In April 2024 I was invited to attend the End Game Summit hosted by Action on Smoking in Health in Washington DC. It was a wonderful experience and I really got to see a lot of DC that I hadn’t seen before. That was my first real “trip” after the fire.

I also met Dr. Jeremiah Mack when I was wandering around the national mall. He had recognized my beard and me from the summit. He also lives in the Bay Area. We hung out a bit at the museums and then he told me about this symposium, which I was not aware of in time in 2024. I’m so glad I went and that it is on my home turf. I took the day off my remote job and went into San Francisco like a real commuter, which I hadn’t done in many years, taking the ferry both ways. I was a ferry rider for four years in New York City years ago.

Not judging well how long public transportation would take me when I got off the ferry, I did cheat a little and take Uber in both directions, but I did not want to be too late to the symposium, nor did I want it to miss the next of the infrequent ferries back to Vallejo.

Here are pictures from my commute and the lobby of UCSF:

Here are pictures from the symposium itself, with just a handful of the amazing fellow activists in this area, from all over the country. Some of them are involved with tobacco control globally, too.