Checking in from Where 2.0, San jose

Just got into San Jose, CA in preparation for the Ignite Where 2.0 session this evening... so far looks like most people are still in transit. Its nice to be here again although the town is pretty quiet today because of the holiday week end. Its hot as crap here today and i'd forgotten about some of the typical valley scenes... like the $15 4 minute cab ride from the airport, the Shark Tank... quiet as ever as the arena is now pretty much closed for the summer since the sharks are no longer playing... and the urine soaked streets as you walk a mere 2 blocks from the downtown area in search of the sub $100 a night hotel. Hey its not all that bad though... we have the Tech musuem and Where 2.0 getting ready to kick off. Only at Where 2.0 do you look into the exhibit hall floor and see Google setting up and a few feet away a booth from the University of Alaska! The pin board will start filling up soon as people mark Where they came from, bodies will gather around the 37" flat panel screen streaming a contstant update from Twittervision( http://twittervision.com/) I was watching it and up popped an image from this region by Sergey... The diverse mix of people here will be really cool, with GIs types, those in search of VC, mashers, programmers, and technology professionals from the traditional GIS space... I sate beside a guy from USA Today on the flight. He's with their graphics crew and in search of come cool ideas and looking to see who's doing what... what a great place to come and watch what people are up to. I'm posting photos at regular intervals so if you're interested in seeing what's happeneing here at where (dows that make sense?) be sure to drop in and have a looksee http://www.flickr.com/photos/gisuser - PS: my "m"key is sticking so bear with mmme!

Oh... I picked up the requisite Where 2.0 bag (shwag)... FYI, the contents included a bunch of cards from the likes of map24, Schmap, Garmin, and Very Spatial ... man, we gotta get some GISuser.com postcard done up! Imaging Notes also managed to get their publication inn the bag as did ESRI with their latest Map Book. there's also a who's who list with all the conntact info... sweet! So who's here.. well, I could tell ya but i'd have to kill you but there's reps here from Tele Atlasas, Navteq, Mapquest, Autodesk, Mapquest, Decarta, Lonely Planet, ESRI and many others. Gotta go grab some Chinese now before things get started at 7