The feeling came oer me even as we came in site of the city.

First stop on Wednesday (man.. am I remiss in posting pictures !)   was University of Southern California. I’d never visited USC, the campus is huge and bustling .

I’d managed to arrive 2 hours early for my event so I worked a bit.. ,then found a nice sunny bench and meditated. I was trying to take the edge off that traveling sometimes gives me .. This worked.. an hour later I was peaceful again.

Around 3 I made my way to the USC school of cinema, our hosts for the event.

It’s a beautiful new building built with generous donations from Steven Spielberg.. who just happened to be there… whihc was pretty exciting.. you could feel the students buzz as he walked past..

We got a tour of the film school from the Dean.. it was an amazing facility.. here’s the  Foley room.. where sound effects are made.. it’s full of interesting junk.: old shoes to clomp, various types of grvel to crunch through, old film for dry leaves, looked like lots of fun !

We had some interviews, met with the dean, talked with the other panelists.. then.. around 6:30 we filed into the hall for the panel..  The topic was .. ‘Life in 2050’  there were about 200 folks there… I was nervous as I always am. I had no idea what I was going to say in my opening position piece.

Despite my jitters, I thought the panel went really well..   we were all IBM or ex-IBM folks, we had Prof Richard Weinberg from USC school of Cinematic Arts.. acomputer animation guy.  Don Eigler, Almaden IBM Fellow, ex-hippy, sailor, dog lover  and mover of atoms (Gabe saw him in a movie at school last week ) , Winfried Wilcke – Almaden IBM battery guy, pilot, sailor and one of the founders of HAL computer.  Tom Zimmerman- IBM Human interface guy and education outreach zealot., Melissa Cefkin, IBM Anthropolgist.. yes Anthropologist !.. Very cool .. Me, then Irving Wladsky-Berger – Former IBM Exec, now a Prof at MIT and Imperial College in London.. and a wonderful human being.   All really nice folks..

THe panel went well, we each gave our vision for what life in 2050 would be like.. we talked about nanotechnology, virtual interaction, thinking computers..  cyborg assistants , the Singularity, energy, transport..     I’m sad to say that my notes aren’t any better than that.. I think the whole thing was filmed.. I’m interested to see what we all said..

One thing of note.. the Yankees game was goign on during the Panel.  I’m not a baseball fan.. but I got kind of cuaght up in the drama of the series.. . Irving and I kept checking the score..   We stopped the  panel breifly to tell folks that the Ynakees had won.

THere were receptions before and after the panel. We got to talk to the students and faculty.. bot were fun and energizing. I love thinking abotu how technology and the arts can mix… there’s no better way than putting them in a room together with food and drink !

Around 11 I drove Dona nd Winfried to their hotel and got hopelessly lost in doing so.. There’s something not so terrible about getting lost when you have such interesting peopl ein the car.. We had a beer

.. then I headed up to Laurel Canyon to Geroge’s house.. I got there around 1:30.. What a place !!  It’s at the top of a steep hill. The house has a beutiful porch which hangs out over a cliff with an amazing view of LA..
George lives there with his sister, Lauren and her two kids Fred and

Noah..    George was working the night shift at the hospital (he’s an

ER Doc).. Lauren was in Orlando… and the kids were with their Dad..

Nick,  .. who is coincidentally also my freind from the Colony

production staff..  Anyway.. I had the place to myself.. so at 2AM  I jumped into the hot tub and looked out over LA.. An owl was sitting in the tree over my head keeping me company.. Magical

Around 2 I went back inside to sleep..There were great pictures of both of George’s grandfathers. He’d talked  about them often during the show. His Greek grandpa had died several years ago.. His other Grandpa… the one in this picture.. I knew was very ill… I loved this picture.. it was taken in Afganistan in the late 1930;s..

George showed up around 8AM… and the first thing he told me is that his grandfather had passde away peacefully the night before….  It was strange and nice that I’d been staring at his picture then…

 The family is all headed to Pittsburgh for the Memorial today..

George was sad.. but OK..they were expecting his grandfatherspassing.. and he’d lived a good long life.. I heard stories abotu him for the rest of the day.. He sounded like a great man .

I’d already been working about 3 hours that mmorning.. early calls because of the time differnce… When george came back I took a break and we headerd out for Breakfast.. Vlad surprised us by meeting us at the restaurant. It was great hangin out with those guys !   George brought his fgood ‘ole dog June with us,..   he hung out under our table as we talked..

It was great catching up with Vlad.. hes doing well, too . we all talked about our post-postapocolyptic lives.. It’s amazing both how much the show changed our lives   and did not change our lives.. 

