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 ) 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.