Why don’t y’all come north for the next time? The Bay Area contingent is going wine tasting in the Sonoma Valley (I doubt we’ll head over to Napa, but who knows?) in June, and all are welcome!
In the meantime, we want pics, notes, and details!
~Harborina
“Don’t Do It.”
Brian and I had a great time! I only wish I could have spoken more with the other end of the table. Being on the tail end of that long setting meant getting to know Johnny, Arnold, and Arnold’s s/o pretty well…and shouting down the other end of the table. I’m bummed we missed the musical chairs portion.
Now I have to explain to Shayna what happened. I sent Catrandom an Email about it, and I really wanted to Email you, too, but you don’t have one listed…so, sigh, the whole board gets to read our embarrassing set of events! Here’s what happened, you wonderful, generous, funny, overall neat-o person that we somehow lost on the way:
Teaching: The ultimate birth control method.
The weirdest thing was that I knew Cowboy Greg IRL! As someone said, “It’s a small net.”
What a great time!!! 
Pat, thank you so much for coordinating all of this!
First, to Ruffian - Do NOT feel bad. Of course I felt terrible that we’d missed you guys and you didn’t make it, too. Until… we actually saw the concert. OMG it was SO bad! LOL (more details later)
Now here’s what happened to us trying to find you…
I think you hit 2L before we ever got up there, and here’s why I think that…
We were actually parked right near that turn-around exit ramp thingy. When we got to the car and, having told you we’d pull out and wait in the aisle, we ended up facing that exit ramp. Right at that moment we saw a white Civic going down and it looked like you guys in the car. So if you did the exit ramp after cruising 2L, the fact that we weren’t waiting there for you was probably why you didn’t see us.
Well we weren’t positive that was you guys on the exit ramp so since we said we’d wait for you, we gave it a few minutes and stayed put, just in case. When you weren’t there after a bit we figured that was you on the exit ramp and that perhaps you were waiting at the bottom for us, so we went ahead and went down to try to find you there. We didn’t see you, so we thought maybe you had made it back up to 2L and we then went back there via the “return to parking.”
We drove all the way up to 3 and then back down again but didn’t spot you (which we now know is because you couldn’t get back up once you went down). At that point it was getting late and if we hadn’t left we’d have missed the start of the concert so we had to take off and we felt just awful. 
I thought about it later (too late for it to matter) but we should have sent Brian up to your car and had you come with me to mine to get the map I’d printed with directions from Universal to UCLA because we didn’t need it since Catrandom knew how to get there. Then you could have gone up to your car where Brian would have been waiting and you wouldn’t have needed to follow us. Sigh - that old hindsight thing!
Another reason we should have given you our map. First, that is SO sweet of you guys to go to all that effort to get there. Unfortunately, you’re right - going all the way to the 405 would have been way more circuitous than necessary. All you really needed to do was exit the 101 at the Hollywood Bowl exit and go down to Sunset Blvd., turn right and take that to the UCLA entrance. And we did notice the parking lot the 101 turned into - right after the Hollywood Bowl exit. Sigh again.
We do know that and we really, really tried to find you too, since we knew you had to follow us to get there and we felt equally as awful that we had to leave without you. But I say we get together again and go do something fun or just hang out - that would be wonderful! And there’s no reason we can’t since we live in the same city, right?! I’ll send you an email so you have my addy and we’ll get in touch, k?
It SUCKED!! Now understand, I love jazz. And Chick Corea and Gary Burton are Grammy winning musicians, so we expected this to be a great concert. Well it wasn’t what I would call a concert at all - it was more like a 2 1/2 hour jam session. The bass fiddle player did something that we quess was supposed to be innovative playing and it was so awful we were cringeing. And with the faces he was making, I’m pretty sure he was in desperate need of a bowel movement. The 3 guys they had on brass kept moving to the front to play and then filing off and walking to the back of the other guys when they weren’t playing. So they kept walking around and around the stage. It was so distracting. Nothing had any kind of discernable melody and we didn’t know where one song ended and the next one started. None of the instruments seemed like they were even playing the same song as each other. Cat and I even commented that we both wondered how any of them knew their cues because it just sounded like a mish-mash of, well, jamming. We didn’t get it and we didn’t like it. LMAO - after all that! So neither you and Brian nor Rilchiam and Pat missed anything worth seeing. Feel better now? 