I had to jump back in a work call for awhile.. so George and Vlad sat and caught up.. then around 12 we headed back to georges .. I was telling George about the ‘flagpole’ manuver that my brother and dad and I would always do fror pictures.. so.. Vlad took this shot of Geroge and I for my dad and bro…     (try it.. it’s not as easy as it looks !)

We got back to Georges .. then I had to drop back into work for a bit..     Here’s george on his balcony.. witht he hollywood sign in the distance.

Later in the day I had a meeting with friend Paul Z (aka Beekman form Beekman’s world).. If you follow this blog you knwo that he’s workign on a stage show abotu the Brain for kids.  We got together for a few hours to brainstorm… He’s such an amazing thinker…   I picked him up at his house. hich is like a tiny museum of the bizzare.. Check out some of these peices…    The centerpiece is an anotomical drawing of an earthworm’s insides.. ewwwwwwww

Here’s Paul and his daughter with Pres CLinton when he was beign recognized for Beekman’s world contribution to Science Ed.

After the art tour we headed to a vegan restaurant just down the street that had this cheery welcome outside… huh  ?

The place was really great !.. It remindided me of Red Bamboo.. one of Max’s favorite restaurants in Brooklyn.. all Vegan.. We go there often when I’m in the city ..

When I mentioned Red Bamboo to Paul, this girl at the next table literally squealed.. I guess Red Bamboo is her favorite restaurant too !   She was in town for a conference…  Very nice kid.. Reading meditation for dummies.. that cracked me up.. but she said it was actually pretty good !

Paul and I worked on some of the ideas for the brain show..  I’m particularly excited abotu one we came up with. I’m goign ot try and  build something that maps brain activity to sound… not particular sounds, mind you.. just something that changes with stimulus  Most of what’s hard about building an EEG is removing the signal from the noise and cleaning it up.. In this application I think I only need to do the former.. Anyone out there reading have any ideas on EEG stuff ?

I interrupted the conversation to do an impromptu experiment with the residual red cabbage from our meal.

The super nice waitress brought me vinegar and baking soda to help me out..   First step is to crush the red cabbage in water..

You then mix in baking soda.. when the mix gets alkaline enough it turn bright blue !

Then you add in vingar until it goes acidic and it turns back to red.. very pretty.. and a big mess…

We said goodbye to meditation girl and the nice folks at the restaurant.. then I dropped Paul it his place and went back to USC. My friend Irving was giving the second of two Panels for the day on how social media is transforming traditional media.. Very interesting discussion.. it’s Th panel included several USC profs and  several IBM folks. including Irving, and Michelle from last night and Steve Canepa, the GM of IBM’s Media industry business. I really enjoyed speaking with the three of them afterwords.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t stay for the dinner.. they got this cool guy Josh to drive me back to my car in his electric cart.. we were doing slolom weaves through the picnic table.. the hiligt of my night !

The reason I had to run is that we were having a dinner in honor of Mike aka Big Dumb Monkey’s birthday. Vlad had found an excellent chinese place.. We ended up wiht Mike, his freind Mark, Vlad, Morgan George and me..

I include this picture because it has an amazing ‘ghost ball’ in it.. They appear in pictures every so often.. there wasn’t anything to cause this.. there wasn’t any extraneous light. no schmutz on the lens.. I don’ understand how they occur sometimes these balls make me think of Sam.. like he’s messing with my pictures..

Mark snuck in a birthday cake for mike… It was scary seeing Mike with a weapon again !

After dinner I had to drive George to his car.. we decided to take a run by the warehouse for old times sake.. They were filming soemthing in there again !/ We didn’t go in.. but took some pics for old time sake..

We then went back to George’s… the night was clearer and the view was spectacular

Again I stayed up too late… and again I had very early meetings.. I got about 4 hours sleep.. then woke up around 5:30 and went out for a run.. I had about 5 hours of back to back phone meetings.. but the yuck factor of that was tempered by tking them while looking out at the view from Georges house…

Early afternoon I went to see my fireds at Original just to say hi. I went by a new show that Thom B is making.. I own’t give it away, but they were filming a scene from he weirdest story I’ve ever heard.. ==========. and let me tell you.. that’s something coming from me at this point..   I followed Thom and Jarrod back to Original and prowled th halls for awhile saying hi to old firends.. it felt good to be back there..

Here are John G and Jarrod yuckign it up in fornt of one of the leftover Colony relics..

From there I went back up to Geroges for a bit to meet his nephews.. then we all went out to meet up with Alison and her boyfreind Scot for a quick dinner before my plane

I think that’s it for the week. A good trip all around.. I got lots of work in, saw some good friends and got in some outreach brainstorming..  Not bad !

OK.. I’m going to hit save before I loose all this.. More later.. See ya folks.. Later Sam
-me