Sifry’s Alerts

I’m heading out to Madrid today! Here’s an update on what’s going on while I’m there:

11/12: I’m speaking at IE Business School in the afternoon to the students there on “Rules for Entrepreneurs”. Note that this is for IE students only, sorry.

11/15: I’m speaking at UPM IEEE Student Branch at 17:00pm, and we’re going to go out afterwards for a Geek Dinner after the talk. Here’s the location of the talk, you don’t have to be a student to attend, just drop an email to info@ieeedb.es with your name, and job so that they can plan accordingly.

The details are the following:

Where: “Aula Magna” room in the Building A of Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenieros de Telecomunicación of the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid.

Street: Avenida Complutense s/n 28040 Madrid Spain

Subway: Ciudad Universitaria or Metropolitano stations

Buses: U, G, F, 82, 132

As soon as I know what restaurant we’re going to be having the geek dinner, I’ll post about it. In the meantime, just drop an email to info@ieeedb.es and let them know if you will be coming to the dinner as well.

11/17: Photowalking around Madrid. We’re going to start early in the day to really enjoy the light. I don’t have a starting point or time yet, please email me (david-blog@sifry.com) if you’re interested, and reserve the date. I’ll send out another blog post as soon as we have it a bit more organized.

Invite your friends, I’m really looking forward to getting to know the “real” Madrid, and all of you great folks who live there!

Technorati Tags: entrepreneur, geekdinner, madrid, photowalk, rulesforentrepreneurs, spain, speech

I just got back from the San Francisco Photowalk, and it was, as usual, a great time. Thanks to Thomas Hawk and friends for setting it up!

Because of daylight savings time, by the time we started, it was already getting dark, but I thought ahead and brought my tripod. There were about 30 people there tonight, and it was a fun and lively crew. Here’s some of my favorites from the evening, you can see the entire set here:

A heads-up to all my european friends – I’m coming to Madrid November 11th to the 21st. I’m going to be doing some work while there, so this isn’t a simple vacation, but I expect that there will be a reasonable amount of free time during my stay. If you want to meet up (I’d really love to do a Madrid Photowalk sometime, anyone up for it?) drop me an email or leave a comment here.

Today was the last Sunday in October, and that meant that it was time for the annual Illegal Soap Box Derby on Bernal Heights Hill in San Francisco. I brought the family, and it was fantastic. There was a very relaxed atmosphere, and yet many people had brought some pretty sophisticated soap box racers. I bumped into Scott Beale as we were leaving, and he gave me more background of the Derby – appraently, there’s no permit, no cops, and thus no safety patrol – and I gotta tell you, that just added to the charm of the event – truly a real San Francisco event that just felt really natural and friendly. It was my first trip all the way to the top of Bernal Heights hill, and even though it doesn’t look like much on Google Earth, it really gave a spectacular view of downtown San Francisco, the Bay Bridge, and locations to the four points on the compass – all the way to Twin Peaks to the east, Daly City to the south, the Bay Bridge and Oakland piers to the east, and of course, the downtown financial district to the north. Quite beautiful. Many thanks to Telstar Logistics for getting this organized.

One of the great things about a soap box derby is the sounds you hear – No loud engines, no robots chopping heads off, just a bunch of adults, kids, and dogs hanging out in the beautiful afternoon enjoying some death-defying feats powered only by gravity. Occasionally, a motorcycle was overheard pulling a raer back up the course, sort of a victory lap for the intrepid few who dared to risk the course.

The entire set of my pictures are up on flickr, here’s a smattering of my favoritest:

Drafting into Turn 2

Stuntman (and SF native) Jason Pullen impresses the crowd

No Pain, No Gain: Roadrash Edition

Technorati Tags: bernalheights, bernalheightssoapboxderby, bernalheightssoapboxderby2007, puppy, sanfrancisco, soapboxderby

Technorati Tags: comic, dsifry, micah, msifry, comiclife, puppy, sifry

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Loic at his workspace (Seesmic) – 4132.jpg

Originally uploaded by David Sifry

I love startups, especially when they’re my friends just getting their new businesses off the ground. Here’s Loic LeMeur at Seesmic‘s offices (just being built out) with his tools of the trade.

He’s on the phone with one of his investors, telling him about the phenomenal takeup of Seesmic’s early alpha.