I had the pleasure of accompanying my wife on a recent business trip to San Francisco where her organization, ASAE, had hired Merlin Mann to speak for one of their events. ZeFrank was to keynote the event, but at the last minute, we found out that he was ill and unable to attend. Merlin graciously stepped up and keynoted in his place doing an excellent job.

I've been a huge fan of Merlin for a long time. He is the reason my first DSLR lens was a 50mm, that I know what Thayers™ Original Witch Hazel is, and my yacht wax of choice is Monocle Pete's Magic Yacht Wax. If none of that makes sense to you, well....you're missing out.

Fortunately, I remembered to bring my Flip Ultra HD and Gorillapod with me to San Francisco. However, I want to apologize for the quality of video/audio as my thought to record this was last minute. The room wasn't very videographer friendly, but I managed to attach them to the back of a chair. It starts off a bit shaky a first but settles down after a few minutes. As several times the view is obstructed by some audience members but it shouldn't interfere too badly with your watching/listening to Merlin.

During the event and afterward I snapped a few pictures with both my iPhone 4 and Canon 40D. I event got a few pictures with Merlin and myself. He really is the nicest man on the internet folks.