At Foo
Very interesting first evening. I'm here at Camp Foo and it's *super crowded*. I don't know how many people are here, but it's a ton. We barely fit into the meeting room upstairs. All of them are incredibly interesting people as well... It's frightening.
So I guess it's an open secret, but the reason that O'Reilly is able to host this thing is because they own two *huge* buildings up here in Sebastopol - bought during The Boom, half of them are completely empty. I mean, completely. So that's where the people can sleep. Had I known, I would've gotten here earlier and staked out a little private office for myself to sleep in. When the invite talked about sleeping in the offices, I *swear* I envisioned sleeping under someone's desk, trying to avoid knocking over pictures of their kids, etc. I had no idea they were talking about offices completely empty of furniture etc.
I'm *not* particularly social, so every moment I'm talking to someone new, somewhere deep inside my mind is something screaming at me "run, run, run!" and I have to simultaneously ignore that voice while actually thinking of things to say. Preferably intelligent things to say. I'm not sure if I've actually succeeded at that yet. You'd figure at a gathering filled with anti-social geeks this would be a common thing, but everyone is chatting away merrily. Me? I almost had a heart attack getting up to introduce myself.
So I'm sleeping in my SUV tonight. It's not that bad - I have an inflatable mattress which fits in the back and will be perfect. Plus it'll be private. That's very important as I snore like a freight train... I mean, really loud. Better to stay clear of other living beings.
More tomorrow.
-Russ