn-out for that session.

In all, I danced only about 90 minutes out of 90 minutes out of four days. Still, that was enough to satisfy me, especially since I Have so many dance opportunitites at home: I like to the convention for the opportunity to mix & mingle, to catch up with people between sets and generally keep my ear to the ground to see what's going on in the broader community.

I can't say enough good things about the San Francisco convention. I know from back-room discussion with various coordinators that not everything was smooth as silk, but they managed through it, found solutions and kept ugly reality hidden from everyone --and that's what good organizing professionals do. Great location, great facility, great staff and great volunteers: what's not to love?

Since the convention, I've hardly called much. John Marshall is teaching the Mainstream class for DC Lambda Squares on Wednesdays, while Kent & I are assisting periodically and are given test teaching assignments. Last week, I was assigned teaching "grand square". Good news: that call is astonishingly easy to teach and gives the students a huge sense of accomplishment because it is a large call. My regular patter otherwise wasn't the greatest, largely because we had only a dozen or so calls to use and I was exhausted from overtime at work over the last few days. Still, no one died so I'm calling it a success.

There's talk of having us teach a Mainstream class for Chesapeake Squares beginning in mid-September too.

I haven't danced a great deal lately either, largely because my schedule has been very full. Again, I'm OK with this: I'm dancing enough for enjoyment and using the remaining time productively.

Tonight, DC Lambda Squares is hosting caller Bill Harrison for a DBD Plus workshop in the afternoon, a potluck dinner and then a Mainstream thru Challenge-1 dance in the evening. I predict a good time will be had by all.

I landed at San Francisco's airport last Sunday with rainy weather behind me in DC and heavy fogs & rain here in the Bay area. It figures: while I had packed every possible change of clothes --business casual, recreational, square dance club formal, etc.-- I hadn't thought to pack either a waterproof jacket or an umbrella. Doh! At least the "rain" in SF was little more than a heavy drizzle and it all blew out of the area by lunchtime Tuesday.

This first week was dedicated to working at my Dear Employer's new office digs in downtown San Francisco. We occupty the 20th & 21st floors of 301 Howard Street, just a couple of blocks south of the Embarcadero BART subway station. In many ways, it's incredibly convenient. On the downside, corporate policy hasn't caught up with the new reality and I must therefore continue to stay at the officially blessed Hyatt Regency, two miles on the wrong side of the San Francisco airport. Using a rental car, I've been driving a mile to the Millbrae BART station, paying $2/day in parking and spending another $8 or so for the subway ride.

I don't mind the commute overmuch. The only downside --besides taking 45 minutes per day each way just to travel-- is that I have to get to the Millbrae station around 7am to guarantee finding a parking spot and/or a seat on the train for all the 11 stops and that means the alarm going off at 6am. I'm OK with that but I'm not a morning person. Worse, while showing up at 8am is a Good Thing work-wise because there's no one else in the office, I feel a bit guilty leaving before 5pm with the rest. When I'm on the east coast, I get out of bed at 8:59am to be at my basement computer bunker by 9am. Sometimes I'll even put on clothes. And I can take a few minutes in the middle of the day to sit somewhere comfortable, away from the computer screens, to rest if desired. In short, I'm out of practice with the commuting schedule most normal people have, and which I used to follow when working at all prior employers.

A word on BART. Many of the people I work with don't have a high opinion of the system. Trains too irregular, trains too old, etc.. Having spent many years on Toronto's TTC subway and DC's Metro system, I'll say that BART has some distinct advantages over the other two.

1. The cars are clean, practically spotless. I hardly ride Metro without getting a strong whiff of mildew from the poorly cleaned & maintained AC systems. Most Metro cars desperately need some stain remover on their floors and sometimes the seats.
2. Toronto and DC's subways stop at stations wherever they please. Sometimes the train will advance to the end of the platform, sometimes they crawl just far enough for the trailing car to align with the entrance, most times they just park at some random place along the platform. BART trains stop at distinct locations and there are colored floor tiles at the platform edge to indicate precisely where the doors will be. This pleasant feature allows passengers to queue up on either side to board rather than forming an amorphous blob competing to get in the doors the moment the last departing passenger is clear. And BART passengers do queue up politely. Imagine that: a design inducement for crowd politeness rather than dissuading it.

