Some random thoughts in San Francisco

We had a working business week for Mozilla All Hands. The big bi-annual meeting of the full company to work, discuss, cooperate and make wonderful things.

These are random notes not work related about thoughts accumulated during San Francisco week. What we notice in spaces and people are primary ourselves. It's often the start of a self-introspection more than anything else.

Meeting with my thoughts

• crossing the border went smoothly. I was feeling good. No mobile device. Blank laptop.
• Mission street areas from the bus. A bus of wealthy geeks watching the poor, the abandonned, the drifter from up there behind a window. It takes a blaze and spirit to start a revolution. The spirit is drowned inside the body.
• This insecure feeling of the touristic areas when you never know if and when a driver will plow into the crowd or someone will draw a gun.
• Chinatown is peaceful and calming environment for me. Something familiar, something I relate to.
• The charm of the hills of San Francisco is a beautiful pain to my legs. The effort and the view are a gift.
• Brands using pseudo-political messages to sell more stuff. Nauseous.
• Exhausted.
• Sleeping.
• Plastic surgery is a thing.
• Cable cars packed with tourists. Do locals still take the cable cars? Private buses to go to Silicon Valley. Dedicated transportation for tourists… What a broken world.
• Noisy reception, rooms full of people too loud.
• The emptiness of ads.
• Long discussion with a friend walking across the San Francisco streets about everything, about nothing, about simple things. On the road, we share.
• From coit tower, foggy dark Golden Gate vaporized in the horizon.
• Sirens of fire trucks are frequent
• A black old man clapped my hand when crossing and wished me a good day. I replied "you too". I don't know if he heard me.
• I hear the cable cars tongtong tongtong from the hotel window.
• Things we hear in SF "Oh crap, can someone stash my kinder eggs?"
• Industrial buildings and hipster shops. The world of rich people is leveled.
• Freezing wind.
• Wonderful broth of a Pho Bo
• A woman shouting "bitch" multiple times at the window of a Carl's restaurant.
• The feeling of meeting too many people.
• The feeling of meeting too few people.
• A perfume shop clerk, old and elegant woman talked to me English, then Japanese, then French. Smile for the day.
• Missing the cafe latte barista from Whistler All Hands.
• USA and too big hotel rooms. Ridiculous use of space in a time where everything should be counted and saved.
• Written culture of street signs.
• Walking from the hotel to the bye bye event, a moment for long life discussions.
• American college kids doing bbq. A certain image of USA.
• Long streets without any shops.
• overheard: "Let's start the day with a bloody mary" (at the airport at 8am)

Otsukare!