I previously described a little of the first two days of my trip, but there is more to tell! As you can probably guess, there is a slight temperature difference in Santa Monica, and by day 3 (Wednesday) I was starting to grow attached to it. I really wish I had a better camera, as there was the potential while walking to the office that day, for a nice shot of a humming bird on the top of one of these palms. This camera only has so much zoom though. Considering that it was 6am, the lighting was particularly the best either, however as you can see from these images, 3rd street is beautiful regardless of the time of day. Below and to the right, you will see Santa Monica’s 3rd Street Promenade.
This is a rather nice section of town as well where the SESI building can be found along with lots of trendy shops, booths for street vendors, restaurants, and homeless people. A little further down (and I regret not taking a picture now) is where the Farmer’s Market happens twice (I think) a week. They were just setting up as I was going to work though, and so at the time I didn’t think it to be a worthy photo. Something which *was* a worthy photo… but unfortunately a location that I’m unsure of my rights to display was the location in which I did training on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. The campus was lavish, and impressive but the shots I took of that locale shall remain private.
However, I felt that the training went exceptionally well. I got a few compliments on my teaching, and had an overall sense that the attendees very much were paying attention, absorbing, and are interested in continuing to push their Houdini skills. A nice thing for Side Effects I think. It was also nice of course on a personal level to a: be able to pass on some stuff that I’ve learned, and b: to meet cool people who love visual effects.
Aliza Sorotzkin, who is now the Training and School
Accounts Manager in the SM office of Side Effects was kind enough to force me into the Pacific ocean on Wednesday night. I got to see the pier, but she was adamant that my feet had to go in the ocean. What can I say? It was about the same temperature as if I were to go out onto the concrete, barefoot here in Toronto at the moment. See? Not that bad! I don’t understand why the beach would be some empty this time of year. That said, I was surprised at how many ambitious fishermen were casting their lines from the pier. I’m curious as to whether these people eat their catch? That’s something I’d be surprised to see at the other end of the continent.
Alas, my Thursday was undocumented with photos, however I did get to go to the Houdini User Group LA (HOUPLA) where I met up with some mad peeps yo. Rachael Campbell (That’s with no “a”, right Rachael?), Graham (again), Erika Salatiello (congrats on the new job!), and Jason Iverson (who rashly lost his long hair *tisk tisk*) were among those who were there. A great bunch of people. I should also mention that I met some of the past (and present) interns of Side Effects while there. Eddie Smith, Karl Kohlman, John Arballo, James Kirk, and Eric Rosenthal are all super cool people. Though apparently not too big on making websites.
Friday I got to see L.A. itself! I didn’t see any stars in LA, but I did see Venus! Though, I didn’t make it downtown during my trip, Eric and Anna from the LA office took me up to the Griffith Park Observatory. I learned that staff doesn’t appreciate it when you climb on walls to take photos of the city. I also learned they get very confused if after they suggest that you get down, you tell them “it’s fine.” Well it was! There was a roof not 6 feet down on the other side… besides, I needed to rest my camera on something stable to get any night time photos without a tripod. We also looked into a telescope while there. Venus is partially visible at the moment… actually I guess I lied earlier, I did see stars. I was rather surprised at the night time visibility in the area. Toronto is just a haze at night.
Saturday was my last full day in the area, and since I wasn’t leaving my hotel at the crack of dawn for a change, I actually paid attention to the hotel property. I was surprised to learn that the tree outside my window was a banana tree, and that there were also oranges about. I also had a class to teach that day at the SESI office concerning Attributes and Expressions. The class went rather well in my opinion, and there was a full attendance. I hope to get some time to record a version of the class for online. Pretty simple, yet essential stuff I think. It’s probably a good idea as well if at SESI we get some tutorials containing the training I did the rest of the week in LA. It was a pretty good bootcamp I think.
Overall, it was a cool week in Santa Monica, but apparently not quite as cool as snowy Toronto. Mind you I’ve always been a fan of lower temperatures and so it’s actually rather tough to determine which climate I prefer. It was rather nice when I got to Santa Monica… probably what I’d consider perfect weather (though the locals seemed to require multiple layers. I fear for what it would be like in the dead of summer. On the plus side, when in Santa Monica I didn’t have a cold… yet here I am back in T-Dot, stricken with a illness mere hours after my return to Canada. Hooray for sickness!