It's a jungle out there

I just got back from 5 days in San Francisco. My first business trip! It was the Audio Engineering convention "AES." There were four of us from HL: me, Kevin, Brad, and John. Turns out Kevin & I actually attended the same college at somewhat of the same time.

My cabbie on the way to the airport was actually invited to AES and used to live in SF. On the plane, I was in the last seat, and they ran out of lunch by the time they got to me, so it sucked not having lunch during the 6 hour flight, but I got to watch two hours of Doctor Who and an hour of Still Standing on Direct TV.

When I got to SF, I walked down the road a little before Kevin and Brad got in, their flight delayed 6 hours and without luggage.




We set up the booth, which took 4 hours. We ordered a big flat screen TV, and we couldn't find the box for it. But there was a suspicious little black box. We opened it to find this dinky thing in the picture. Looks ridiculous on that huge pedestal! And the DVD player didn't even work. Kevin tried unjamming it with a screwdriver to no avail. Can anyone say Spinal Tap Stonehenge?






Here's our booth when we were done. We went to Lefty O'Douls for dinner for some local flavors. It was right after the big parade for the Giants, so everyone was obsessing over the game on TV.






The next day, we started the show. I was in charge of setting up the author signings. Dave (left) was involved with the big exhibitor party we went to on Saturday night.






Bill's book on Quincy Jones was the highlight of the show, which is why we needed a TV, but we ended up using Brad's laptop. We had 13 autographed copies to giveaway and sell.






Moses signed some books on Saturday and Sunday. We hung out a lot over the weekend, but decided we needed nachos at 11:30 at night and got a little sick off them. I have to admit his iPad was the first one I ever used. The Twitter app was annoying me though.






Bobby gave 2 workshops on social media. I learned a lot from the workshops and even though they made us do the signing in the booth (because of some union thing), he did sell out of his social media book by the end of the weekend and had to put in some additional orders.






Friday night, I met up with a friend of a friend, Max, and we went for sushi. A plus for me being clumsy with chopsticks and launching vegetables into the air! Then we climbed up to the highest point where we saw the building from Vertigo (left) and strolled through China Town.





Saturday morning, I got up early and took a 20 minute walk down to the water to get breakfast at the farmer's market. I absolutely loved it. Everything was so pretty as the sun was just coming up.

Saturday, I drew 4 names for the winners of the raffle for signed Quincy books. Two of the winners were there, so it wasn't too awkward with lots of people standing around.

Saturday evening was the big party for exhibitors. Glow sticks. Electronic music. Funny lights. Dancing drunk people. Chatted with Moses most of the time. Wasn't really digging the scene. This is when we ditched the club for poison nachos and attempted to relocate the hotel in the dark.

Despite feeling a little sick, I worked the show on Sunday. Got up early to go to Walgreens for medicine. It was raining, and everyone was huddled outside, waiting for the store to open. One guy said it was like Black Friday for umbrellas.

Brad and John were gone, so it was up to us rookies, me and Kevin, to tear down. The crew took FOREVER to bring our boxes and it took 3 hours to pack up. But I think we got most of it right.

I feel like I complained too much in this post. It was an absolutely amazing trip and I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

Oh, and I made up a riddle: What's the difference between BEA and AES?

At AES, there's no line in the women's restroom.

MORE PHOTOS CLICK HERE

Just for fun, here's my favorite travel story. I think Jaeger showed this to me. I promise you'll laugh your pants off.