Why SF Didn’t Live up to the Hype
San Francisco. The first time I was introduced to it was probably by watching Full House. Fast-forward about eleven years later and Justine posts photos and videos in San Francisco when she visits for various reasons. Oh, and Silicon Valley is nearby. That means the technology is amazing! “I want to go there!”, I constantly thought.
After being in the United States for over six months, I finally get the opportunity to go there for MacWorld. Before you start this you might want to read My MacWorld 2009 Experience.
I asked Twitter what a good/cheap hotel would be near Moscone Center for MacWorld. I got a great response from a friend that lives in San Francisco. I booked that hotel — Holiday Inn Civic Center — not long after.
Oh, by the way, you’re going to think I’m incredibly lame after this.
Holiday Inn. Nice, right? It was easy to get to from the airport (SFO) via BART. I checked in on Monday. Nice room, and all that jazz (yes, that’s a pun because Rai and Vik arrived that night).
One thing I need at any hotel I stay at is internet. It’s fine if it’s not SUPER-fast, but it has to work. I connected to the wireless internet ‘in the room’ and soon after it kept either disconnecting or loading simple pages like Yahoo incredibly slowly.
I called the front desk. They told me to contact support. I did so. Support couldn’t see any problems with my IP/connection. They gave me a reference number.
Random issue: Twitter seems to be the only website that doesn’t load at all. This also means any Twitter apps, such as TweetDeck, don’t work either.
The next evening nothing is improved. I call support with my reference number. They tell me I can get a ‘bridge connector’ from the front desk. I do so.
It’s the weirdest contraption I’ve seen to connect to the internet. It has an ethernet port, a USB connection, and an AC connection. I use all of the connections to get it running. Support told me when I try and connect to a site with my browser I should get a special page. I don’t. It just goes to the page I want. I seems to work better; the connection no longer drops out all the time. The AC connection was hindering my mobility, so I unplugged it. I noticed that it was still on due to power from the USB connection. Cool.
On Wednesday evening I tried connecting to the internet without the ‘bridge connector’. It didn’t seem to change; the internet stayed connected and the ‘bridge connector’ was no longer needed.
Thursday, I’d lost my mind by now. Twitter was working off and on. Trying to send a simple e-mail or write a blog post using WordPress wasn’t working at all. And it wasn’t the sites because I asked people on IM.
I did manage to sit in the Apple Store on Stockton Street for eight hours and use their amazing 20Mb up/down internet. That made me quite happy.
IM. Adium. That seems to be the only thing that stayed up 90% of the time.
By Friday I’d complained about my situation to all of my best friends. I hardly ever complain to the point of losing my cool, but I lost my cool back around Wednesday, so Friday was disgusting.
You know how I’m always giddy about life? Because everything is awesome — and it IS! Well, yeah, very little giddyness from Derek this week. And I feel so bad about it. Hence, why I might not have tweeted positive tweets, or talked to anyone else much.
I’d like to thank Coley, Kevin, Corey, Adam, Justine, Karen, Daynah, Brian, and of course Rai & Vik for entertaining me while I was in San Francisco. Without them it would have been much, much worse. Gosh, I sound so lame; it’s only the internet, Derek! Coley especially showed me some fantastic parts of SF that I wouldn’t have seen otherwise.
Right now, it’s Sunday evening and I’m about to leave a lovely co-working space called Coffee Bar. There’s nice internet here, and I’m not sure how I’m going to book and travel for tomorrow and later next week with next to no internet.
I’m going to speak to the manager one more time (this will probably be the sixth time) and see if he can refund part/all of my stay or something. Because there’s no hope for the internet there.
I’ll wrap up this emo post and week by saying don’t stay at the Holiday Inn Civic Center if you have ever wanted to use the internet in your life.
Signed,
The guy who goes through crap so you don’t have to.