Ok, this turned out way long, so I’ll do a separate reply with my thoughts on the rest of the night…
“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” - Anne Frank
Well I must say that in spite of the confusion at the end and missing Ruffian and Brian at the concert, I had the most wonderful time! Everyone was so nice!
Like Ruffian said, the table set-up wasn’t conducive to really talking to everyone, so I missed getting to know some of the people better. Here’s what I do know, though…
I was sitting between jab1 on my left and chief on my right. jab1 is a charming man with a very funny disposition (and a cool secret surprise he let us all in on - tee hee. WTG jab1!). I think I overwhelmed poor chief - he’s a rather quiet young man and I tend to be rather boisterous, so I think I drowned him out most of the evening and I feel kindof bad about that. Both he and jab1 were lovely dinner companions though, and I enjoyed what conversation we did have.
Cowboy Greg was at the end of the table to my left. He’s got that whole cute thing going on and he was funny and kind (even took a walk with me to the atm so I wouldn’t have to go alone).
Catrandom was across the table from jab1. We rode together so I got to know her better than most. What a lovely, sweet and fun lady! And a good sport, too, given that I dragged her to the worst concert that ever was. And she has the most beautiful color strawberry blonde hair. If I thought it would look as good on me as it does on her I’d copy it. I’m looking forward to getting together with her again - we’re going to try to go see “Sixth Sense” some time in the next couple of weeks.
Highlander (Melin’s hubby) sat across from me, so I ended up talking with him quite a bit. He’s SO nice. Very bright, warm and friendly. He’s a teacher and a gourmet chef so we talked mostly about those things. (That is, when he wasn’t crawling under the table between my legs - hehehe. Ok, so he didn’t crawl between my legs - but he did get under the table a couple of times to get out from his side which was backed up against a wall. ;))
Ursa Major (whose name I remembered as Tim and couldn’t for my life remember his posting name, so I hope I’ve got it right - eek!) was next to Highlander, and to his left was Melin. Tim and Melin apparently have known each other from the boards for quite a while so they told lots of fun stories from the “old days.” No, I will not mention names. 
Melin - what can I say that will do this wonderful lady justice? She has got it all together. She’s beautiful (another one with great hair and a gorgeous color!), sweet and funny as all get-out. And she’s obviously a great mom - her boys were adorable and very well-behaved young men. (And Melin, thank you very much for being the one to collect all the money for the bill. I hope I left you enough. If not, let me know and I will give you more when I see you again, which I hope will be soon.)
Arnold was to the left of Melin and next to him on his left was his fiance, Elizabeth. Arnold is as much a hoot off the board as he is on it (loved those chocolate fake cigarettes!). He really did wear a hemp suit, too! How many times can I say nice without it getting redundant? Well I’ll just have to keep saying it, because everyone was, especially Arnold and Elizabeth. She is absolutely adorable - petite and pretty, and very, very sweet.
Ruffian was at the head of the table, and to her left was her s.o., Brian. They are a very attractive couple. Ruffian is a knock-out - that silken, raven hair is to die for beautiful. And here we go with that ‘nice’ word again. Friendly, outgoing and a lot of fun. I only wish we’d have been able to hook up afterwards instead of everyone driving around in circles, because it would be great to get to know her better. And Brian was a really good sport hanging out with a bunch of people he doesn’t even know so that he could be there with Ruffian.
Johnny L.A. was next to Brian. Then there was Rilchiam and then Pat (pricciar). Unfortunately, because of the table arrangement, I didn’t really get to talk to any of them much at all. But of course, like everyone else there, they were all super nice and friendly. I wish I could have stayed longer to get in on the musical chairs so I could have talked to them more. Well, there’s always next time - and we’ll definitely have to do this again!
Thank you everyone who was there for making this such a great evening. You were all fun to hang with and it was an extreme pleasure to have a chance to meet you all face-to-face!
“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” - Anne Frank
SDMB Southern California meeting - the verdict
Well, the SCal doper meeting happened last night. pricciar’s organizing has finally borne its fruit. My personal re-telling of the experience:
I showed up at the restaurant with my fiancée at around 15:45. A quick peek at the reservation list showed the name Adams, 16:30 (as expected), due to Rilchiam’s careful planning.
