Vacation, part 2, and Vacation 2? Yep. Part 2 is the rest of what I did while I was in Los Angeles for Caltech's Commencement, et al. But today, I fly again from Seattle to LA: this weekend is Anime Expo 2009, and next weekend is the Love Wedding in San Diego. Seriously: the groom, John Love, was a postdoc at Caltech, so he really can be called Dr. Love. And nowadays, even Professor Love. Yeah, it is fun. :-)
More pictures from hanging out in LA with friends Glenn, Shay, et al.:
Glenn and I visited our childhood friend Nick McGee (and his girlfriend Danielle). Nick does a lot of stage acting, from Shakespeare to ... Shakespeare musicals. This time, it was a dramatic adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's "Treasure Island." Totally cool.
Less cool is the picture of us mini-golfing. Glenn (center) and Nick look like healthy mini-golfers, whereas I look like an old man using my mini-golf putter as a cane. Still, a great time. :-) At the bottom, you can see the shadow cast by my camera.
I visited Eduardo Garcia and his fiancee, Allison, in Glendora. Ed and I used to play Settlers *all the time* back at Caltech. According to Ed, Glendora is known for only one thing: Donut Man.
But, as Ed said, that is not bad for one thing. They are famous for their strawberry donuts. (They also have peach when in season.)
They even make lemon-filled donuts! Yes!!!!
For Shay's birthday, we all went to Disneyland! Shay's mom and his sister Tori also joined us. I had not been to Disneyland since 1995, the year that the Indiana Jones ride came out. So that was 14 years ago. Indy was still fun.
I did not take many pictures at Disneyland, but here is one from a show based around Playhouse Disney. It was pretty interesting to see a live person interact with puppets of Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy, etc., while all the kids oohed and ahhed. The live person, Casey, was *incredibly* upbeat, as one might expect. So in that sense, quite a professional performance.
I found a great bargain at Disneyland. You know those penny-flattening machines at many tourist locations? You insert a penny (plus the fee), and the machine flattens the penny while imprinting it with an image from the tourist attraction. At Disneyland, they have a room filled with these machines, and they all cost less than $1, I think. What really surprised me was that the machines cover not just classic Disney stuff like Snow White but also really recent stuff, like Wall-E. Wall-E on a nickel? That's worth 80 cents!
Caltech Commencement was quite pleasant. The main speaker was Stephen Chu, now Secretary of Energy. One thing that stuck out for me was his only piece of advice to the graduates: "Be generous in your negotiations. Leave some change on the table."
I really took Dr. Chu's comment to heart, perhaps because I am Chinese-American. American culture emphasizes "me first," not "love your neighbor as yourself." And Chinese culture values shrewdness, not generosity. I was reminded of a garage sale I recently went to. There was a very large, nice wooden children's storage box selling for $2. A Caucasian man (who in this context could easily have been Chinese) offered $1 for the box. I said I thought it was worth $2 and would offer $2. The man got *really* mad and called me un-American, which hurt a little, but not as much as if I agreed with him. Anyway, the man quickly said he would also pay $2, so I let him have it rather than fight over it and make him even angrier. (I wasn't sure if my cousins' kids would use it anyway, but if so, I would have happily paid $5 or $10.)
Back to Commencement: Three people graduated from the Mayo Lab! Left to right: Ben Allen, Professor Stephen L. Mayo, Jennifer Keefe, and Heidi Privett. Congratulations, guys!
Overall, a wonderful trip to Sacramento and LA. I got to spend time with a lot of people, which is quite different than my (chosen) Seattle life in the apartment.
Now I am planning for Vacation 2: this week is Anime Expo! I am totally excited. I am not sure if I will take many pictures, but certainly there will be a lot of people walking around dressed up as anime characters. It is really fun to see people walking around like this. For example, the picture at left is from Anime Expo 2001. The girls are two characters from "Trigun," which is one of my favorite anime. As awesome as those costumes were (especially that huge gun), every year the costumers get better and more frequent. It is like digital cameras becoming simultaneously more powerful and less expensive: double-win!
Click here to view someone else's pictures from Anime Expo 2008. The pictures no doubt cover only a small fraction of all the people and costumes at the convention.
Perhaps some year, I will dress up at Anime Expo. For example, I could go as a muscle-man from "Street Fighter" or "Dragonball Z." :-)
Anime Expo (AX) was held at the LA Convention Center. This was my first time at AX since 2005, and my first time as a dealer. I was a dealer because my friend Richard had just started an anime store, and I offered to help at his booth. Here is the dealer's room before opening on Day 2 (of 4).
I spent a lot of time with another friend, whom I will call Mika, who also helped out at the booth. Notice the car being swallowed by the ivy? That belongs to Mika.
I got to see my friend Justin Simonson, from the Game Developers Conference. Here, Justin is channeling his rage into a hadouken from Street Fighter.
There were some great single costumes ...
... some great pairs in costume (these are from "Last Exile") ...
... and some great group gatherings! (These are from "Trigun." In the bottom row is Trigun's creator, Yasuhiro Nightow!)
