Less than 24hrs in San Francsico

I mentioned in my last post that I felt like I had to write a little bit about very short stay in San Francisco.
After the madness that was CTIA in Las Vegas, stepping off the plane that Thursday evening at SFO was like a breath of fresh air…

I flew to Las Vegas (via Dallas Fort Worth), on Sunday March 31st.
Did a bunch of SpinVox things (worth a click through – great video) for them whilst I was at CTIA.

Lots and lots of fun.

I hung out with some cool folk, took part in some cool events and generally just had a good time… You get the idea.

The following Thursday however, I had to fly to San Francisco.

THANK YOU LORD.

I don’t think I can actually find the words to say how much I love that place. Really. It’s just… Brilliant.
Regular readers will know that this wasn’t my first trip to SF, so I kind of know my way around a little bit.. which was nice.

I landed at something like 9pm and I was scheduled to fly home the following evening around 7ish so I had :
*adopts film trailer esque voice*

“Less than 24hrs in San Francisco!”

🙂

So what did I get up to?

Well, after sharing a cab with some new friends that I met in Vegas, I must’ve got to my hotel around 10ish I guess?
Checked in, took my cases up, chilled out… I was gonna hit the sack then and I thought…

“Y’know what? I love the bar here. If I’m only here for a short amount of time, I best make the most of it. I think I deserve a Gin & Tonic…”

 

So off I trotted down to the Redwood, (beautiful bar this – it’s got Harry Potter Paintings on the walls… if you know what I mean), ordered myself a glass of Tanqueray & Tonic (extra lime) and just sat… and chilled.

Lovely stuff. About a half hour or so later I decide to go for a wander outside, get some air etc… and I end up chatting to this random guy, Tomas was his name, Danish chap, chatting to him about SF.. where’s good to go out etc.. He was in town on business with a couple of friends and had just been turned away from a club as they weren’t allowing large groups of men without any women. It happens.

Anyway – he and I head back into the bar and there are his (also Danish) mates talking to these women.

“Right, I can see where this is going…” I thought to myself “…I’m gonna have one more then head to bed”

I got it half right…

I was chatting away to Tomas just off to the side of the group when one of his mates called over to get the round in…

“Gin & Tonic!” I replied… and suddenly I had a LOT of attenton!

“Oi! You’re not Danish!”

“I never said I was!”

 

Que much laughter and explanations etc… These girls were in SF for a friend’s wedding. Great bunch they were too. The lot of us all ended up going clubbing together. (A place called ‘Slide‘ – Yup. It had a slide. Brilliant).

Fantastic night. Great company too.
Was really refreshing to be out with a group of girls who weren’t out on the pull or who weren’t looking for anything etc… They just wanted to have a drink and a chat and maybe a little dance and generally just enjoy their evening.

The Danish guys were mental. But we loved them for it. Hehehe…

All in all a great night was had   🙂
Friday rolled around so I went shopping… Bought LOADS of T-Shirts (more on that soon), some new boots, some DVDs and, surprise surprise, a new suitcase to bring it all home in. Heh heh…

Before I sign off – A blog post wouldn’t be complete with me adding in some relevant media…

First – some photos from SF.
A few from my recent trip but most from my trip in October last year… Hope you enjoy them.


Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

Oh – and as a point of interest – ALL of the photos above were taken with a Nokia N95.
LOVE that phone! 🙂

San Francisco

And second…

One of the great things about being in the States is you get to see some of the latest shows/films etc…

And you also get to see some of the awesome posters etc and you often get a hint for what’s coming too…

So for instance, last year, there were Heroes posters everywhere.

This year however I kept seeing things like this one —–>
And variations thereof…

Had no idea what it meant. No idea what it was about. Nothing.

For some reason I kept thinking of The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

Good thing is these posters became suddenly very clear to me upon my return, when my new (and actually quite cool) friend Sizemore invited me along to a ‘Blogger’s Screening’ of the new comedy, ‘Forgetting Sarah Marshall‘.

And bloody good it was too, (thanks dude).

Full write up to follow…
🙂

Things to make and do…

So I’ve kinda got the blog-bug back again.

I don’t know why it’s back, or where it’s been etc…
All I know is that I’ve got a bunch of stuff I want to write up.

I could just mass-post the lot, like I did last time, but I think too much content is a bit of overkill.

So here’s just a quick list of things I’d like to write up:
(thanks to Mr Lloyd Davis for the photo too by the way)

  • I was in a cabaret show the other day. Must blog it.
  • The BBC interview I did. Must blog it, (properly).
  • Some general life things, 6mths with SpinVox etc.
  • The (self-imposed) T-Shirt Challenge
  • San Francisco (I covered Vegas already)

And I think that’s it…

I’m going to try and cram everything in over the coming days. But it won’t be more than one post a day… Can’t suddenly increase the words for my loyal readers!