Since we had some time to kill, we decided to view the wares offered in the neighbouring shops and favoured one of the local establishments with our patronage. (Amongst other sundries, we found some chocolate cigarettes, which we later pulled out at dinnertime, expecting to provoke an outcry of censure, but our well-travelled SDMB friends did not even raise a slight eyebrow of disapproval. I guess chocolate cigarettes don’t fool anybody anymore.)
Then we slowly wandered back to the restaurant (my fiancée was waylaid by a young lady with a persuasive sales pitch, and we are now the possessors of a miracle nail-buffing device!) and in front I saw a group of people chatting animatedly. Due to his height, the first person I recognized was ]pricciar, who looks exactly like his photo. I immediately recognized from the attractiveness and intelligence radiating from this crowd of people that we had found our dinner companions. Since I had previously described my planned attire on the board, I heard several cries of “There’s the hemp suit!” I was planning on trying to pass myself as Cecil Adams, but my attempt was met with frank disbelief.
Of course, what some of you will want to know is “are the s. cal dopers good-looking?” To repeat the words of Garrison Keillor, “all the women were strong, all the men good-looking, and all the children above average.” But actually that would be understating the case. The pulchritude measurement of my SDMB fellow posters would be well above 800 milli-helens (milli-helen = amount of beauty necessary to cause the launching of a single ship.) The women in our group would cause heads to turn in any crowd, and the men would be prime choices for the swimsuit edition of Scientific American.
The crowd already assembled (in no particular order):
pricciar, the main event organizer, a tall strapping youth with a look of disarming frankness and honesty. I imagine him as a future world leader.
chief, quiet, shy, bespectacled, with a physionomy that bespoke studiousness and intelligence. If this young man represents the future of humanity, we are in good hands.
Ursa Major, whom I had imagined to have a face lined with wisdom, and with a halo surrounding his head. Imgine my surprise when I saw a “surfer dude” with an engaging smile! I searched in vain for the encylopedia that I imagined he would be lugging around, but it’s all in his head.
Melin, a tall and statuesque woman who doesn’t seem afraid of anything. At first I thought I would be intimidated by her strong MB personality, but she was very friendly and convivial.
Rilchiam was flourishing her digital camera and had us pose for a picture. She is slight, bookish and has a look of discerning intellect about her.
Cowboy Greg, with whom I unfortunately did not have much time to get acquainted, did not wear spurs or chaps, but possesses a distinguised mustache and an amiable air. Next time, I hope I will get to chat with him some more.
Johnny L.A. was facing me at dinner, so I had a better chance of making his acquaintance. I was imagining a cocky pilot with mirrorred sunglasses, and was agreeably surprised to find a mild-mannered, yet jocular young man, pleasant and cheerful.
jab1, who to my surprise is not a college student (I don’t know why I was imagining that). He pointed out to me that his profile clearly states that he is retired! (Note to self: pay more attention to profiles.) Unfortunately, he was also at the other end of the table, so next time I hope to be able to chat with him some more, so all I can tell you is that he has a genial and kindly demeanour. I hope to get from him his secret for retiring at such a young age!
highlander, who (I don’t think I am revealing any forbidden secrets here) is also Melin’s significant other. From the short glimpses I caught of him, my impression was of a scholarly and kind-hearted individual, with a hidden inner strength.
Shayna arrived two seconds after us, and all I can say is that her screen name is well-deserved. She is obviously very bright and funny, and full of sparkling wit and charm. Her personality is one that will light up the room and be the centre of attention at any social gathering.
Catrandom arrived with Shayna. I didn’t see any air of randomness about her, rather she seems like a pleasing and lovely woman with a steadfast temperament. If you wanted to have a friend for life, you could do much worse than choose her.
Laura, and her significant other, whose name eludes me. She and her s.o. make a charming couple. Laura seems to be a high-spirited and enthusiastic young lady, with a mien bespeaking resoluteness and determination. When she arrived, we noted that she broke the trend of red-headedness amongst the female representatives in our gathering.
Melin and highlander’s progeny ran in and out of the restaurant at various times. Their names, from my recollection, are oldest, middle and youngest. They seemed to be great friends with each other, and full of boyish high spirits. Fine specimens of Generation Y.
