Journey to the End of the Night

Filed Under Events, Personal, SF Bay Area | 2009-06-23, 10:00

Journey to the End of the Night is near and dear to me as it became one of the catalysts that convinced me to move to San Francisco when I played in the first game in 2006. I was living in Chicago at the time and realized that it was time for a change of scenery. I had always had this thought in my head that perhaps California was where I needed to be, and that San Francisco seemed like my kind of town. But I had never been to San Francisco, let alone California. So I booked a flight out to stay with a friend for a few days. Coincidentally the newly joined kind of weird but creative-inducing web game I had started playing (sf0.org) announced it would be holding a street game that weekend I was in town! The evening was an excellent introduction to San Francisco, and while I started off the day saying “I’m thinking about moving to San Francisco”, I found myself definitively saying “I’m moving to San Francisco” while sitting on the beach in the early hours of the morning.

This year Journey was held in Oakland, which I figured would be an interesting break from the now familiar city of San Francisco. I would be thrown into an environment I wasn’t familiar with and that would be exciting. The result of 6hours and 12+ miles walking? Tons of exercise, an exploration of new and different places, engaging conversations with friends, seeing old faces, and a new found appreciation for Oakland. While I failed to write up a full account from the first Journey, this time I documented in excess. GPS tracking (open in Google Earth), videos, and photos as well as the full text of our evening. You can check out my proof at sf0: Journey to the End of the Night: Oakland by Rabbit (and if you’re a player, toss me some votes!)

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Purple Tunnel of Doom – The Google Map

Filed Under News, Personal | 2009-01-28, 20:08

I didn’t think I’d be posting more about the Inauguration, but the stories about the Purple ticket line and the infamous “Purple Tunnel of Doom” are gaining steam. The Huffington Post has a great round-up of info on it and I figured I’d share the Google map that I put together after the Inauguration because I wanted to see where exactly we were all day. Little did we know that we were actually under the Mall most of the day. Here’s a link to the map with photos and all.

And here’s a list of my Twitters from the Inauguration: http://tinyurl.com/edrabbitinaug09

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Our Inauguration Experience in Photos

Filed Under News, Personal | 2009-01-27, 19:37

I’ve been meaning to sit down and write up a blog post about our Inauguration experience (the good and bad), but I haven’t gotten anywhere close to finishing it. It’s rapidly approaching that point of no return where I know I won’t actually get it done, so I figured I’d post some photos for people that were interested in hearing about it. This is just a sampling of the photos I took. You can see the full sets on Flickr:
20090120-Barack Obama’s Inauguration
Out and About around D.C.
There are also some videos I streamed from D.C. here and some others here.

We woke up at 5am and were on the streets walking to the Capitol by 6am.

All the roads around The Mall were closed to vehicles so people were walking everywhere.

Heather yawns as we wait in line for 4+ hours in the infamous Purple Tunnel of Doom.

Things got pretty crowded.

We could see light at the correct end of the tunnel after about 3 hours. We started the morning in view of the light from the other end of the tunnel.

Last two people to make it through the police barricade as the crowd/mob surged towards the gate. I would have been the last one to quickly squeeze past the cops and barriers, but Heather got pulled through since we had locked arms to avoid being separated in the crowd. A quick (almost scarily unthorough) security pat down and we sprinted to get a view of the swearing in that would happen minutes later.

This is the Purple Gate you may have heard something about in the news.

Seen on the sidewalk. It probably would not have done them any good as thousands of people with tickets didn’t even get in.

We scored a spot right at the fence for the first block of Obama’s motorcade that would later join up with the entire parade. It was a long cold wait, but we got a chance to wave at the new President as he rolled by.

Secret Service is Serious Stuff.

Heather reacts to seeing Obama. She’s such a fan-girl. :)

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Headed to D.C. in the morning

Filed Under Personal | 2009-01-19, 00:28

We’re all packed up with warm clothes, electronics, and whatnot and ready for the shuttle to pick us up at 6:30am to head to the airport and eventually land in Washington D.C. for Obama’s Inauguration. The party has already started with the We Are One concert tonight. We tuned into the rebroadcast from HBO to check it out and were amazed at the size of the crowd, and then even more amazed when we realized the estimated crowd for Tuesday was 3-4 times that size. Heather also pointed out that I am in fact 1-degree away from Obama, as I have met John Legend, and John Legend performed as part of the We Are One thing. That plus a piece of paper with Abraham Lincoln will get me a burrito.

Rubin has been awesome enough to lend me his Canon Digital Rebel XSi for the next few days so I can take actually half-decent photos with something other than my point-and-shoot Canon SD450. Coincidentally this is also the camera I’ve been considering purchasing, so it’ll be nice to give it a test run.

