Los Angeles Trip

When I got home from Memorial Day festivities, I had a message from my district's Special Ed Director. She told me there was a conference in Los Angeles for a software program I have been using with my students for the past few months. She wondered if I wanted to attend. Considering the fact that I wouldn't have to pay for it, that I have never been to California, and that I really love the software, of course my answer was YES!

So I flew out on June 21st and was greeted at the airport with a person holding a clipboard with my name on it. I will admit that I thought that was pretty cool, even if it makes me appear like a hick. Although I resisted the urge to take a picture of her holding the clipboard if that does anything to redeem me.

Over the next 2 days, I spent my days meeting with the President of the software company, other company representatives and 7 other educators from across the country to discuss our experience with the software so far. We also got to see the vision for future versions of the software and provide our input on what would make it more effective for the students we work with.

In the evenings, we got to do some fun things in LA. We went to the Hard Rock Cafe at Universal City Walk (which just happened to be within walking distance from our hotel). On the second evening, we took a driving tour around parts of LA.

After the driving tour, we went to a restaurant called The Musso & Frank Grill. It's an old restaurant where apparently a lot of Hollywood stars meet. A few of the ladies that I was with were really hoping to see a big star, and it turns out that Scott Caan was sitting at the table behind us. He's not a big star, but the other ladies were pretty excited. I was actually more excited when they brought the cheesecake to the table for desert. This turned out to be a highlight for the entire trip and I actually regret not taking a picture of it before I devoured it. It is THE BEST cheesecake I have ever eaten! After dinner we took a walk down Hollywood Blvd.
The next evening, we took another short tour and ended up at Paramount Ranch. It's a pretty cool old western movie set. Obviously this is just one of the buildings.
The President of the company has a house on Malibu Lake, and we went there for a dinner party. Here's the view from his front yard. Not bad eh?
On the way back to the hotel, we took a short detour to Malibu Pier so we could see the ocean. The moon was pretty full so it was actually quite nice. I didn't bother taking a picture because I had my doubts that it would turn out.

The whole experience was pretty neat. It's always fun traveling on someone else's dime. Hopefully the information I was able to share about my own experience with the software can help others who choose to adopt it in the future. At any rate, if my District Director calls again and wants to send me to another conference, my answer will most definitely be YES!