dinner with friends

Hooray for when folks I know and like so much come to town.  Janice is here for a few weeks, running a program at UCLA.  Andrew flew in to be a speaker yesterday (I was a panelist for Janice the day before).  What an opportunity!  Even though it's a 50+ miles slog round trip, Conrad and I happily met them for dinner at Wolfsglen.

I didn't photograph the food.  Low lighting plus chat conspired against that.  I liked the food - my pork chop was about the most tender I've ever had.  The service wasn't great, though.  The hostess was delightful, the bar staff (Conrad and I arrived early, so we had a drink) were terrific.  But after taking our order, our waitress disappeared, and the man who replaced her never seemed to give us much attention.  I think he was the last waiter there, but well into our meal, the place was pretty emptied out.  We might have had dessert, but we sat a long time (and he didn't even mention it as an option).  Ah well.  The restaurant isn't all that close, so I likely wouldn't have gone back anyway given the distance.  What's important is that we got a chance to get together with some very lovely people.

the conference that was

I'm going to do one conference post to collect thoughts and photos on the time there that I haven't yet posted.  It's already a few days behind me, and, honestly?  I'm glad it's behind me.  There was a lot of contentious stuff in meetings, and I had to say some things that have probably ruffled some feathers.  Certainly, I can think of one or more people I essentially will not be speaking to any longer.

Happy thoughts, though, Peter.  Let's do this.

A nice train trip down to San Diego from Los Angeles.  I rode in comfort

and had the ocean side view on my trip. 

The hotel was then an easy walk from the train station.  Once I got to my room, well, whoa! 

Big suite.  No view to speak of, but come on, a pool table? 

Wow.  I wish I had had meetings in my suite (it had a small conference room), but at least I had folks over for drinks and snacks and chat a few times.

I didn't take a lot of photos during the conference, I realized.  Just wasn't in the mood for it, maybe?  But I did get good morning walks every day with Amy, or Sam, or both. 

I snuck Conrad in

to see the opening session with Lessa interviewing Trevor Noah,

and I got some photos with folks like Loida and Peter,

Sam,

Cindy,

and Andrew and Janice then. 

A really great turnout for that session!

There were a few other events and opportunities to get shots with folks.  There I am with Bill. 

There I am with Matt. 

There I am with Matt again but in a different setting. 

There's Conrad on a hotel balcony at a reception. 

There's a view from that same deck. 

There's me on that deck.

After that, I mostly only took occasional photos at dinner.  We had a nice enough meal but weird experience (a fire eater?  photos at the table then offered for sale?) at a place called Salvatore's.  Good cocktail, though! 

We had an underwhelming dinner at Juniper & Ivy

(interesting menu, but the dishes were less than we hoped, and the service was lagging).  We had a nice meal of pasta

at Cesarina punctuated a little too frequently by the planes low overhead coming into the airport.  We had a decent meal

with Peter and Matt at Barbusa (and another good cocktail:  the Italian Love Affair),

and then came back to the room to toast Peter with Champagne.  A lovely, affectionate end to our time there.

And then it was Wednesday and the drive home.

So then, the conference is done, and hooray for that.  May the ones next year be better.  Based on this one, though, I'm inclined to skip going to Minneapolis at least.