We've started a new project, with a new client. Can't say what or who yet, but I will say that I'm looking forward to getting things running so that I can start using it for myself.

Michael and I flew out last Sunday morning, and thanks to the magic of time zones, landed shortly after we took off. We headed straight to A Donkey and Goat's winery -- right next to Wine.com -- where Jared Brandt of Zentact makes his wine. As a side note, while we were in San Francisco, we launched Zentact to the public; if you haven't tried it out, you should.

Jared hooked us up with a special tasting of some incredible wines. He even gave us wine from the exact same vines, but one year apart. Being a novice wine taster, I was surprised at the difference in flavor due to the environment at the time of harvest. It definitely gave me a better idea of what flavors to look for in wines, and how to spot them. After the tasting, we walked over with him to Vic's for some great Indian food, and then had the rest of the day to meet with the rest of the Cloudspace family and catch up with those that went out to SF as part of the MyBlogLog sale.

For the evening, we met with our new client for a dinner at Foreign Cinema in SF. Lots of things were discussed, but I can't repost them here. You'll have to wait about 3 months. :D

On Monday morning at sunrise, I challenged John Sampson of Zentact to a run on his home turf of San Francisco. He took me running up the streets, up the hills, and up hundreds of stairs. In fact, I don't ever remember actually going down a hill, just more up. But, I still managed to keep pace with him -- not bad for a flat-land Florida native.

That morning was our first client meeting for some early conceptual discussions, regarding his vision and reasons for building this new project. After a quick lunch, we all headed out to First Round Capital. They've previously worked with the Cloudspace family, and were kind enough to let us use their new office for a few days of planning. That evening, I got to meet up with a friend from Orlando who recently moved out to SF to work at Industrial Light & Magic. If you've enjoyed a flashy movie recently, you can thank him.

Tuesday started off with a breakfast at Stacks, a local breakfast shop. If you've never tried a bacon waffle -- do it. We met Ian Kennedy, a former MyBlogLogger whose gone off to Nokia to run social media projects. He showed us his phone, and I don't know if I can be specific about the things he showed us, but let's just say his phone rocks the pants off mine. He's going to be bringing us the most amazing new features in the next few years. After that, it was off to First Round again, for more planning, as well as grabbing Kent some chocolate chip cookies. :D

That night we met Rahmin Sarabi for dinner at EOS. Rahmin is a Sr. Product Manager at Future US. The whole evening was fantastic -- Rahmin is filled with ideas, great for conversation; the food was amazing. If you find yourself at this restaurant, order the steak in a Belgian Ale sauce with cornmeal onion rings. It is unrealistically flavorful, and the cornmeal gave the onions a great crunch.

After dinner Rahmin took us to Torinado, the greatest place to get a beer -- ever. The walls were covered with every beer tap I could think of and tons others that I didn't even recognize. The bartender was rocking his great taste in music and we met some really cool people.

Wednesday had us actually doing the Zentact launch. It was a great launch, everything worked as expected, and we got lots of excellent press. We also met with Eric Marcoullier, the co-founder of Gnip, a very handy service. We discussed a new service he wants to launch for Gnip, in line with his attitude of "if everyone's got to do a thing, do it once, do it right, and then let them use yours". I'm looking forward to building it, and making it scale up will be a fun project. Dinner was at Slanted Door, where we ate and drank for four hours, while talking with our new client, and Greg Cohn. Greg has some awesome ideas for how to get the whole internet industry producing a larger number of awesome services, faster than today.

Thursday was our last day of San Francisco. In between planning and reviewing, we walked down the hill from the Sampson house to grab a bite to eat, and swung by the Golden Gate Park. The city has a really great park, and it should definitely be a part of any visit to SF. We walked around the Japanese Tea Garden, and also saw the new California Academy of Sciences. Their building is covered by two domes, and both have huge skylights for natural lighting. The areas that aren't skylights are covered in grass -- their roof looks better than some people's lawns.

We ended the day with Ryan Kuder of Neighborsville, who joined us at Blowfish. Ryan has some really ambitious plans for Neighborsville, and I hope to see it covering my area soon.

From dinner, it was straight to the airplane, to take us away from the hills, and back to the flat. One personal note, if you're ever booking a cross-country flight, be sure to uncheck box for "sit next to a body builder". You will have a much better flight than I did. :D