September 26, 2005

Business (and Guns!) in San Francisco

So after taking almost a year off to travel and goof off in New York, I started a new job at Community Connect (a company that runs a bunch of different niche social networking websites). One of my new job responsibilities was to figure out the company's wireless strategy so on my 11th day of work, they sent me out to San Francisco to attend the CTIA Wireless Conference.

Monday, September 26th

Early morning cab ride out to JFK to catch my flight. My eyes feel like tired!

Fast-forward a few hours later and I'm up in the air flying over weird stuff.

What in the world are those?

Lunch time!

As we were nearing the Bay Area, there were all of these crazy-colored bodies of water. I'm hoping it's not pollution, but whatever was causing it, it sure was pretty!

Crazy, right? I can't believe the colors!

Landed at SFO and took a cab into San Franciso to...

...my hotel! Which was apparently a Best Western painted pink! And they even had a pool! (Too bad it was too cold to go swimming!);.

A view of the hotel courtyard from the door to my room.

After dropping off my bags and getting settled in my hotel room, I decided that since I was only like a 15 minute walk away that I'd go explore the neighborhood I lived in during my short-lived residence in San Francisco. This was the building I lived in located on the corner of the 3-way intersection of Market, Sanchez and 15th Street.

Once I was back in the old hood, I decided to head over to Love N' Haight for my favoritest...

...vegetarian duck sandwich!!! Soooo yummy!

mike doyle — Later that night I met up with Mike Doyle (the guy responsible for 100% of the fun I had when I lived in San Franciso - AND the guy responsible for me going to Korea and Japan!) and then he got on the horn and got ahold of...

andy b — ...Andy! Who was one of my favorite people that I met while teaching in Korea with Mike!

alysha, tanya — We all met up with Alysha and Mike's new ladyfriend and then by luck of chance we got to see...

...the band She Wants Revenge randomly play a show at the bar we were drinking at.

mike doyle — Mike and Ethan!

Tuesday, September 27th

The next day I had to get up bright and early to attend the CTIA keynote speeches.

Then I spent the entire day wandering the enormous exhibit hall chatting with vendors and trying to figure out if there were any companies that my new company should be working with.

Lonely diner lunch. ("All by myseeeeeeeeelf....").

Wednesday, September 28th

Wednesday morning was more of the same. Wandering the exhibit hall trying to sort through the hype. One of the few really fun exhibits was a vending machine that allowed you to purchase a drink by sending a text message and accepting a charge on your phone bill.

Pretty neato, right?

After the conference was over for the day, I headed a few blocks down the street to visit the offices of Chronicle Books. I'd shot Leigh Lezark for a feature on Nerve.com and Chronicle was putting out a book anthology of the article series I'd shot for Nerve and wanted to use one of my photos of Leigh for the cover of the book! (So that's how Tinny ended up on the dubiously named "Sex Advice From..." book!)

Later that night I walked back up through my old hood again (look, a medical marijuana dispensary!) to meet up with...

michael s, mike doyle — ...Mike and Michael at DJ's house (DJ is Mike's cousin) so that he could take us...

...to go shooting at the shooting range! Woooo! Here's DJ showing us how to load one of the handguns. After a thorough lesson on how each of the weapons worked and on shooting range saftey and etiquette...

...we hopped in Michael's car and headed to the range!

The only thing more shocking than the idea of a shooting range in San Francisco was the discovery of what was on display in a huge glass case right when you walk in the door.

That's right! It's some milataristis wet-dream doll-reenactment of US Special forces capturing Osama and Saddam together once and for all PROVING that Iraq was linked to 9/11.

Please take a moment now to imagine in your mind the gun-toting, jingoistic nutjob who actually took the time to buy these dolls and arrange them (aka - play with the dolls!!!) and put up this display at the gun shop?

(PS - Check out the flag-toting fanboy in the background representing stars & stripes while the one dude prepares to MOTHERFUCKING EXECUTE Bin Laden. Who by the way, hasn't aged a day in the last 6 years....hmmmmm.)

After I was done trying to disguise my laughter and/or shock at the doll collection (hey, for all I know the dolls belonged to the dude who was watching me laugh and I'm pretty sure it's never a good idea to make the guy standing behind the counter at the shooting range feel like you're mocking him) it was time to pick out the paper targets we wanted to shoot at! The one in the middel and the one on the right were my two faves (mostly because they would make me feel like I was in the Beastie Boys' Sabotage video) so I bought a few of them and then we headed into the range!

mike doyle — DJ and Mike...

....loading up!

mike doyle — Mike's first time!

michael s — Michael's first time!

My first time!

How about a close up of that shit! We are clearly all natural-born killers! (I even managed to put a bullet through this dude's eye! What's tougher than that?).

I can honestly say that years and years of playing shooting-video games totally paid off. We were all pretty much crack shots right off the bat. We had two guns with us: a Sig Sauer 9mm and Colt .45 (I think it was an M1911 replica). I remember right after I shot for the first time I said to DJ "This 9mm has much less of a kick than I imagined it would...Does .45 have a much bigger kick?" And DJ was like "Uhhhh, this is the 9mm over here. The gun you just shot with was the .45!"

michael s — Michael loading up another clip.

mike doyle — Mike moved his target all the way to the back of the range (75 ft) and tried his hand at freeing a hostage being held at gunpoint.

mike doyle — "Dry those eyes! I want your badge on my desk NOW, Patrolman Doyle!" Hahah.

Loadin' up.

After Mike's hostage disaster, I decided to keep my target mid-range for a while and work on my technique.

Woot woot!

I brought my target in and check out my shots and was starting to feel like a total badass...

...but that all ended when I looked a few stalls over and saw this dude using a compound bow to shoot human-shaped mannequins in the head with arrows from a distance of 75 ft. (Human mannequins! In the head! Who the hell practices headshots with a bow???)

On my next turn I ran my hostage target back to the 50 ft. line and still managed to totally waste the bad guy!

Check me out, I shot homeboy in the hand (twice!) then finished him off with 5 bullets to the head! (Who knew that fake violence with real guns could be so amazingly fun!)

DJ bringing in one of his targets.

I shot this one at 75 ft and did pretty good (although I did hit the hostage and so I get -7 points). "Looks like it's just a fleshwound, though."

Me shooting at one of my last targets.

Not too shabby!

Check out all the brass casings on the floor around us. These were all from us! Between the three of us, we blew through ALL of the boxes of ammo that DJ brought with him (and I only learned later that bullets are kinda expensive!).

So thanks a million for taking us shooting and letting us use your guns and shoot all your bullets, DJ. I had the fucking best time ever!

After the range, we hit the bars and then went to Il Farolito for some delicious late-night Mexican.

mike doyle — Hahaha.

Thursday, September 29th

The next morning I went to the convention hall to check out a few more things, then it was time for me to head back to the hotel and pack up to catch my flight home!

Goodbye, un-used hotel living room.

After checking out, I had some time to kill before heading to the airport, so I went to the nearby mall and hit the arcade...

...so that I could play some gun video games (which I now realize are waaaaay less fun than a real gun range - who woulda thunk?).

grant — While I was waiting at the airport, I got a call from Grant who told me that the article he'd written for Muscle & Fitness magazine, From Geek 2 Freak, had just come out and that I should try to find it on the stands. Great success! (If you're interested in reading the article, I found the text online here.)

And here's the one pic I snapped on the flight back home! Thanks again for taking us to the shooting range, DJ. Oh man, was that fucking fun.