This Week in Photos #5: On the road, on the red and always food

I arrived back from Blogher which took place in San Diego on Sunday. San Francisco weather delayed my flight home by nearly three hours which allowed me to catch up on blog reading, but left little of my Sunday to get organized ahead of a busy week. Mr. Misadventures was suffering from jetlag having just arrived back from 10 days in Tokyo and three days in Copenhagen and he promptly fell asleep when arrived home…huh, so much for missing the wife!

I had enough time to do laundry and think about what to pack for my upcoming LA trip before I too succumbed to fatigue, likely due to Blogher over-stimulation!

Monday I spent the day with 3 university students who had won a competition that included two days at my office. It was definitely interesting to spend several hours with millennials, their technology learning curve is short and it is amazing what they know and can do already. I was just starting to use a computer on a daily basis, they are programming and ruling the world, it is fascinating to watch.

We did tours and demos all morning and headed to the company cafeteria for lunch and conversation. The company that runs our cafe switched last year and I have been hard pressed to find anything on their menu that I like, but on a whim I chose a chicken and pesto sandwich with sweet potato fries and actually loved it!

Tuesday morning, big day. I would be attending the Dexter Season 5 blu-ray release (and Season 6 kickoff) party and conducting red carpet interviews for my company, which I planned to use on our social media channels. I have interviewed sound designers before, quite famous ones in the industry, but I had yet to interview a celebrity and I was very nervous about the evening coming up.

Mr. Misadventures dropped me off at the airport at 6:30 in the morning, I was three hours ahead of my flight, which turned out to be fortunate as my flight was canceled and I was actually able to re-adjust and hop on one that left in 20 minutes…providence!

That had me two hours ahead of schedule to meet my video and photography team in Burbank, but I used that time to start Season 4 in my iPad in an urgent attempt to see as many episodes as possible before the evening! Dexter had always been on my list to watch, but I had never got to it, so for the last three weeks I have been watching it like a madman and thoroughly enjoying it!

I got several episodes and then the team arrived and we set out to pick up the equipment we would need for the evening's event. Next we headed to the Hotel Roosevelt where the event would take place. We got our equipment to our company's suite and did an initial canvass. We decided to get lunch before the rest of the team arrived, otherwise we may not eat. We walked up Hollywood Blvd which was thronged with tourists. We found an Italian restaurant and sat inside to avoid the heat and the people. Not knowing when I would eat next I chose to eat pasta in the hopes it would last me several hours!

From the moment I returned to the hotel after lunch until I dropped my head on my pillow that night, the rest of my day was a blur. Even while standing on that red carpet I felt like I was part of a surreal reality that I was observing, that it was not really happening to me. This was my view for most of the night:

The Dexter cast members (CS Lee, David Zayas, Edward James Olmos, James Remar) in profile as I waited my turn at the end of the carpet. I had a spot in the middle, but we decided to move to the end where it was less crowded and didn't have to shove. Also my handler knew some of the cast, so it was easier for her to wrangle them from the end. I have put together an album of some of the photos I took on Flickr, in addition you can see other photos from my team on my employer's Flickr page as well.

Wednesday I woke up in a daze, but immediately got to work organizing photos and assets for use on our social media channels, then headed out to return equipment before catching a flight home. I did not really get dinner the evening before and had not gotten breakfast, so when one of my colleagues suggested Porto's Bakery I was ecstatic! This restaurant sits between the Burbank airport and my local office and despite being in the area three times over the past six months, I had yet to get there, and I was dying to.

They are know for their unbelievable pastries and Cuban sandwiches and their long lines attest to it. Trust me it is absolutely worth the wait. I was a little over zealous in my ordering. I picked meat pies, empanadas and cream cheese pastries which I demolished before my sandwich arrived. When it did, I wanted to cry on the first bite, the shredded pork was so juicy and tender and tasted amazing. To top it off, there was thinly sliced and delicately fried plantain chips. I would be fat if I lived anywhere near this place!

Arriving at the Burbank airport, I was completely stuffed and did not eat the rest of the day. I found one of the few outlets in the whole airport and staked myself out to work for a few hours before my plane departed.

Thursday was a catch-up day at work. Mr. Misadventures and I finally started to see the light from our week during an early dinner at our local Cafe Rouge. I had an amazing yellow tomato and watermelon gazpacho that was as beautiful to look at as it was to eat.

Yes, that is a big glass of red wine that went down easy with the soup and the guinea hen that followed!

Despite needing to spend several hours in front of the computer today, I just couldn't get into so instead I convinced Mr. Misadventures to go on a mini-roadtrip. We headed to the Sonoma coast to check out Pt. Reyes and Tomales Bay. The weather was absolutely gorgeous and we enjoyed the ride. We made it to the base of the lighthouse at Pt. Reyes but didn't go to the top because it was completely fogged in. However, just below the fog-base it was gorgeous:

We stopped at South Beach for a picnic lunch: tomatoes with olive oil and basil, cold steamed salmon and fresh cherries. Then made a pit stop at Drake's Oyster Farm for a half dozen shucked and right-out-of-the-water oysters – heaven!

Does not get any fresher. Does not get any better, and it was a wonderful way to end the week.

That was my week, how was yours?