California
Jul. 27th, 2010 09:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
badseed1980Hello all!
I came home from California on Sunday evening. My wonderful![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
pierceheart picked me up at the airport without my even asking him to do so, and had Chinese food waiting at home for me! I'm a lucky woman.
Overall, the trip was a really good one. I learned quite a bit of interesting stuff at my conference, and got to compare notes with my peers at other organizations about how we do things. Some of the sessions were even pretty entertaining. It was also fun spending some "off-duty" time with my coworkers. Bonus: remember how I did that presentation on international research at a regional conference a while back, and then a company asked me to do it as a webinar? Well, the woman who runs that company came up and said hi at the conference. She told me that I was a really good presenter, and that she'd really love me to do another webinar for them, so I should let her know if I had any ideas! Now, I DON'T currently have any ideas, but that made me happy. I would definitely like to do that again, I think.
The social stuff was fun, too. I got to go out to dinner withsororbabylon and her honey on Thursday night. Anaheim being full of chain restaurants, we went to a nearby town for some rather tasty Thai food. It was great seeing them. It's been YEARS, for crying out loud. I haven't seen them since they lived in Poughkeepsie.
Friday night I spent with coworkers. We all ended up sitting by the pool and drinking, then we finally got our act together and went for dinner in a hotel restaurant. I think I intimidated the waiter. He had rattled off a detailed description of a few wines, but I was in a beer mood. I asked him, "What can you tell me about [beer on the menu I've never heard of]?" "Oh, that's [beer on the menu you've never heard of]." "Yes, but what can you tell me about it?" "Um...it's beer?" "And...?" "It's handcrafted?" "OK, but is it a dark beer? A pale beer? Is it hoppy? Malty? Strong? Light?" "I...um..." "Never mind, I'll just give it a try." Coworkers were highly amused.
Saturday was a half-day, conference-wise. I had my only truly bad session that day, last one of the conference. I left before it ended, so I had a bit more time to get ready to go out withj4yx0r and his girlfriend O. They picked me up at noon, and we had a TWO HOUR drive to the sushi place in Santa Clarita. This was partly due to the fact that there was a godawful accident on the road. Seriously, the car was a charred hulk. Anyway, the sushi was very tasty and it was all-you-can-eat for a reasonable price. My stomach started hurting a bit afterwards, but I didn't pay too much attention to it.
Then we drove out to the Santa Monica Pier, which took a while. The gorgeous cool weather when we got there was lovely, though. I saw the Pacific for the first time, and waded in it a bit. We saw some people dressed as Spider Man, the Green Lantern, and Catwoman (OK, her costume was shite). Then we hit the arcade for skee-ball and other entertainments. We were watching O play Dance Dance Revolution when the stomachache became "oh hell, I'm going to puke." Fortunately, I found a convenient bathroom, and afterwards, I felt a lot less sick, but a little weak. We stuck around a bit longer, and heard a guy playing Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah," and then we left.
We drove through LA, going down Rodeo Drive where we couldn't afford anything, then looked at a little house porn in Beverly Hills, and then got to Hollywood. We walked to Grauman's Chinese Theater and looked at the footprints and handprints in front of it. Some of those old-time actresses had feet that would makemiss_lisa_ma look like Sasquatch, I swear it. And Denzel Washington has disappointingly small hands. Ah well. It was cool seeing those little frozen pieces of history. We then walked around for a bit and came to a pretty awesome California-Mexican restaurant called Lotería, after a Mexican card game where the cards have pictures on them something like Tarot cards (though many of the images are more mundane). The place was very cool just to look around. They also had more tequilas even than Rudy's. The food was good: I was able to get mole poblano! Yum! Then we went into a weird little Japanese convenience store, and then we headed back to my hotel, where I crashed.
The flights to and from CA were good. Virgin America is pretty sweet. I got to watch The Two Towers and The Return of the King on the flight home.
Next up: reviews of the two new-to-me books I read on my trip. But that will come later. I need to work.