Since we had more people than planned (an excellent turn-out!), we had to wait a few minutes whilst a larger table was arranged. Then we all trouped in and sat ourselves in typical disorganized fashion. Since my fiancée and I were unfortunately expected at another engagement and could not stay long, we sat near the end of the table most propitious for a discreet leave-taking. In my near vicinity were Laura and her significant other, Johnny L.A., Rilchiam and Melin. the conversation revolved around many topics, the inevitable recap of board business and previous posters, the comments on the kind hackers that graced the SDMB web server with their visit, and recommended books. Rilchiam and I shared our appreciation of the crime novels of Ruth Rendell (aka Barbara Vine), Melin told me of recent developments in liability insurance for internet service providers, Johnny L.A. discussed helicopters (and since I know several people at his place of employment, we tried to find common acquaintances), Laura mentioned her search for a new computer andd the joys of teaching, and Shayna, the social butterfly, made the rounds and graced our side of the table where we discussed the clever Bricker challenges (and she revealed her childhood nickname.)
At this point, we had to take our leave, so we quietly (or maybe not so quietly) slipped away. Let’s hope that this social gathering will be repeated at a not too distant future date!
P.S. Johnny L.A. told a joke well-deserving of a rim-shot, and I promised myself I would repeat it to the board, but of course now it is lost in the mists of my brain.
P.P.S. In the car, my fiancée told me “Well, I thought I was going to be bored at your ‘nerd-fest’, but everyone was much more pleasant than I thought! They’re actually quite normal.” Some people might consider that “damning with faint praise”, but, trust me, the phrase was intended to be highly complimentary.
We’ll definitely have to do this again!
Pat and Rilch deserve bouquets for coordinating this shindig – bravo!
I had a great time, and I’m pleased to have met all of you! My only regret is that I couldn’t have gone with y’all to Melin’s afterwards – duty called. Next time I’ll hang up on it.
Shared pain is lessened; shared joy is increased.
Wow – having finally had a chance to get online today, I see that most of the territory has been covered, including the Concert of Doom.
Everybody was just great. At my end of the table I got to speak mostly with Jab1, a witty and engaging gentleman, Cowboy Greg, who is both funny and seriously cute , Highlander and Melin, both funny, warm, intelligent folks and grand parents if their pleasant boys are any indication and, of course, Shayna, who is just simply delightful. And Chief, who is the quiet type, with a quick, disarming smile.
I got to tell Arnold in person that I adore him, but sadly, he’s taken…by Elizabeth, a lovely lady with highly buffed nails
I wish I had a chance to talk more with everyone else; next time we have to get a banquet room so we can circulate!
Thanks very much to Pat and Rilch for doing the organizing thing; it was great!
Catrandom
Well, I’ve created a web page with all the pictures from last night…but alas, the pictures are freakin’ HUGE memory-wise and they take entirely too long to load.
If you’re brave and want to see if it loads for you, try going to http://home.earthlink.net/~lrconaway/LADopersShindig.htm.
In the meanwhile, is there someone who has an idea how to do maybe a thumbnail file? I’m unsure how best to edit them down so they aren’t ridiculously large, memory-wise. (Still figuring out this new toy!)
I had a great time, and really wish I’d been able to hang out longer and get to know more of you better. I definitely want to do it again! More later, I s’pose…
Teaching: The ultimate birth control method.
ThumbsPlus can be downloaded from http://download.com . It will thumbnail the pictures, make a low-res thumbnail, and make a web page.
Damn, Greg! Looks like you won the Cuteness Award! Maybe I should grow a beard?
This is what I look like with facial hair (heh heh heh): http://pw1.netcom.com/~heliboy/maxtest2.jpg
What the heck. I’ve just made a “photo album” page. It’s likend on my bio page, but here’s the direct URL. http://pw1.netcom.com/~heliboy/album.html
You are definitely cute, too, Johnny!
Laura, my sister (chocolate) resized those pics and emailed them to you, so check your mail
“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” - Anne Frank
Aw, shucks, Shayna! :o
And of course, that was “linked” in my last post. Not “likend”! :o
hey,
does anyone who came have ICQ? it might make it easier to discuss the next gathering or whatever…
my # is in my profile
Check out my site:
Chief’s Domain
That didn’t take unusually long to load, Laura. And they were excellent shots.
When I get my own pics developed, I’ll scan them in. I want to show Youngest Son’s bread sculpture!
