US Trip: CA and TX

I went back to the United States from May 24 to June 6 to attend the GDG Organizer Summit and Google I/O 2015, and to visit my aunt in Dumas, Texas and Celine's aunts in West Covina, California.

I left Manila on May 24 via Eva Air and arrived in Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport for a short lay-over. It was my first time in Taiwan. I walked and looked around in the airport before our flight to San Francisco. After arriving to San Francisco Airport, I took the hotel shuttle to stay at Aloft San Francisco Airport. I walked to the nearby BART station to go to Downtown San Francisco. I met with a former officemate to have dinner and to buy a prepaid SIM card.

The next day, I went to SFO to meet up with the other GDG organizers and took the shuttle to DoubleTree Hilton San Jose. I went to the venue of our summit, Computer History Museum for a technical rehearsal of talks (I have a demo of the GDG Watch Face on the second day). In the evening, we had dinner with GDG organizers in APAC.

On May 26 and 27, we had the GDG Global Organizer Summit 2015. After the second day, we went straight to Moscone to register and get our I/O badges for Google I/O (May 28-29). I roamed around San Francisco on May 30 before my midnight flight to Texas. There is a short lay-over in Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport in Texas before the flight to Rick Husband Amarillo International Airport in Amarillo, Texas. My aunt and her husband picked me up in the airport and we went to Dumas, Texas. Texas is the third US state I have been to.

I left Texas to go to LA on June 4. My lay-over was in Denver International Airport in Denver, Colorado (Colorado is the fourth US state I have been to though I was just in the airport). Then, I went to Celine's aunts in LA before going back to Philippines.

Google I/O 2015

I was able to attend Google I/O 2015 which was held at Moscone West in San Francisco, California on May 28 and 29.

It's really a different experience to watch the I/O keynote live. If you haven't watched the keynote here, you can watch it here. You can also videos of the sessions and more at https://events.google.com/io2015/videos.

After the keynote, we were given the new Cardboard. Then, we went on to the different sessions and talks happening at the same time. Like last year, I went to most of the talks (instead of the sessions which are being livestreamed and recorded). Most of the talks though have a lot of interested participants and the space is not enough for everyone.

There were a lot of cool stuff announced at I/O: Android M Developer Preview, Android Pay, Chrome Custom Tabs, Brillo and Weave, Cardboard Expeditions, Google Photos, ATAP's projects (Jacquard, Soli, Vault, Abacus, Ara), and many more.

The video below shows the highlights of this year's Google I/O

Attending Google I/O is really a great learning experience. I'm looking forward to cool stuff I could build next.

GDG Organizer Summit 2015

Most GDG (Google Developer Group) organizers going to I/O 2015 attended the GDG Organizer Summit at Computer History Museum in Mountain View on May 26 and 27.

On the morning of the first day, we had the welcome and community keynote, and talks about Google Translate Community, Web, and GDG Wisdom Gitbook. In the afternoon, we had two workshops: CSI:Lab (Creative Skills for Innovation) and Non-violent Communications.

The second day sessions were divided into six tracks. I attended the Firebase, Kubernetes, Community Leadership, GDG Attendance Counter, and GDG Creations sessions. In the GDG Creations/App Demo Lightning talk, I did a short demo of the GDG Android Wear Watch Face that I just published a few days before.

Photo taken by Esther from GDG Surabaya

Afterwards, we met shortly for the Study Jams Debrief and closing before going to Moscone to register and get our I/O badges.