Marina Del Ray visit

Had to get up early early today morning - 8 am - to catch my flight to LA. Had a conference presentation at Marina Del Ray at DCOSS. I have started cutting it real short on boarding the place; reaching the airport about 30 minutes prior to departure. Missing the plane from Mexico City last month was no lesson learnt, and did the same today. My advisor also happened to take the same flight to LA; he actually had a 10:35 pm flight, misread the pm part and landed up in the am, and still got a seat thanks to his being a platinum member. Good for me, as I got a ride from the airport to the hotel, after feverishly reworking on my slides on the plane.

I dint get to book into the conference mariott, as I missed the conference
rate deadline, and the normal rate was 250$, double that of the conference rate. so, I had ended up booking te foghorn hotel right opposite the street. did'nt turn out to be bad choice after all, as it had free wifi, as also a huge balcony facing the marina. Went out to take a stroll around marina del ray, venice beach, and had lunch at a Cuban restaurant. I actually had tried going to a sushi place, and ended up mistaking the entrance of the side-by-side restaurant and ending up at this place. realized my mistake after getting the menu, but oh well, decided for having sushi later. The venice beach was nice, but the water looked pretty murky and polluted, pretty much like our Galveston beach, the nearest beach from Houston.

For dinner, went with my boss to a library ale place - a beer place he had found on the net. Finding a parking is a pretty tough thing in LA, like any proper big city. And no wonder, at our sensor systems conference, this parking application of sensor networks repeatedly came up. Anyways, had some fish dish as usual - salmon this time. For lunch at the cuban place, I had halibut. I had taken up the habit of having fish every time I go out to restaurants, when I dont have to pay from my pocket. oh, the joy of attending conferences. anyway, dint drink too much beer though I advisor was a bit disapointed. after all, still wanted to fine tune my slides a bit more that night. Already was starting to feel a bit tired at 9 pm, as it was 11 pm houston time.