Siggraph 2007 - Sunday

View from East Side of Hotel

Yes, it's time to report on Siggraph 2007 in San Diego. I drove my mini convertible down from Los Angeles and broke in the engine at 110 mph on the 73. That was too much fun but I need to be more careful. Bad Angie!

I arrived in San Diego Sunday afternoon and checked into our hotel - the Marina Mariott. What a beautiful hotel! We were on the 20th floor and the pic above is the view on one side of the hotel of the San Diego Convention Center. Below, is the view of the pool from our room and the view of the Harbor. Just gorgeous! Click on any images here to see the hi-rez view.

After arranging the room and unpacking a bit...the first thing I did was check out the lounge downstairs and see who was around. Javier Solsona of Rigging101.com was sitting with Dan Herman and Mark Oftedal from Digital Fish. I joined them for some drinks and eats. I also rang up Mark Elendt and Calin Casian to come downstairs and join us.

Mark Elendt and Calin Casian

Mark Elendt is Senior Mathematician at Side Effects
Software and a Senior Mc-smartie in my book.

Mark has won 2 Scientific/Technical Awards!
He won the Technical Achievement Award (Academy Certificates) in 1997: For the development of the procedural modeling and animation components of the Prisms software package. (w. Greg Hermanovic, Kim Davidson and Paul Breslin) and the Scientific and Engineering Awards (Academy Plaques) in 2002: For their continued development of the procedural modeling and animation components of their Prisms program, as exemplified in the Houdini software package. (w. Greg Hermanovic, Kim Davidson and Paul Breslin).

Calin Casian was my "right-hand man" in my quest to make a character tool set in Houdini usable. He is a Character TD who actually listens to animators...how rare! He is also Romanian with a very funny accent!

So, between Mark and Mark, Calin, Dan, Javier...I had a pretty kewl little table to share stories with, before I even went out for the night!

The best thing about having Siggraph in San Diego is the Gas Lamp Quarter. This is the fun part of downtown San Diego where all the action is...it feels alot like New Orleans to me, but not so humid.

So, the first night we went to a restaurant called Chive. The 3D Pro guys were going to the Yard House for cocktails and we figured we would join them after we got some real food in our tummies. Chive was perfect mellow start because everyone knows the evening entertainment at Siggraph requires a long distance attitude - not a sprint...you must pace yourself!

We had several people join us there...Darin Hofmeyr, Leyla Tirgari (Accounts Rep from SESI), Sarah Counnas (Technology Production Manager at DreamWorks Animation), Mark Elendt and Calin - of course, Ran Sariel (Rigging Supervisor on the new Outlander movie), Graham and Keith Acheson from SESI who helped me with the Happy Birthday SESI Demo we showed this past week at the booth! We were having such a good time at Chive with the amazing food and martinis...I forgot to take pix, but we eventually moved on through Darin's cajoling towards the Yard House. This place had more beer taps than I have ever seen. Even more than the DD favorite - Library Ale House!

Motley Crew - Darin, Leyla, Brian, Graham, Calin and Keith

Brian, Me, Darin

So, I barely got a gulp of my martini down and Sarah again announced we were going to move on to another place to drink and meet up with folks! Sheesh! We all hurried to finish our drinks and moved the whole group to some place that had 3.00$ Margaritas and a bunch of DD peeps. Who'da thought?

On the way - as we all followed Leyla, (which btw was like trying to follow Mr. Magoo because she kept screaming into the phone..."Where is it!?" and leading us all down the wrong streets).

So, there was this girl at one of the many bar patios we passed along the way who kept saying "hola! hola!" and waving her hand like she was the queen of England!

I had to take a snap of her because it was so funny. Evidently her group was Italian and they learned to say Hola! instead of Ciao!

Crazy Italian saying Hola!
So, we finally caught up with the other group at the 3.00 Margarita Bar, here is Sarah chatting up Phillipe (one of the Side Effects presenters) and a few other CG guys.: Check out that 3.00$ Margarita she is holding...Whoa!