In about 24 hours we should be at Kim’s place and in a day and a half I’ll be turning 29 and we’ll be getting a new president. Can’t wait for the madness that will be the Mall!

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Tickets for the Swearing In Ceremony of Barack Obama

Filed Under News, Personal | 2009-01-15, 16:59

Just got back from picking up our tickets from Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi’s office. So excited to actually have them in my hands. Only 5 more days!

We’ve got seats in the North Standing (or Purple) area. If we get there early enough we might actually get a decent spot in the center! Here’s a map of the Inauguration “seating” for the different tickets:

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We’re Headed to the Inauguration!

Filed Under News, Personal | 2009-01-14, 20:05

image via Flickr

Jan 20th is my birthday and I can’t think of any better present this year than having Barack Obama as President.

I’ve never been much of a political person. I have my own views and opinions, but have never been interested in all the politics. A lot of that changed with this past election. Finally someone I felt could represent most of my interests and outlooks was running, and actually won. On November 4th, I watched Obama give his acceptance speech in a room of friends from all walks that I never thought would be as concerned as they were. Here was an entire generation energized by the potential the Obama represented to all of us.

Fifteen years ago I stood in the cold winter air of Washington D.C. on January 20th to watch Bill Clinton get sworn in. I had just turned 13 years old and did not really understand the significance of the moment. My highlight was having the group of people around us join in a chorus of “Happy Birthday”. However looking back on it, I realize that it meant something to my dad. I can’t speak for him, but I imagine he felt that there was someone taking office that represented him and his generation. It’s my turn for that. Coincidentally my dad will be there too!

So a few days after the election I decided that I wanted to be in D.C. again for another inauguration. We booked flight tickets (after a friend offered us floor space on which to crash) and I drafted an email to Nancy Pelosi requesting the free, but incredibly rare tickets. We had very little hope of actually getting tickets but looked forward to joining millions of people on the mall to experience this historic event. To my surprise a few weeks after I had sent in my request, I received an email from Nancy Pelosi letting me know that she would like to offer me tickets to the event. I was ecstatic.

So on Monday, Heather and I will hop on a flight to D.C. to join an estimated 4 million people for an unprecedented celebration. We’ll probably be spending the night on the floor in a friend’s office, 1 block from the Capitol, getting up early to get through the security checks and into place to wait for the official ceremony at noon and for history to take place. I will be twittering non-stop, and doing my best to take photos as I want to document for myself and I know others are interested in a more personal take on the event. If you’re going too, let me know!

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New Year’s Eve at the Blogger Bungalow

Filed Under Personal, SF Bay Area | 2009-01-01, 22:19

photo by Violet Blue(?)

When it came time to decide where we were going to spend the evening welcoming 2009, it was a tough choice. There were things happening all over the Bay Area, but not wanting to do the “party circuit” we decided we had to pick one. Enticed by interesting hosts/guests, technology, and gift bags compliments of Good Vibrations, we got dressed, touched up the red in the hair, and headed over to Violet Blue’s Blogger Bungalow for her New Year Party.

The party wasn’t just for invited guests though, as she had all sorts of live-blogging technology setup in order to share our celebration with everyone online. There was an Eye-Fi enabled camera circulating around the guests where photos were instantly uploaded to the Blogger Bungalow Flickr account. There was a Macbook on the table next to the absinthe and chips logged into a WordPress blog and 12seconds.tv. Guests were encouraged to post on either of the sites, and some of us took 12 seconds in between conversations to record silly videos. We stayed up until the wee hours of the morning talking tech, sex, art, and culture. There was even time for some late night Twitter-nanigans.

In addition to the Eye-Fi camera, Scott Beale of Laughing Squid also took some photos, and I grabbed a few with my iPhone. I’m sure there are tons of other photos, tweets, and blog posts if I can just try to remember the names of all the wonderful people I met….

Hope everyone out there had a safe and enjoyable celebration and is looking forward to this new year as much as I am! Have a great 2009!

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Year-End Travel Meme Time

Filed Under Personal | 2009-01-01, 18:29

List the towns or cities (I’m including National Parks too) where you spent at least a night away from home during 2008. Mark with a star if you had multiple non-consecutive stays.

Monterey, CA *
Lewisville, NC
Santa Barbara, CA *
Olema, CA
Seattle, WA
Black Rock City, NV
Cedar City, UT
Bryce Canyon National Park, UT
Loa, UT
Goblin Valley National Park, UT
Moab, UT
Las Vegas, NV *
Hollywood, CA
Miami, FL
New York, NY
Chicago, IL
Yosemite National Park, CA
Los Angeles, CA
Joshua Tree National Park, CA