Down to the Wire at Stanford

Biking Golden Gate Bridge

Biking Golden Gate Bridge

Well, I can hardly believe my time at Stanford is swiftly coming to an end. It has been such an incredible experience, and I know that in time, the exact meaning will begin to sink in. I have met so many wonderful people and attended so many great events. There’s so much more to do. I plan to be back in Austin in mid-June, so there are still a few weeks left to cram in some things.

What have I been doing lately?  Lots. As a group, we did a weekend trip to Monterey and a day trip to Oakland. Monterey was glorious, a beautiful bike ride along the coast and a visit to their world-class aquarium. Oakland is a secret treasure. It’s a very cool city with fun neighborhoods and a lot of history.

I got to see my friends in the Old 97’s play at the legendary Fillmore. My sister Judy was visiting, so it was fun to share that with her and explore San Francisco a little as a tourist, with some double-decker tour buses and visit to Fisherman’s Wharf.

A few of us visited the Internet Archive. You may know them from their main project, the Wayback Machine. Tech legend Brewster Kahle holds an open staff meeting/lunch each Friday and provides a tour. This is a gem. I highly recommend a visit.

Personally, I did the bike ride from San Francisco to Sausalito, over the Golden Gate Bridge, then back via ferry. I feel like a real Californian now. I’ve explored just about every inch of CA SR 1 from SF to LA, and I feel like I have an intimate knowledge of the CA coast now.

We’ve had fantastic guests for Knight events, including Mark Glaser of PBS MediaShift, Laura Ramos from Gannett, Jill Geisler from Poynter  and Dave Gehring from Google. My friend Katie Zhu from Medium came down for a visit. I got to hear Clay Christensen himself on the Stanford campus talking about the Innovator’s Dilemma.

And, we did our Knight Talks. A lot of prep went into 3 minutes! I greatly appreciate all the help I got from Knight Fellows and staff to help with the content of this presentation. Here’s mine, but you should watch all of them!

I can hardly believe that I have to leave these amazing people that I have grown to love over the past 10 months. It will be a sad departure, but I am looking forward to returning to my life in Austin.

Photos from these events are below. What else should I do with my time before I leave the San Francisco area?