Road Trip: LA Final - Manhattan Beach

During the trip, Bill G and I stayed at the Marriott in Manhattan Beach. This westward orientation during the trip was something new for me, as whenever I've been out before, I usually end up in the mid-Wilshire area, downtown, and in the case of one of my past Booz Allen projects, Arcadia.

After the USC events of Thursday and Friday (and the after event we enjoyed with Ryan on Friday night on Abbot Kinney in Venice) we did a little sightseeing down at the beach. We found a great beachside restaurant for breaksfast, Uncle Bill's Pancake House, and then took a stroll down to the pier.

Almost as far as the eye could see, from this vantage point, there were volleyball nets set up for league play. It seemed like hundreds of them. In the DC area there are leagues for volleyball, with nets set up along the National Mall, but nothing like this, with sponsorships, advertising, and the like.

Plus they've got two things we don't - the weather, and the beach.

As a wrap - a good trip. Back to the cabin in the next post.

Road Trip: LA - Events at USC

The whole purpose behind the trip to LA was to attend a couple of events at USC, where I went to business school. The graduation of the most recent MBA class – IBEAR 30 (or XXX, out of respect for one of LA’s most prominent industries!) – and a reunion to celebrate the program’s 30th anniversary were the two focuses of this part of the trip.

The IBEAR program is an internationally-focused accelerated MBA for executives, completed with one-year in residence. Among the things you come away with, at least for my part, is a life-long affiliation with the university (you become a diehard Trojan football fan too).

Bill and I attended the graduation dinner on Thursday night, where among the festivities was an appearance of the Trojan Marching Band. These guys are among the best in the nation, and it is a good bet that if you see a marching band in the movies, it will have a number of these students in it – the band in the parade in the movie Animal House was the USC band, for example.

On Friday, there was a full day of networking and conferences on the future of the program – a retrospective and then look ahead, complemented by a lecture by leadership guru Warren Bennis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Bennis) . The program also included some prominent IBEAR MBA alums, including the CEO of the Hanjin Group, parent of Korean Air and Omni Hotels. Really good insight and food for thought.

In the afternoon, a party ensued. There were a lot of my classmates in attendance (11 years later!) and a highlight of the evening was performance by The Retreads (http://www.theretreads.net/news.html) , who came in from Boise. One of the band members is an alum; as a matter of fact he worked at Capital One in Richmond for some time and was here for the USC-Va Tech game in 2004. A good time was had by all…

Road Trip: LA Continued - Long Beach and San Pedro

Before we get to the actual business purpose of the trip - the events at USC, here is another entry on sightseeing in the LA area. Among the people I try to link up with whenever I am on the west coast is a friend of mine from Jacobs - Ryan. We worked together from 1999 to 2001 or so, and stayed in touch after that, until he eventually moved to LA for the USC MBA program.

Ryan is at Toyota now, and lives in San Pedro on top of the hill. Here are two photos of the Port of LA and surrounding San Pedro (or "the 'dro" as he calls it) taken from the deck of his house.

After some refreshements, we took a short walk to the Korean Freedom Bell park that is near Ryan's house. This park is featured in a scene in the movie "The Usual Suspects" - another fun thing about visiting the area. Here are Bill and I near the pogoda. I realized when I uploaded these I don't have one of Ryan or Marlin, his Boston Terrier, who took the walk with us.

Closing out this entry with a couple of photos from the Long Beach Airport, taken during our departure. This first one is of the tower, taken from the observation deck that overlooks the airfield. Besides the deco-era design, of note is a series of exhibits on aviation history that took place here - there is a long tradition that centers on the World War II effort. If you take Jet Blue to Long Beach it is definitely worthwhile to take a little longer to check it out.

Also, this last photo from the observation platform. Our plane was the one on the right. I wanted to take the photo because in the background was an Air Force base - and if you look closely at the plane above the cockpit of our Jet Blue aircraft, you'll see it is a B1-B...despite the quality of the phone cam photo, I was excited because this is the closest I've ever come to one of these.

Road Trip: Los Angeles

Just back this morning from a long weekend trip to Los Angeles, where I enjoyed catching up with friends and a couple of reunion events at the University of Southern California, where I went to grad school. I have four posts planned on the trip.


We have a number of activities going on with the cabin as well. Mary was out for the weekend, meeting with Uncle D, painting, and typical activities. She tells me the hawks have not left yet and are still vigorously flying around the property. I have an email from Cornell University on identifying Coopers Hawks from Sharp-shinned Hawks - I have been struggling with this and the email has left me more confused.


On to the LA visit...



I travelled with Bill - a neighbor here in Alexandria who also attended the USC IBEAR MBA program, although he was there a few years before me. We flew on Jet Blue, where with only two weeks notice we still got round trip fares of $350 (and exit rows seats outbound!). This first photo is of the Long Beach airport terminal. This is the second time I have flown out on Jet Blue and each time I see this terminal it reminds me of the National terminal here in DC.






After driving up the 405 to our hotel in Manhattan Beach we stepped out for lunch. A short drive down to the beach and we found this place, The Kettle, a 24-hour diner, and we grabbed a bite. While our schedule was hectic on Friday, we were back in the beach neighborhood for breakfast on Saturday and Sunday.






On the flight out, I read Wired magazine and found some information about an exhibition on John Lautner, an LA practicing architect with many contemporary residences to his credit. The show was at the Hammer Museum up in Westwood (in fact, it is a UCLA-run institution), so we took a quick drive up to check out the show.

Here's a bio excerpt from the exhibition catalog: John Lautner (1911-94), one of the most important and influential architects of the twentieth century, had a remarkable career spanning nearly six decades. Residing and working in Los Angeles during much of that time, his designs are known for their radical innovation with specific attention to materiality, space and a consciousness of the natural environment.

The homes offer an interesting perspective of contemporary LA in the 50's, 60's and 70's. They've been featured in a number of movies. Several of the homes are featured in the exhibit: http://www.hammer.ucla.edu/exhibitions/139/works_1.htm ...there is more at the Lautner foundation site:
http://www.johnlautner.org/wp/

And one of the homes was in one of my favorite LA movies (I have a growing collection of LA-themed movies, currently numbering 12) - The Big Lebowski. Here's a blog post on the exhibition that ties one of the houses in - in the film, it's where Jackie Treehorn resides - and although the story sets the house in Malibu, it's actually on a ridge overlooking the valley.
http://la.metblogs.com/2008/07/19/stay-out-of-the-sheatsgoldstein-residence-lebowski/