rabbit: Where to begin? The completion of this task has to be by far one of the best ones I've done so far. I know people's first thoughts are "oh, he was already planning to move to SF and he's just getting easy points." But the truth of the matter is that SF0 had a significant impact on my decision to move to SF. Let's take a small trip into the past to trace down the course of actions that have me sitting in SF looking at the Sutro Tower out my window.

In October of 2002, the black and white Hiptop device was released. I was a "late" early adopter and got mine in January. Over the course of the next few years my involvement in the Hiptop/Sidekick commnity would grow beyond what I would have expected. I ended up meeting s4xton and bananachunks through the Hiptop. In addition my path crossed briefly with rubin and nicoles as they were also familiar with the Hiptop community and even dropped in the irc channel I frequent. In May of 2006 s4xton sent me a link to sf0. Like many at first there was the stage of confusion, understanding, and then enthusiasm. I signed up, and starting doing tasks as a lone Chicago suburb player.

For years I had considered living in California. For those that don't know I had a 7 year relationship end the month before I joined sf0. I realized that thanks to this break, I was as free as I had ever been and now was the time to seriously consider California, even though I'd never even been out to visit. So I decided a visit was in order first. That way I could experience California first hand and see if I would like living there. Bananachunks had recently relocated from Atlanta to California, and was in San Francisco. We started chatting and he invited me out for a week. A quick talk with work and I turned that week into half vacation, half work, and let my manager know that I was playing with the idea of relocating. Shortly after booking my plane tickets I received the invite to Journey to the End of the Night. How perfect that it fell on the very weekend I would be in SF. After some discussion, s4xton also ended up buying a plane ticket on frequent flyer miles and would fly out to meet me and bananachunks for the event.

Fast forward to June. Both s4xton and I flew in to SF, and we dragged bananachunks to the Journey to the End of the Night event. I had an incredible time that night, running around this brand new city and loving every minute of it. Jumping on buses, running down streets, meeting new people. I hadn't had this much fun in a long time.

The event went late into the night and we soon found ourselves lost in the city and ended up heading to Ocean Beach for the bonfire party. Once there, among a number of other people, I met nicoles and rubin, key players in this relocation. They taught me how to spin fire, even having me light up for real. We chatted about Burning Man (which I had already decided I was attending) and my impression of SF and the people got better and better as the night went on. As we sat around the fire late into the night I got to know several of the players in sf0, including the founders. I also met the infamous Piratey Monkey. By the end of the night my decision to move to SF was absolute. In less than 2 days in San Francisco I had encountered some incredible people and had an excellent time. Throw in a night at the Fire Jam at NIMBY (on invitation from nicoles and rubin), going to Treasure Island as a task, and I couldn't think of anywhere else I'd want to live.

With a longing heart, I flew home, with the thought of "just 4 months" on my mind as my lease would not be up until November. Luckily Burning Man was about halfway through that long wait. At Burning Man I met and spent time with quite a few sf0 players (nicoles, rubin, piratey monkey, oliver x, avidd opolis, gadget, inktea, star5, s4, celina copperbottom, aaron muszalski, faux, mella hyperborea, mooflyfloof and more I'm sure) We had a great time with Gadget's Playa Task as well as a great time at Burning Man.

Back home in Chicago I tried to rally some other Hiptop friends in order to start up a Chicago contingency before I defected to the SF crew. I was able to recruit matt jakubowski, Xarow Owr, Chris Falco, MrOts Krad, bird cordwrangler, Steven McGrath, and indirectly Jacob Adili. But the time soon came and it was time to pack up the apartment, the two cats and Relocate to San Francisco!

I flew into SF the first week of November and ended up landing the first apartment I looked at, complete with an incredible view of the Sutro Tower. I'll have a great seat when a flag finally gets planted. Oddly enough the splash screen for the Google Local Mobile app for the Sidekick is across the street from my apartment. Rubin was an incredible help for the few days I was in town. He picked me up from the airport, helped hunt for apartments, taxied me around the city, introduced me to the best burritos, provided me a place to crash, and more! I couch surfed between rubin and bananachunks places for a few days and then flew back to Chicago to grab everything and drive back up. My father flew into town, helped out with the uhaul loading and then we got on the road for a long trip. We dubbed the trip "OSF", an acronym with multiple meanings: Operation San Francisco, Odyssey to San Francisco, and Oh Shit that's Far. Rather than tell the whole story of the trip, I think the photos on my flickr document it rather well. After 2631 miles (based on the odometer), my father and I pulled into San Francisco. Rubin met us at my new apartment and we unloaded my wordly belongings.

At some point in the blur of the next few days, rubin took me over to piratey monkey's to visit. She invited us over for Thanksgiving dinner, a pleasant surprise since I would have otherwise been alone on Thanksgiving with family on the other side of the country. A little over a week later, I'm still here, and I will be here for at least a year since that's what my lease is for. In the short week I've been here, I don't see myself leaving anytime soon. I'm definitely staying for the people. A huge thank you to everyone who played a part as well as to sf0 itself for existing. I doubt I'd be here if it wasn't for the connections made through sf0.

Best task ever.

Rubin: I'm just tagging along on this task, due to the awesomeness of Rabbit and the fact that he had this task in queue when it hit retired mode. Not much to say about my move. SF0 was a large part of why, also SF in its self. This more or less sums up when I stuck with the idea of moving out here.



My move looked something like this.



Sometimes I make up tasks that I don't expect anyone to complete. Sometimes I make up tasks for one particular person. Sometime I make up tasks I don't even think I'd complete. Strange strange game. Woot for EFNet.

rabbit:
I also added you as a collaborator cause this wouldn't have been possible without your help. :)