Chie gave me a ride to Shinagawa station on Sunday morning. From there I took the Narita Express (NEX) to Narita Airport. Spent some time in the lounge, taking a shower, having something to drink and eat before I boarded and had a long sleepless flight to San Francisco.

Once I’ve checked in at the hotel, had a salad for lunch then I headed out in the lovely and sunny California weather. It was spring feeling. I spent most of the day out in the sun reading and waiting for my work colleague from Lund, Calle. He arrived late in the afternoon and we almost directly went for dinner.

Monday, we spent it at the office. We had meetings with work colleagues at our Redwood Shores office. Fruitful. In the evening we went to Stanford Shopping Centre for some shopping. We also had a brief stop at Lululemon Atheletics, one of my favourite stores.

Tuesday, we spent the morning at the office clearing out our inboxes. In the afternoon we drove down to San Jose to meet with Tim Bird and Frank Rowand at a SONY office. We wanted to meet with them to discuss joining Sony Mobile and if so what kind of work they were interested in. From Sony Mobile’s side we already had something in mind, but you cannot just push things on people 🙂 After the meeting we went back to Stanford Shopping Centre as Calle could not finish his shopping yesterday. Once finished we had a quick dinner and drove to Calistoga in Napa. The next day we would join the Open Source Think Tank there.

Wednesday, first day of the Open Source Think Tank. About 100 people had joined from various companies in various roles but all having something to do with Open Source. Many good presentation, but one stood out… Netflix’s chief architect presented their video streaming architecture and how they in three years could become one of the most innovative companies in IT right now – great ideas and Open Source drive their speed of innovation. We also got an introduction to this year’s case study, OpenStack, and some time to work with it.

Thursday, second day continued with more presentations. We got a brown bag for lunch containing a sandwich, some fruits, water and a cookie. The idea was to bring it for the social activities that was planned for the afternoon. Three different activities: i) wine tasting, ii) golf, and iii) bicycling. I went for a lovely bike ride in the wonderful sunny California weather. It was warm and I could go in a t-shirt 🙂 In the evening we had dinner at CIA (Culinary Institute of America). It was fun and tasty – I was next to a really nice guy named Laszlo from Portland.

Friday, last day of the Open Source Think Tank. Mainly dedicated to preparations for case study presentations and the actual case study presentations. I was happy to see that my new friend Laszlo and his group won the case study presentations. The OpenStack Foundation thought their ideas and suggestions on how OpenStack can improve their setup was the best and most complete. They won Beats earphones. Congrats!

At lunch the conference was finished for this year. Calle and I drove into Calistoga for a quick lunch and then headed back to the San Francisco airport. Calle had a flight back to Sweden the same day but I had to wait until the next day. But it was OK, I had time for a quick dinner and then I spent most of the time relaxing at the hotel watching videos on my iPad.

Saturday, woke up and got to the airport. Checked in and went to the Delta lounge – it’s great to be a gold member 🙂 Spent the time in the lounge relaxing and reading. Once it was time to board I realised I had been upgraded to business class – super nice. I even managed to sleep for a while on the flight.

Sunday, arrived at Narita around 16:25. It took my max 30 minutes to get from the airplane to the train platform – including picking up my bag, passing immigrations and buying train tickets. Sometimes things just run smoothly. And lucky boy as I am, Chie picked me up at the Shinagawa station 🙂