After some quiet days in San Diego, I left on Tuesday to take the train to Los Angeles and go to the SIGGRAPH conference. Soon after I got to my hotel, Don Mitchell called and we had a long chat in the hotel bar where they were not serving, so things were quiet. Then we headed over to the convention center where we met Pat Hanrahan. I went off and encountered Greg Humphreys (Humper) Wim Sweldems (who was about to get on the redeye back to NJ) Emil Praun and Peter Schroeder. Then, Ben Shedd appeared and someone took my picture. After capturing Lee Markosian, it was time to gather for the bowling event. Perry was there as were Tom and Szymon. Allison Klein was trying on her shirt, Georg Essl was looking for his and Adam insisted on taking pictures of me, front and back. Tom Sanocki was welcoming Lena Petrovic to Pixar as Wagner Correa watched. On the way back to the hotel, I ran into Robert McDermott and his family. Because of the energy crisis, the restaurant that night was fairly dark and so it wasn't possible to capture the meal or even the outrageous bill on film.

Wednesday, the faculty gathered for lunch to discuss hardware purchases. Kai Li was there as were Adam Perry Szymon and Tom. Dinner that night was from room service because all of the restaurants had lines that were too long.

On Thursday, I had lunch with Leo Guibas and Robbin Forrest who seemed dubious about someone taking pictures while eating. On the way back to the hotel, I saw this symbol of the oppression of the working man by corporate America.

Thursday dinner was at Ciudad which had this nice menu. Ruth was jittery at first but then calmed down. We began with tapas and chips with dip accompanied by this fine beer. The main course was empenadas and salad.

On Friday, I didn't bring the camera to the conference, which was a shame because I missed a number of good photo opportunities. On the train to Fullerton, I met a man named Glenn in the crowds and also didn't get his picture or a picture of the painting he was doing because the train was too crowded to get access to my camera. But, when I arrived in La Habra, it was no problem to get a picture of Dusty and then a number of group pictures as we prepared for the pilgrimage to El Cholo. Along the way we saw this warning sign and then the international headquarters for Stop Look, but nothing was more exciting than this opportunity to actually use our shirts. We met the others when we arrived and admired the menu which listed 3 pages of food. Jane and Sarah were ready to enjoy their food but Janet and Suzanne were a little jumpy and Benjamin was all over the place. Larry looked good as did David who also recorded the history of the place. They brought chips and sauce while Benjamin worked hard on his pictures and some drank margarittas and others had sangria. The sugar packets inspired us to take this family picture. Jane had the chicken enchiladas Sarah had the vegetarian ones that came with black beans and Janet had these quesadillas but only 1 serving. Larry had this tostada salad Benjamin had this Mexican spaghetti Suzanne had the taco and this is David's green corn tamale. After Janet modeled this mask we knew it was time to call it a day.

Saturday began with a visit to international headquarters where there was a shortage of static cling letters but the entry was well marked. Inside we saw some memorabilia on signs and a picture of our fearless leader and his wife. We weren't sure if this sign meant his brain was open or closed. The equipment there is impressive and they are EEO-compliant at least as of 10 years ago or so. They also had some nice letters and these handy signs if you wanted to go into one of these businesses and you could get the frames here to hang them. The Christie's sign had a good story to it, the forklift was high powered and we were sure to punch the time clock before leaving.

In the afternoon, we got passed by the other car and so followed them for a while until getting next to them and so taking this picture for no apparent reason. Eventually, we found a parking place here right near this intersection and passing this house on the way to the beach where we met some others and then saw the French group in their matching shirts. We took the first free coffee picture of Sarah and observed the 2 flying billboards. This sign was charming being made of parts we'd seen earlier. So, it was time to check out the sites a montage of piercing, tattooing, toe rings, ... stores. At muscle beach we took this family picture as the workout continued. Another sign let us know where we were. And this sign told us the rules. So, we took another free coffee picture of Sarah. This man had the first nice ink we saw. This led to yet another free coffee picture and then this picture of inspirational verse that made us thirsty, so we all drank water and then came back to find Larry and Janet who found the man with the man with the top knot. Janet and Sarah thought we had to take the picture of the lime house after which we saw this man with wonderful ink.

Next it was time to go to the playground where Benjamin climbed while this guy turned upside down and these people boxed. This all inspired more climbing as people watched and even more climbing as even more people watched. The final climb wasn't quite what these people were doing. Her ink had a good name on it. Then we saw the devil man (and stole a picture) while this woman explained the evils of smoking to Sarah and Jane. We really liked the idea of NameOnRice.com as the fog starting rolling in over the street scene so that Jane and Larry decided to go here to get French fries while the rest of us ignored his suggestion that we buy sarongs. Instead, we admired the skates sign and stole a picture of the robots and then enjoyed the vegetarian booth expounding the evils of Murder King and Unhappy Meals. This woman from back and front had wonderful hair. And, then the french fries came looking quite greasy. We took this picture during a pit stop at the world's dirtiest men's room, passed the sign and view of the canals, noted the arrival of new music and took a picture of this Jeep Wrangler for Lucy.

On the ride to Westwood, we passed this sign for Mama's Pizza and this Radio Shack before we got to Sanat Monica Boulevard. Once in Westwood, we saw a theater playing Jane's favorite movie and this storefront with 8 (count them 8 8 8 8) of Stop Look's signs. We took the obligatory phone booth picture when Janet made a phone call, We recorded this guy at Dominos and noticed that no one was honking -- you decide. Then, there was the key picture for the Stop Look web site. Dinner was at this restaurant where the menu is barely readable due to low light. This made the pictures of Larry and Sarah a little blurry, but Suzanne was very foggy from the beach except when she looked down. Benjamin seemed calm enough, Janet didn't but Jane did and who can forget when Elizabeth, the waitress, got up to sing. We made our way to Giorgio Armani and then tried to get these pictures of the largest limo we'd ever seen. We saw the Rugrats and took this picture for Benjamin which brought us luck so that we could see this SUV limo and another theater showing Jane's favorite movie. Walter Mathau was there, so was Tom Hanks, and Nicolas Cage was the latest to be added. Jane wanted this star so that she could doctor is to show her name and we ended the day with this famous resident of Princeton.