DrupalCon San Francisco 2010, the trip and core summit

Since I was flying from Toronto to DrupalCon San Francisco 2010, the US passport control and customs were in the airport before flying.

As usual, I ticked all the vegetables (baby carrots, produce of the USA!), and meat (chicken sandwich), just in case ...

The conversation with the lady went like this:
Me: "Good afternoon ..."
Her: "Passport and boarding pass please ..."
Her: "Where are you going?"
Me: "San Francisco, for a conference"
Her: "What type of conference?"
Me: "DrupalCon, it is web content management software"?
Her: "Whom do you work for?"
Me: A company called 2bits.com, Inc.
Her: "What does the company do?"
Me: "Consulting on this software"
Her: "What vegetables and meat do you have?"
Me: "I have carrots and other stuff ..."
Her: "You have to be more specific on this"
Me: "Carrots, chicken sandwich, and dried prunes ..."
Her: "Dried is OK"

And contrary to the last two North American DrupalCons, she decided not to make me go to "secondary inspection" of my declared "vegetables" and "meat" ...

However, going through security, I noticed that it was even stricter than last year. Every person was being patted down by an official from the same gender. And they checked the soles of the feet, without footwear. Moreover, they swabbed my palms, the inside of my carry on bag, and the disposable gloves on the man who patter me down, and checked them for something (presumably explosives, fertilizers, and maybe radio active stuff too?).

Apart from that the trip was longish, because of the stop in Chicago, yet everything was on time.

The Mosser Hotel has a few pet peeves, but overall acceptable for the price (around US $68 per night, which is really cheap for San Francisco. It is a very short walk from the hotel. Closer than the Parc 55, and the same distance as the Westin, which is on the next street over.

Internet access is via AT&T WiFi. The rate is US $10 per day, or $20 per month. If you sign up for a month, there is a $20 cancellation fee, so it works out to $40 for the week that I am here.

The bed itself is OK, but the sink is in the main room, and very very tiny. Makes it hard to wash your face or brush your teeth without splashing water everywhere. The bathroom/shower are normal sized though. There is also no room to put anything in the room (no tables or desks of any kind, so you can leave stuff on).

The core summit is awesome. I am estimating attendance to be considerably high, at least 120 people (5 people per half row, times 12 rows). Lots of good ideas that will takes time and effort to implement (as always).

It is great to see everyone I know, and get introduced to those I know only by a Drupal.org username and have never seen before.