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I left San Francisco at 9pm last night when I got on a flight to Los Angeles. Then a connecting flight to Chicago. Then a connecting flight to Newark, New Jersey. Right now I’m sitting in a hotel room in New Providence, NJ.

Last leg of the trip.

The mushy remains of recent snow are draped over the countryside but it’s actually quite mild outside. Nice, even. Except that it did bucket down cold, cold rain at lunchtime when a colleague and I went to the fake 50’s American diner for lunch. Pink neon, laminex tables with the ribbed aluminium trim, the whole bit. Much better food than they served in the 50s, I suspect. Warm chicken salad with Jalapenos and a small serve of onion rings. Very, very glad I didn’t go for a medium or large serve.

Yesterday afternoon in San Francisco was a huge trip highlight because I got to go photowalking with Thomas Hawk.

I hadn’t even considered contacting Thomas or the Scobleizer because I didn’t think I’d have any time to spare to see either of them, as much as I would have liked to butt in and say hello.

Lisa, however, had no such reservations. Behind my back she fired off a few emails and got into a brief chat about the next scheduled photowalk. Turned out it was at 2pm on the day I was leaving.

I had a flight out of San Francisco into LAX then on to Newark at midday; Lisa told me to change it (told, not asked!) so I could go on this walk. With help from our local travel assistant this was all done, so I got to go spend 4 hours being guided all around Chinatown and North Beach by Thomas and dozen other walkers. Good stuff. Photos on flickr, of course.

I won’t go into the slightly dodgy way we got 20-something floors up a fire escape to lean over the balcony and take shots of the Coit Tower and the San Francisco skyline. I’m not sure it was illegal, but I suspect that if we’d asked the establishment in question whether a dozen people could crowd into their fire escape to take photos they probably would have said no.

Oh, I’ve also created a smugmug account and put these photos up there as a gallery. Check it out. I’ve looked at smugmug before, but given that Don from smugmug was one of the people who was so nice to Lisa helping get this opportunity hooked up I figured I’d take another look. Besides; three of the smugmug team were shooting with us yesterday, and they seem to be a pretty decent bunch. Hearing them talk about the passion they all have for photography and some of the plans they have for the site was pretty exciting.

Also — check out Matt Roe’s shots. He’s only 15, and he wagged school for the day to come along for the walk. This kid has some talent.

The change in flights was why I ended up going through Chicago. Instead of getting into Newark at midnight I elected to get the redeye special in the hope that I’d be able to sleep on the plane trip. Fortunately I was; I got 90 minutes on one flight and 120 on another. I’m not quite sure what day it is, but I’m in Newark so it must be Thursday. Time for bed soon. Very soon.

PS: If you were wondering, yes, I have been working.