Siggraph…

My Siggraph 2006 experience, in glorious 3D 2D boring text. Siggraph was kinda fun, but damn stressful.

Monday: 10 hour workday. Dinner with Victoria on the way to the airport. 11pm departure on the redeye to Boston.

Tuesday: Arrive at 7am local time on almost no sleep. Check into hotel, shamble to the showfloor to hook up with the Softimage people and to take a quick peek at the showfloor. Back to the hotel for A/V setup for the user group. Back to (nice!) hotel room for updates to the Powerpoint and a quick 1-hour nap. 3 hours of user group preparation and the actual show. The Softimage|3D demo was particularly fun, and the future technology preview was cool. My talk went okay, but I could have used some sleep beforehand. Softimage party afterwards and drinking. I certainly had fun there, minus the completely drunk guy who tried to punch Javier as we went back to the hotel for a while. Went to bed at 3am with way too much alcohol in my bloodstream.

Wednesday: Get up only three hours later. Still hung over, of course. Arrive at the airport to find that the nonstop flight back to SFO got cancelled and I’m rebooked on a route with layover in Denver. 45 minutes additional wait for the flight to Denver. Sleep on the plane next to a hyperactive little girl. 2 hour wait in Denver. Finally arrive at SFO at 3:15. Rush hour has started, Airporter and subsequent drive home take another 2 hours. Finally get to our house at 5:30 – only 4 hours late. Thank you United, there’s a reason I don’t fly you anymore unless I absolutely can’t help it (but that’s a story for another time – the amazing E3 2005 experience).

So yeah, my Siggraph 2006 experience certainly could have been less stressful. The Softimage people around Jennifer Goldfinch made up for it, but if there is a next time I’ll do it in such a way that I get to have more sleep inbetween everything.