So Yummy: 2025-11-15 Microsoft Ignite pre-show run up and travel day 1

Of course, the weekend I get a new car, I am drafted/voluntold to go to San Francisco for a work event. A week ago Friday, at work, we had some engineers/PMs come by EC1 to get the download on how the Mercedes Benz demo worked and is presented. They took videos, crawled underneath and did their research. I offered some suggestions about how we did it for the ES team and afterwards, Paul indicated that he might want me to go to CA to support the following weekend.

I didn't put much thought into it. I figured pretty much anyone could do it, I just had more experience and some practices from the team that I could assist with. It could've been done via Teams or a call, but whatever. I went on with my weekend. Monday and Tuesday rolled by, no updates from anyone. Then on Wednesday morning, I got a ping from Paul, who was in Munich, indicating he wanted me to get down to SF for Friday. I spent much of Wed talking to Tristan, getting plane and hotel set up. I offered to the team first, but all three of them had prior obligations. Truth be told, I was the best candidate to go, but I wanted to make sure they had a chance to say yes.

Anyway, after getting the tickets and prepping to leave Friday, on Thursday, Paul said to not come down until Saturday. This was after confirming my flight, so I had to cancel that and my originally booked hotel and find new stuff. Luckily, the Saturday flight was at the same time and I was able to book a hotel without much issue. It was all a little frantic and annoying, especially since Paul was traveling and no one really had any info for me as to when I should really show up. I booked a 7am flight leaving Seattle and then I realized that was crazy, so I pushed it back a couple hours. Just a bunch of busywork to make sure I could get down here.

Saturday morning I hired a Lyft and got to Seatac, jumped on the plane, and got to SFO by 12pm or so. Of course, no updates as to what to do, so I headed to Chase Center directly. Once there, I came in the players and press entrance and got to go through some of the bowels of this arena. I met up with some people and generally tried to make myself as unobtrusive as possible. I found Sean and Ross from Deeplocal, who are a partner firm that helped design and install the MB demo. Collin showed up later and we sat and chatted and planned for that.

Overall, I contributed a little bit while onsite. Being in the arena was cool and seeing the madness around the setup, as well as the scale, was pretty impressive. A lot of talented people in the building doing all sorts of things. I am just a guy who is here, but it's not as daunting as the Amazon things were back in the day.

Around 5, I finally took off for my hotel, the Marriott at Fisherman's Wharf. I picked it because it was close to the water, about a block or so. Sadly, the hotel itself wasn't that great. Not bad, but not special or anything. I checked in, found my room, then walked to the water to have dinner at an Italian joint called Cioppolino's. I was gonna get the ribeye, but I didn't want to exceed my per diem, so it was a cup of clam chowder and a seafood fettuccini instead. A ton of food, and I pounded it and was so stuffed afterward. I walked up and down the waterfront for another hour or so in a light drizzle, hit up Walgreens for some contact lens solution, then headed back in for the night.

I did some expense tracking for the trip, and then borrowed Riley's Apple TV to watch Pluribus. After that, bedtime. It's weird being away from home; less to do means earlier to bed, I guess. Here are photos, apparently in reverse order.