The San Francisco Meet & Greet (3/12/05): A terrific event!Mar 15 '05 (Updated Mar 24 '05) Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line If you get a chance to attend one of the Meet & Greets in your area, I highly recommend them!
This past weekend was the San Francisco Meet and Greet. It was so much fun. I had been anticipating it for weeks. I had been late by mere minutes to the LA Meet and Greet one year ago and I wasn't going to get anything stand in my way of missing this one! On the contrary, we got there early and had a wonderful time (and it looked to me like everyone else did as well). FRIDAY: Destination San Francisco I arrived in the Bay area on Friday, the day before the Meet and Greet. Being the nosy, I mean, curious person that I am, I was driving northbound on the 101 freeway and passed the renowned Epinion Headquarters. I decided to see if I could find their offices and lo and behold, I did. Basically, I barged in unannounced. I did apologize however, and did not want to cause any trouble, but as I said before, I am a curious sort. The offices were very nice and overlooking some water. There were cute little Epi-dolls everywhere! Those things keep multiplying like bunnies! After the nice man at the reception desk greeted me, a few other people walked by and asked if they could help me. Everyone was so nice. Next thing I knew, Paul came out and asked me if I'd like to have a tour of the place. How sweet of him! In a couple of minutes, Randy and Crystal also showed up and they talked to me for a short while about Epinions in general and their surroundings. They couldn't have been nicer. I had basically interrupted their day and they were extremely cordial and hospitable. I hope I didn't take up too much of their time, but was so glad I got to take a peek for myself. SATURDAY: The Big Day! The next day, I was really excited because it was finally the day of the Meet and Greet. We left our hotel The Marines Memorial Club early because we didn't want to be late for our 3 p.m. meeting. Drove a short distance, found the Gordon Biersch Restaurant Brewery with no trouble at all, parked and went in. There were Epinion signs aplenty directing us to the party area, so there was no way to get lost. It was in a word - WONDERFUL! Walking into the group, I felt giddy with excitement and anticipation. I felt like I was going to be seeing a bunch of my old friends, and indeed I did! I was greeted by handsome Paul, given my name tag, turned around and the first people I saw live and in person were Waynio and Macresarf1! Next I saw stephen_murray who stood up to give me a big hug! Thanks Steve! Then Pam AKA Mrsfitts smiled nicely and said how glad she was to meet me. My head was spinning by this time. Adriennefoster had a big smile and walked up to me as if we'd met 100 times before, she was so sweet. adriennefoster was just as friendly as I knew she would be and I got to spend some time talking with her. I spotted Robert AKA nvherron and his lovely wife, off to one side, sipping some drinks. They were also smiling as I walked over to meet them. Robert writes great travel reviews. I think Julie will begin writing reviews soon, but she is a busy mom of three children! Of course, I saw cute Christal christalc1, Paul, Randy and Garrett AKA roheblius again. Garrett has always been sweet and Randy is also a very warm person. I got to meet Sean too, although briefly, who is a very nice fellow working at Epinions offices on the travel section. Then I had the pleasure of meeting the very sweet tom_barnes and the inimitable drdevience. What a cute couple those two are! The Doc has an infectious laugh, as you may imagine! I just can't say enough good things about everyone I met. Meeting Tina AKA ladygumby was terrific too. What a lovely person. Spent some time talking with a friendly new member, Angela AKA alow90 too. waynio and I also got a chance to get to know each other a little bit better as we chatted away; I like him very much - he was very mellow and low key. It was very special to me to be able to talk to Alex AKA macresarf1. For quite a long time, I've wanted to meet him and he was just as charming as I'd imagined. As I walked over to the appetizer table, I saw a familiar name tag. It was none other than megugrrrl! She looked just as cute as I'd imagined. She is friendly and has a great smile. I thanked her for adding a restaurant for me just days before the Meet & Greet! Coming in a little late was horswispr and I said out loud, "I bet that's horswispr." Well, it wasn't too hard to figure out, especially since he came in carrying a guitar! He has a great smile and we got to chat for quite awhile and later on he even strummed a short tune for us - it was beautiful! Randy made a couple of announcements about thanking us all for coming. Everyone was having a great time socializing and chatting and before I knew it, our time was up. I couldn't believe how fast the time had gone by - three hours just like that. The restaurant people had to kick us out because they needed the space for dinner guests. I simply couldn't imagine that it was already 6:00 pm! Garrett, Crystal and Randy handed out beautiful thick black sweatshirts to everyone with a short zipper and the words Epinions Meet and Greet San Francisco on the upper left along with those little Epi-dolls embroidered on. It's a beautiful, soft sweatshirt. Thank you so much! {}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{} By the way, the Gordon Biersch Brewery Restaurant, located at 2 Harrison Street right off the Embarcadero in San Francisco, had terrific hot appetizers for us, including fresh sliced veggies with dip, skewered glazed jumbo shrimp, spicy chicken wings, crab cakes, a rice/sesame seed sushi dish and potstickers. (I had a Margarita and it was really strong!) It is a large red brick building. Overall, we had a terrific time. (Hubby said he had much more fun than he'd expected to.) I know I'll never forget The San Francisco Meet and Greet (2005). It was a memorable experience and one I'm glad I finally had a chance to participate in. Thank you to everyone who came and thank you to those who organized this wonderful event! P.S. One regret: we forgot to take a group photo! Thanks for reading! ©:gkm. .  |
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