Oh what a day!! In the morning I get to meet Ton and the other Blender Guys: Sacha, Andy, Nathan, and Bassam for breakfast!! Talked a lot about Blender, the guys current personal projects, rigging, animation, questions my own group of Blender user have and a little about Blender and Asia Animators and company in general. After all the talk and a good breakfast, Ton had to go back to the hotel to pick something up and drives to the Los Angeles Convention Center (LACC). The rest of us prefer to walk there and hang out for a while. We talk seriously fun topics like Blender and some nonsensical happy stuff like crap.
Walking to LACC
From Left to Right: Bassam, Sacha, Andy, Nathan
More walking to LACC
Behind: Bassam, Sacha
Front: Andy, Nathan
After a 30min walk, we arrived at the LACC but was a bit too early for registration. The registration starts at 13:00hr so we went to Star Bucks and entertain ourselves for two hours. Ton is putting more pretty stuffs in his presentation while Nathan and Bassam were talking about rigging, animation, workflow, and pipeline. We talked quite extensively about version control in the line of CVS vs Subversion vs Bazaar. Nathan says would test Bazaar as a central server and create a simple quadped rigg for my group of Blender Animators to play with. Thanks Nathan!!!
Ton unpacking the merchandise
Working on presentations
Andy and Nathan checking out Bassam Latest work.
Around 13:15 we all went to confirm our registrations and got our badges. Its was a long queue but highly efficient nonetheless. After that, I went down to pick up my merchandise which includes 4 DVDs, 2 books, and 1 T-shirt. There are other advertising stuff that came with it as well but none worth mentioning.
After all that exciting happenings, I called my cousin who is suppose to call me earlier. Shockingly, there was no connection but the signal is strong!?! No wonder I did not receive any phone call. I called and apologize for the problem. He came and fetched me and we went to eat some Japanese food in Little Tokyo and some famous frozen yogurt from Korea which even celebrities of Hollywood would rather get a parking ticket than not being able to get a cup of that sourish frozen treat. Upon finishing our food, he drove me to Hollywood Boulevard to check out the Kodak Theatre and the Chinese Theatre beside it. We went for long stroll and talked about our lives, the world around us, families, and each others future.
Chinese Theater
Kodak Theater
Hollywood on the Hills
Time for dinner and we hop over to iHop. I have forgetten how big the portions are and man are they too much to eat even for a simple order of Straberry and Banana Pancakes. Sheesh!! After dinner, my cousin sent me back to my hotel where I say to call him maybe Tuesday to confirm on Tuesday schedule. Upon going back to my hotel, I discovered that I will be rooming with another person for the rest of my stay here in LA. Its quite shocking to me as I was not expecting roommate. As I have expected, this is a high class back-packers hotel. My roommate is a student and seems to be looking for a job during SIGGRAPH. I wish him well.
Seems like I might be coming down with a cold. Got catch some Zs now. Hope I could get up by 0630hr.