Why, yes, I am white trash. How did you know?
I said that! And Melin repeated it, which I consider a compliment.
Shayna, I’m blushing. Such nice things to say. My appreciation for all the compliments from everyone. I had a blast.
The only reason I didn’t go to the concert with Shayna is because I didn’t drive and I wouldn’t want anyone to have to drive me home or have to say overnioght in someone else’s home. And I’d rather not ride an MTA bus after 10 P.M., thank you very much! That’s also the reason I didn’t go to La Canada with Highlander and Melin and their family.
Arnold, it’s easy to retire at a young age if one is willing to live alone and in a Spartan manner. I hope no one gets the idea I’m well-off.
Hope to see you guys again! Let’s try Chinese next time!
>< DARWIN >
__L___L
Great pictures, gang. Now I’m jealous that we Spifflers don’t have ours up yet.
And if anyone else is as brain dead as me, you’ve got to take the final period out of Ruff’s link to get to the pics. Took me four tries to figger that one out.
“I’ll give you guys a dollar if you make out right now.”
Yeah Rilch, Shayna’s sister sent me compressed versions of the pix. I uploaded them to the website so they load infinitely faster than the originals; however, I am not thrilled with the smudged look. Bah. It’ll do for now. And yeah, the period has to come out…I didn’t intend for that to be a hyperlink to begin with, just wanting to list the site addy. Ah well.
I enjoyed meeting all of you…it was great to see that, well, y’all are normal! I tend to get the visual of Cubicle People–I was thrilled that there were no Dilberts among us. I dug Johnny’s earrings and personality, Ursa’s style and genial ways, Arnold’s demeanor and friendliness. It was great having your s/o across the table from mine…they had someone to identify with! (Although Brian said he never felt uncomfortable or left out, regardless.)
Shayna/Jill, you’re a crack-up and I’m seriously bummed we didn’t get a chance to hook up. Cat/Brida, I wish I’d had more opportunity to talk with you (and your end of the table, for that matter–Greg, Chief, Pat, Jab). Melin and Rilch, I’d love to spend more time in conversation with you. I find it odd that I was grouped with you two as an SD “old timer.” It doesn’t seem like I’ve been around so long!
Thank you Shayna for the blushing compliments! And Arnold, heheh…your words sounded akin to what I’ve heard most of my life, usually for better but sometimes for worse: “You have a strong personality.” I take it as a compliment now though, and certainly from you.
Okay, I need to tear myself away from the board now…we’ll see if it actually works!
Teaching: The ultimate birth control method.
Yeah Rilch, Shayna’s sister sent me compressed versions of the pix. I uploaded them to the website so they load infinitely faster than the originals; however, I am not thrilled with the smudged look. Bah. It’ll do for now. And yeah, the period has to come out…I didn’t intend for that to be a hyperlink to begin with, just wanting to list the site addy. Ah well.
I enjoyed meeting all of you…it was great to see that, well, y’all are normal! I tend to get the visual of Cubicle People–I was thrilled that there were no Dilberts among us. I dug Johnny’s earrings and personality, Ursa’s style and genial ways, Arnold’s demeanor and friendliness. It was great having your s/o across the table from mine…they had someone to identify with! (Although Brian said he never felt uncomfortable or left out, regardless.)
Shayna/Jill, you’re a crack-up and I’m seriously bummed we didn’t get a chance to hook up. Cat/Brida, I wish I’d had more opportunity to talk with you (and your end of the table, for that matter–Greg, Chief, Pat, Jab). Melin and Rilch, I’d love to spend more time in conversation with you. I find it odd that I was grouped with you two as an SD “old timer.” It doesn’t seem like I’ve been around so long!
Thank you Shayna for the blushing compliments! And Arnold, heheh…your words sounded akin to what I’ve heard most of my life, usually for better but sometimes for worse: “You have a strong personality.” I take it as a compliment now though, and certainly from you.
Okay, I need to tear myself away from the board now…we’ll see if it actually works!
Teaching: The ultimate birth control method.
Ya know, Ye Olde King’s Head in Santa Monica has a dining area in back. Might be quieter next time. Great fish’n’chips, and the bangers and mash are good too.
And the Guinness is on draught.
Ruffian, had I known anyone would notice the rings I would have worn my hanged man!
