Six days after SLCC '06, I'm still kicking myself. Want to know how many photos I took while in San Francisco? Let's see if I can count them all. I took approximately... none. Not even one snapshot to call my own. Even though I was very careful to pack my little digicam in my suitcase, somehow I managed to forget it in the hotel room each time I ventured outside.

I supposed I'll have to rely on fading memories then to remember sights like the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, the sun-dappled green hills across the bay, Coit Tower, and that pyramid building that's so incredibly tacky. But I don't need photographs to remember the hills. No, for that, I still have the lingering pain in my legs from my hike from Fort Mason to the Serrano Hotel. It looked like an easy 2.5 miles on Google Maps. Oh, but evil Google didn't reveal the grueling altitude changes. It didn't show that some streets were not only steep, but had STAIRS. Those San Franciscans know how to do hills.

I survived the hills, as did the busload of grey-haired tourists who practically bounded past me to the lookout, which makes me wonder if I should start working out.

Even without photos, I can flip through the Flickr photosets from other SLCC attendees.

• The Fort Mason Center is, according to my taxi driver, a former naval yard, as you can tell from this photo.
  (LINK)
  
  
• Everyone signed in on the giant sheet (LINK).
  
  
• The lobby at the Cowell Theatre was packed (LINK).
  
  
• I participated in the panel discussion of mainland communities, with Robin Linden, Michi Lumin and Eltee Statosky of Luskwood, and Khamon Fate. I'm the bald one at the mic. (LINK)

And so the weekend wound down and when all those intoxicating -- and occasionally intoxicated -- experiences fade, we have only the souvenirs of a handful of photos, video footage, and maybe some stains in embarrassing places. One thing I will always keep with me, in the absence of my own snapshots, is... THE CUBE.



It all started with a cube.