I came home from California on Sunday evening. My wonderful
pierceheart picked me up at the airport without my even asking him to do so, and had Chinese food waiting at home for me! I'm a lucky woman.Overall, the trip was a really good one. I learned quite a bit of interesting stuff at my conference, and got to compare notes with my peers at other organizations about how we do things. Some of the sessions were even pretty entertaining. It was also fun spending some "off-duty" time with my coworkers. Bonus: remember how I did that presentation on international research at a regional conference a while back, and then a company asked me to do it as a webinar? Well, the woman who runs that company came up and said hi at the conference. She told me that I was a really good presenter, and that she'd really love me to do another webinar for them, so I should let her know if I had any ideas! Now, I DON'T currently have any ideas, but that made me happy. I would definitely like to do that again, I think.
The social stuff was fun, too. I got to go out to dinner with
sororbabylon and her honey on Thursday night. Anaheim being full of chain restaurants, we went to a nearby town for some rather tasty Thai food. It was great seeing them. It's been YEARS, for crying out loud. I haven't seen them since they lived in Poughkeepsie.Friday night I spent with coworkers. We all ended up sitting by the pool and drinking, then we finally got our act together and went for dinner in a hotel restaurant. I think I intimidated the waiter. He had rattled off a detailed description of a few wines, but I was in a beer mood. I asked him, "What can you tell me about [beer on the menu I've never heard of]?" "Oh, that's [beer on the menu you've never heard of]." "Yes, but what can you tell me about it?" "Um...it's beer?" "And...?" "It's handcrafted?" "OK, but is it a dark beer? A pale beer? Is it hoppy? Malty? Strong? Light?" "I...um..." "Never mind, I'll just give it a try." Coworkers were highly amused.
Saturday was a half-day, conference-wise. I had my only truly bad session that day, last one of the conference. I left before it ended, so I had a bit more time to get ready to go out with
j4yx0r and his girlfriend O. They picked me up at noon, and we had a TWO HOUR drive to the sushi place in Santa Clarita. This was partly due to the fact that there was a godawful accident on the road. Seriously, the car was a charred hulk. Anyway, the sushi was very tasty and it was all-you-can-eat for a reasonable price. My stomach started hurting a bit afterwards, but I didn't pay too much attention to it.Then we drove out to the Santa Monica Pier, which took a while. The gorgeous cool weather when we got there was lovely, though. I saw the Pacific for the first time, and waded in it a bit. We saw some people dressed as Spider Man, the Green Lantern, and Catwoman (OK, her costume was shite). Then we hit the arcade for skee-ball and other entertainments. We were watching O play Dance Dance Revolution when the stomachache became "oh hell, I'm going to puke." Fortunately, I found a convenient bathroom, and afterwards, I felt a lot less sick, but a little weak. We stuck around a bit longer, and heard a guy playing Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah," and then we left.
We drove through LA, going down Rodeo Drive where we couldn't afford anything, then looked at a little house porn in Beverly Hills, and then got to Hollywood. We walked to Grauman's Chinese Theater and looked at the footprints and handprints in front of it. Some of those old-time actresses had feet that would make
miss_lisa_ma look like Sasquatch, I swear it. And Denzel Washington has disappointingly small hands. Ah well. It was cool seeing those little frozen pieces of history. We then walked around for a bit and came to a pretty awesome California-Mexican restaurant called Lotería, after a Mexican card game where the cards have pictures on them something like Tarot cards (though many of the images are more mundane). The place was very cool just to look around. They also had more tequilas even than Rudy's. The food was good: I was able to get mole poblano! Yum! Then we went into a weird little Japanese convenience store, and then we headed back to my hotel, where I crashed.The flights to and from CA were good. Virgin America is pretty sweet. I got to watch The Two Towers and The Return of the King on the flight home.
Next up: reviews of the two new-to-me books I read on my trip. But that will come later. I need to work.
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Date: 2010-07-27 02:27 pm (UTC)BWAAAAAA-HAAAAAAAAAAAA-HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
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Date: 2010-07-27 02:29 pm (UTC)Welcome home
Date: 2010-07-27 02:50 pm (UTC)Re: Welcome home
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Date: 2010-07-27 05:13 pm (UTC)~j
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