Thanks by the way – whoever you are…

On that note. I’m painfully aware that only VOX members are able to comment on my posts. Which is kinda sucky. So I’m moving… not yet, but soon… to a decent blog-hosting page etc.

A good friend is helping me sort it out at the moment, once we’ve got the template finished, then starts the massive (again, self-imposed) job of consolidating.

I’ve been blogging all over the place for the best part of three years now. So I’m going to go way back to my very first blog and pool all my posts together under one roof…
Like a back catalogue see?

Cool. Expect that sometime before the Summer… (hopefully).
In the meantime – if you want to comment and you’re not a member of VOX, then just drop me a text and tell me what you think… my number is +447774898681.
Looking forward to hearing from you…

And finally…

I got my ticket to Glastonbury! Wheeee!

Kinda has some special resonance on this here VOX as Glastonbury was the reason why I started here, remember?

🙂

EDIT – This is a re-post from VOX so you’re looking at my new home now -Woo!

Speaking Freely – The Rickmob

“I’ve just been to the Rick Astley Flash Mob at London’s Liverpool Street and it was frigging hilarious. I should be uploading a video as soon as I get in front of my laptop. Fantastic.”

spoken through SpinVox

_______________________________________________________________________________

EDIT – As promised, here’s the video:

EDIT 2 – Thanks to the immediacy of this post – I ended up appearing on The BBC’s ‘Pods & Blogs’ programme. I’ll see if I can get my hands on the audio and put if up for you…

Whee! 🙂

Catching up through the fog of jetlag

Greetings one and all! I’ve just got back from the States and I am shattered.

UK –> Dallas –> Las Vegas –> San Francisco –> UK

…and breathe…

Had to fly to Las Vegas for a work thing see
via Dallas.

Rather amusingly, it being the first ever flight from LHR (London Heathrow) to DFW (Dallas, Fort Worth) the Boeing we travelled in was given a welcome ‘hose down’ by the airport’s fire trucks…

I didn’t get a picture of that – but I found another example

Anywhoo – Vegas.
Woah…

Nice place to visit and wotnot but I’d never wanna live there. Jeez.

I stayed at The Palms Hotel/Resort/Casino… The one where we held Mobile Geeks of Las Vegas… aka Mobile Geeks of London ON TOUR. What a fantastic night THAT was. Huge props to Mr Jeb Brilliant of Brilliant Expos for making that happen… and for also swinging it so we could just walk straight into the club/bar in the next tower. Nice work.

So yeah – What else did I get up to?

  • Took part in the ‘Mobile Web Jam Session’ – That was cool. Good people in the room. Same old same old problems mind…
  • Hung out with some cool folk – Namely: Darla, Amir, Jeb, Carlo, Rafe and Ewan. Carlo is actually insane enough to live in Vegas. But you wouldn’t think of it to know him. 🙂
  • Joined a Blogger round table regarding the future of mobile; thought about a Facbook Phone – I’ve already written up my thoughts on that.
  • Broke my shoes. Twice. Fixed the first pair, replaced the second.
  • Saw ‘some’ parts of Vegas. Not loads. Well… I saw the outsides of some of the more elaborate hotels.
  • And that’s kind of it really…

This was me, on the last day of the show, having just sat down and relaxed for the first time in about five days…

Not soon after this pic was taken I flew to San Francisco…
There’s more to come soon, I just need to get some shuteye…

Night night.

Zzz…

Mobile Geeks of London: ON TOUR!

We’re bringing the MGoL to Las Vegas!

So – You may or may not know that a while back I set up a little facebook group called ‘The Mobile Geeks of London‘. Basically a place where I could meet people like me I guess…
Hehehe…

And well – it’s grown.. and grown.. and grown! …last count, 294 members!

We had our 3rd official meetup a little while back and it was great.
(I’ll do a larger post on MGoL in general sometime soon – yeah – should do that)

Anywhoo – I mentioned the other day that I as headed to Las Vegas with SpinVox for CTIA and within 24hrs I had an email from my friend Jeb Brilliant (no really – that is his name – and yes, he is Brilliant) telling me that he loved the MGoL idea and had been waiting for a chance to get one stateside…

And so….

HERE WE ARE!!
The stuff below has been taken from the facebook group. If you’re not on facebook then drop me an email at yahoo do co dot uk and Iet me know you’re coming… Looking forward to it already!

🙂
___________________________________________________________________________________

It’s CTIA next week and on the evening of Monday 31st March at The Playboy Club in Las Vegas the Mobile Geeks of London are having their first ever OFFICIAL ‘overseas’ meetup!

