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Woke up this morning at 5am again due to jet lag. Next room’s alarm went off at 6am to be followed by the other side at 6.30!

It was on the TV news that Mount St. Helens erupted overnight and next week is the 25th anniversary of it’s last event. Made even more relevant as we flew over it on our way in and I took some photos.

My legs are killing me from all the walking I’ve done in the last 2 days and it’s the first day of the conference today with the first session starting at 9am.

First session was by Sony about the CELL processor for the next ps3. Very technical and interesting.

Microsoft vision speech was good and came across as very confident. It ended with them playing a car game and handing out HD tvs to those with tags of the same colour as the winning car. Sadly I didn’t match so new hdtv for me.

Rest of the day was pretty boring really but we went out for a nice meal at ‘The Cheesecake Factory’, which is on the 8th floor of the Macy’s building. everyone just melted back to their hotels afterwards.

Started the day with a trip to unison square in downtown SF. It’s quite a nice open social place to sit and chill out and it has the benefit of having free wifi access.

From there I hopped on the cable car for a trip down to hyper tourist area ‘fisherman’s wharf’. The ride started out interesting as a series of firetrucks blocked the path of the tram so we waited as obviously trams can’t drive around. I got to sit right at the front so I had a fantastic view of the classic SF rolling hills and then down into the bay. Arriving at the end you’re faced with the tourist bits. It’s tacky down there but it’s the place to take the boat to alcatraz! When I arrived there was a thick fog and it was damned cold but there was the occasional blazing sunshine.

Alcatraz is only a short boat side out in to the bay. The prison itself is a sombre place as you’d expect but the whole place is over grown with flowers and plants that hide the horrors the place holds.

It’s quite a moving experience to see the tiny prison cells and the limited facilities. It’s no wonder many of the inmates went mad. Took the boat back and it’s now glorious sunshine!

The golden gate bridge is just poking through the mist and looks fantastic.

Had a very quick walk around Pier 39 but it’s not my scene really so I quickly walked around to look at the harbour seals.

Time for a bite to eat but it’s all seafood and typical seaside fair (i.e. crap) and if I see/eat any more cheese or red meat I’ll die on the spot. Popped in and had a tuna sandwich, which is about as normal as it gets.

Watched some classic b-boys breakin’ on the sidewalk. Ace!

There’s electrical and segway tours or you can hire little electric cars, bikes or roller blades. I didn’t do any of them.

Walked along the front back towards the trams but continued for a while and came across a small beach in a small harbour and there was someone swimming in the water, which I didn’t expect!

The return trolley ride was amazing as I got to hang off the side. I got some good footage on video and stills on my camera. Back to the hotel for a rest!

It has to be said that SF is one of the best, unrushed, non -threatening and safest US cities I’ve ever visited.

In the evening we met up with a couple of other Kuju people for something to eat before heading over to the Criterion ‘party’ where we met the rest of Kuju. There wasn’t many people there so we went back to the Argent bar before we all went back to our various hotels.

I went window shopping on my 1st day and things are really cheap mainly because of the exchange rate. I didn’t buy anything though I was tempted by a Mac mini in the Apple store. There’s time yet.

Flying out today with Virgin Atlantic on a 747–400 called ‘Tinker Belle’.

 The seats in economy all feature a completely ‘on demand’ system with 50+ movies, 20+ tv programmes, radio, games, etc. It’s pretty top stuff and certainly passes the time on the 10hr+ flight to San Francisco.

Good and bad really.

Good – I’m off to gdconf! The hub of all things related to game development. Plus, it’s on San Francisco.

Bad – Obvious downside is that it’s the otherside of the world and I won’t see my family for a week or so. Journey out starts at 4:30am GMT and should end 9pm same day!

Finally got around to updating the site to Wordpress 1.5 and it went without a hitch! It only took about 1hr from start to finish.