GitHub: Summer Summit

[Note: this actually happened in August, but we only just now got access to most of the photos.]

Every now and then, GitHub flies all of its widely-scattered employees into San Francisco for a week of meetings, parties, and events. This is the third one of these that we’ve been to (one, two), and the largest by quite a bit – there are 215 employees in the photo this time.

The week opened with a San Francisco Giants game. We started out with brunch in Triples Alley, scored some free t-shirts, and walked on the field to our excellent seats.

Here’s what Summit looks like during the day. We had a ton of 30-foot-long Chesterfield sofas brought in to hold all of us.

At night there are always events around the city. One night we had dinner and played billiards at Jillian’s.

This is my serious business face. I reserve it for the most serious of businesses.

This time there were official and organized family events! (These are the people who self-identify as “plus-ones” or “hubber huggers”.) One of them was a trip to the California Academy of Sciences, a place we will definitely be taking the kids to when they’re ready for SF. Here’s Becky, flying her Team Grape colors.

One night, after dinner from food carts (which, by the way, are every bit as good as Portland’s), we headed to the Public Works club for a techno party known as Code Bass. Becky picked up a pair of hot pink short-shorts at my request. Yes, for me.

There’s always a Fancy dinner, where everyone dresses in their finest. I think we clean up pretty well.

One day broke down into lots of smaller group activities, one of which was indoor go-kart racing at GoKart Racer. These are not bumper cars; we all wore fireproof suits, real helmets, and it was hard work. And also a ton of fun. I can’t recommend this highly enough if you don’t hate driving.

We’ve apparently made a habit of traveling when our real estate deals close. Our trip to Wisconsin included two hours at a notary, and we had to take a break between events this time to hang out at the FedEx store.

GitHub was about to move into a new office, so one evening’s parties were thrown there. Here’s us grinning from the rooftop deck.

At the end of the week, I and some coworkers took a train to Mountain View to have lunch with some Googlers we occasionally have contact with online. Becky took a wine-tasting trip in the Napa valley with some of my other coworkers. I’m only a little jealous.

I got her back the next day, though. We did all of the touristy things; we visited the Palace of Fine Arts, and walked across the Golden Gate Bridge. We hiked the Land’s End trail, stopping at the Legion of Honor, the Sutro Baths, and the giant camera obscura.