The Time: 8pm onwards
The Date: Monday March 31st
The Place:

The Playboy Bar
Palms Casino Resort
4321 West Flamingo Road
Las Vegas, NV 89103
52nd floor of the Fantasy Tower
http://www.palms.com/playboy_club_1.php

(note – it ain’t a strip club – I checked)

Also – it being the first ever overseas event – I have to break my self-imposed ‘no sponsor’ rule…

The upside of this being that

a) We get a fantastic venue thanks to Yougetitback.com

and

b) Your first drink is free thanks to SpinVox

So:

Mobile Geeks of Las Vegas brought to you in conjunction with SpinVox.
Sponsored by Yougetitback.com and organised by Brilliant Expos…

AND FINALLY!

I know most of the Mobile Geeks of London on this mailing list are, by definition, NOT based in Las Vegas.

But next week… some of you may be.

Either way – Hope to see you there!

(and if you know anyone else who might be in Vegas – let them know too)

http://www.spinvox.com
http://yougetitiack.com
http://www.brilliantexpos.com

Life is good…

Yesterday I had one of the best conversations, EVER.
It was only when I had this conversation did I realise how good life actually is at the moment.
An old friend called me up and it went a little something like this…

“Hi James, s’been ages! How are you?”

“Me? I’m good man. Yeah, it’s been SO long! We should definitely catch up sometime soon.”

“Great idea, you free tonight?”

“No mate. Not tonight, going to see R.E.M. at The Royal Albert Hall.”

“Oh. Nice!”

“Yeah. I thought so. Random ticket appeared in my hands from up high. Can’t say no. Got a box and everything!”

“Cool! Ok, how about we do lunch one day this week? When are you in London next?”

“I think I’m in town tomorrow…”

“Ok, we’ll do lunch tomorrow. Sushi or something?”

“Oh. No. Can’t mate, sorry. Bugger. Got an interview at the BBC.”

“WHAT?!”

“Yeah! I know! Cool huh?! Rory-Cellan Jones, Technology Correspondent. Should be good!”

“Right then, the weekend? We could have a lazy pub afternoon on Sunday. A few beers, roast dinner.. proper Sunday y’know? How’s that sound?”

“No can do mate. I’m flying to Las Vegas on Sunday…”

“WTF?!”

“Yeah! Flying out with SpinVox on Sunday afternoon for a big Wireless conference called CTIA. Looking forward to it, should be cooool! Never been to Vegas before….”

“Ok ok ok! When do you leave Vegas?”

“Thursday…but…”

“Ok! We’ll go out Friday!”

“No, I didn’t finish. Thursday I fly to San Francisco to host a lunch for some west coast bloggers… Fly home Friday night. Land Saturday afternoon.”

“Jeez, you’re gonna be knackered!”

“Yeah man, I know. Then I’ve got my show on the Sunday at Madam Jo Jos!”

“Right then. I’ll come see that then.”

“Hehehe… Yeah! Ok, do that!”

🙂
On top of ALL that, found out today one of my dear friends (who has NOTHING to do with the mobile industry) just so happens to be in Vegas at exactly the same time as me!
So we get to hang out and stuff which is just all kinds of cool…

This, by the way, isn’t some massive brag of a blog post. Life is going well at the moment. And I’m loving it.
Had my 6mth review with SpinVox this morning.

SIX MONTHS!

It seems like only yesterday that I was handing in my notice at Refresh Mobile…

How times flies when you’re having fun eh?
Speak soon folks..

🙂

Reminder: Mobile Geeks of London III

Wotcha!

Mobile Geeks of London III is less than a week away and I am ridiculously excited…
It really is looking like it’s going to be the best one yet… 🙂

If you’re reading this and unsure of what the hell I am talking about:

DUDE! WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?!

First – Get yourself off to the facebook group, sign up and then add the event to your diaries folks!

Just so you know – the event is happening THIS Thursday evening, Feb 27th, upstairs at the All Bar One on New Oxford Street (closest tube – Tottenham Court Road).

Stuff you may expect to see:

– Nokias from WOM World
– Mobile gaming from Playyoo
– VoIP from Truphone
– Super SIM Cards from MAXRoam
– Internet made Mobile from Mippin

^ Those are all – to date – confirmed attendees.
I’m pretty certain there’ll be a lot more on show – all you’ve got to do is ask the the right person/s…

Remember –
You’re not coming to buy, you’re not coming to sell it. You’re just coming to use and play.
…and strictly NO BIZ/DEV!
😉

So yeah – looking forward to seeing you all there and if you can’t make it – SHAME ON YOU!
Maybe I’ll see you at the next one…

J.
PS – I’m TRYING to get me an uber-exclusive SpinVox Mobster that I can give away as some kind of raffle prize.
If anyone else is reading this who has anything they’d like to contribute to this little ad-hoc prize draw then do get in touch and we’ll go from there.

Top Banana.