A simple swipe right. It was supposed to be a one time thing. No names or numbers. Just a location and some quick f*ckery. How was I to know he was a billionaire inventor who wanted more?
I'm Sacramento with a cowbell. He's San Francisco with a pent...
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Awards Dinner Disrupt Erupt Conference top floor Hibernia Heron Tower
Ding.
Toni squeezes my hand and the double doors slide open smooth as butter. A room of who's who greeted me a second time but this time in full gala dress up. Conversation and happy chatter of the people at the event greet us like a light switched on. The entire place has changed from the presentation setup of the DE talks before. Instead of the stage from earlier, it's gone, replaced with a series of U shape tables. Behind each large U table the contestants from all the categories. Then those smaller tables of industry people fanning out behind the U tables. Reminds me so much of a dark sci-fi noble. As if at any second the sacrifices will be served up to the tech gods. All the smaller groups of tables fanning out from the U tables are the members who are in the in club that we aren't. All the different colors each category represented at the tables. Except, instead of everyone at one big table repping each house it reps each category. All the table is facing huge picture windows. The view is a near 360 view that looks out on the San Francisco skyline lit up all the way out to the Golden Gate bridge.
It's striking the way the lights of the city calls to you. An old San Francisco, in a mix of neoclassical art deco, Beaux-Arts and more. As if the years of San Francisco being what it is crosses through time. Dotted with the occasional new modern techy style stark building. But Old San Francisco still stretched to the sky. Those old school beautiful buildings blocked in places by new San Francisco skyscrapers. The modern glass steel and hard unforgiving edges join the old San Francisco charm. When I was a little kid, my mom after the divorce with my dad would bring me here once a year. Each year the city would change every time we crossed that bridge. Instead of being just another tourist walking through the jungle of the city on a weekend trip, I was now on top of it. I took my phone out and took a picture for my mom from the open elevator doors.
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Me - Look mom on top of the world.
A quick caption just for her and hit send.
You did it baby - Mom
The pride in just those words were enough to break me a little. My mom the single mom who worked her ass off every day as a nurse to get me so many things. I had something to show to her even if I missed it up a little.
