Friday. Today is my conference day out here in San Jose, California. It’s a beautiful California day, very nice weather. I got some very good rest last night and am hopeful that my couch will not be so terrible today like it was yesterday. That was really something awful.
I had to be up pretty early today, and actually woke up on my own around five thirty. So time for a nice, warm shower, before going downstairs to meet up with Anton and Max for breakfast in the hotel at the Embassy Suites, which we did at six thirty. Then at seven fifteen we were off to find the Marriott where are conference is being held.
We did pretty well getting over to the Marriott on time. This morning is Storage Field Days and we are presenting on Virtual Tape Libraries. Not the sexiest of topics, but it seemed to be well received at the show.
I had a really rough morning of coughing prior to the talk, but I managed to make it all of the way through my section without coughing at all. Of course, the moment that I was done I had to run away to another room and just hack and hack.
After the talk was done, we went over to the Hilton for an early lunch. We were actually there at a quarter till eleven, which is a bit early for lunch for anyone. It was so soon after breakfast that Max and I just split some fish fry.
After lunch we went to meet with BackBlaze and got a tour of their offices in San Mateo.
After touring BackBlaze, we drove out to Half Moon Bay to get authentic seafood on the water. We looked up the top rated place on Yelp and headed out.
We actually took much of the same drive that Dominica and I did several years ago when we came out together when I was presenting at Pertino the first time.
We found the coolest little local seafood place. The food was amazing. We sat outside. I just went for the house specials: clam chowder and fried calamari. This might have been the best calamari that I have ever had. Sadly, there was no way that I could finish it. There has just been so much food today, I can’t keep eating.
After second lunch it was back to the hotel. About five thirty we were back. We were all pretty tired and my cough was just killing me. I feel awful.
I took a shower, nice and hot, which helped my breathing a bit. Gave me somewhat of a rest from the continuous coughing. And I laid down then for an hour and didn’t move. I didn’t fall asleep, but the rest and the lack of movement really helped. I felt a bit better and was about to go out around seven when we reconvened.
We went back to the same steak place that we went to last night. We got wine and I had the BBQ salmon tonight, which was excellent. Nothing but the salmon, though. I was not that hungry, but turned out that I was hungry enough to finish the fish.
It was an early night. We could not have been out past ten. Everyone was tired and after the wine we just had to get some sleep.