San Francisco was an awesome place to have a Drupalcon and visit in the Spring. The technology presence of California and the Bay Area is world renouned. This produced a very large Drupalcon and I found myself lost among the crowd of the largest Drupalcon yet. The Moscone Center and surrounding area was rich in Architecture and the garden area was very scenic.
During the conference I had the honor of meeting Matt Westgate and John K. VanDyk the authors of my favorite Drupal book Pro Drupal Development. I wish I had my copy onhand for authographs. They really did a great job on the book. I have both versions for Drupal 5 and Drupal 6 and reference them regularly. These books really opened up Drupal for me from a developers perspective and I am still learning from them.
Highlights of the convention include the usability sessions, great theme building sessions such as Carl Wiedemann's Theme Preprocess Functions: an Introduction and the Advanced Drush session was excellent. Carl's session was particularly creative. Amazingly, he was problem solving during the presentation and demonstrated the work flow that most of us experience when working on a theme and Drupal in general. The theme preprocess function demonstration couldn't have been more accurate and he delivered the content very clearly and concisely with a good debug.
Having lunch with Ezra from Growing Venture Solutions, David Strauss and the Four Kitchen's crew at an Italian Bistro was very cool.
Staying at the Green Tortoise Hostel was a memorable experience. The Green Tortoise is famous for it's road trips, socializing in the rec-room and live music. The community meals were really tasty and the atmostphere was really laid back. The history of the hostel is extensive and it was very cool to stay there.
China Town was very interesting. I have yet to visit China or Asia for that matter. It was very interesting to walk the streets of this large neighborhood where I often felt transported to distant land somewhere east of the United States. People playing Chinese checkers in the park, authentic Chinese cuisine around every corner and an endless maze of souvenir shops solidified the experience. Even street signs were posted in Mandirin.