I was surprised to learn Monday that I have a new Director of Operations. I didn't even known we were hiring such a position, but I'm guessing my VP was finding he needed to delegate more of the day-to-day business so he can focus on the larger picture. Bret seems a pretty nice guy and he seems to know his stuff. This week, he was getting to know all of the people involved, checking out the data center facilities, familiarizing himself with our networks, our fields of specialty, our day-to-day activites and meetings. I took advantage of his first day to piggy-back my own requests for a new office badge so I can get into the office during the off-hours, among other things.

There is one huge downside to working at the San Fran office: excessive visibility. Many of the things I wanted to do have been swamped by fly-by requests and/or urgent matters. Since I'm one of three people on the team (more on that soon), I usually get a stack of these but being on-site increased my percentage significantly. I'm behind on my personal work-related goals for this week.

After several days of minimal sleep, I crashed early last night. Rather, I decided that when I dropped my tablet on my face twice before 9pm when I dozed off while reading, it was a sign I should just call it a night. I slept soundly until about 6am.

cuyahogarvr and kent4str are arriving on Virgin America at lunchtime today. I received a couple of confirming text messages from them just prior to boarding that all was well.

Per earlier plans, I drove to the local laundromat to catch up on laundry. I have packed my bags and am ready to check out of the Hyatt at 11am. I'll park the car at Millbrae, then take the BART to SFO to collect the guys and their bags. Once we're together, we'll head downtown to check into the Marriott Marquis for the IAGSDC convention (I've already checked in online) where we're staying until July 8 when the boys return east. I still need to book an alternate hotel in SF for July 8-12, but the last minute deals are only available a week prior to the booking date so I'll worry about that on July 1.

More news as it develops.

My current phone has always been a little sluggish. It's a Motorola Droid Bionic, one of the first dual-core phones Verizon Wireless had offered and, when purchased, it was the top of the line. Alas, I do have 2800 address book entries, a number of regularly used apps and four email accounts with significant traffic: once it decides to sync email, performance nose-dives for 2-3 solid minutes, enough to render it unusable.

I had hoped the OS upgrade to Jellybean would help, but it's really no better. If there's an advantage to having two cores, it's not obvious, especially if key components of the OS are at least acting single-threaded if indeed they are multi.

My contract allows me a new phone so perhaps something with more RAM and faster CPUs would at least minimize the problems with the user experience. Oh, look... the Samsung Galaxy S4 is available! I'll go take a look!

Of course, Verizon Wireless doesn't have any in stock. I'm not surprised at that: it's a new phone with hot demand and rides nicely on the coattails of the Galaxy S III model. I was surprised that they didn't even have a demo model so we could see how it feels in one's hand or against one's ear. I was further surprised and annoyed to learn that the only way I could get the phone for the advertised $250 pricetag is to ditch my existing data & voice plans for a greatly more limited version --at the same price as I'm paying for my currently adequate plans. If I want to keep my existing plan, I'll need to purchase the phone for $650.

At the moment, I'm so annoyed & frustrated with Verizon Wireless' uttery disdain for its existing customers that I'd rather ditch them than upgrade, especially if it means locking in for another two years. I'd be willing to switch carriers but Sprint's coverage is hideous and AT&T already burned me years ago so I'm not inclined to give them a shot at a repeat. Verizon Wireless' coverage is good --very spotty in western Maryland and West Virginia-- but generally covers the areas where I regularly travel. I'd be happy to pay the regular $250 rate for a new 2yr contract, but not if it means either dramatically increasing my monthly rates or crippling the phone's abilities.