Impromptu deGraf/Wahrman Reunion 2015

I apologize for being so late in posting this. I am recovering from the shock of SIGGRAPH, my own angst about my career, lack thereof, and the oppressive heat.

Out of the blue, there was an impromptu dWi (deGraf/Wahrman) reunion party at Greg Ercolano's house on the Saturday before Siggraph.

If I get your name wrong, or leave your name out entirely, please send me email so I can correct this.

Attendees included (in no particular order) Greg Ercolano, Anne Marie, Eve Lunt (and her husband, Andrew), Jane Stephan, Sally Syberg, Maija Beeton (and her husband Andre Bustanaby), Jim Hillin, Ken Brain, Jay Sloat, Allen Battino, Joseph Goldston, Larry Malone (and friend), and Kevin Bjorke (and friend).

I arrived rather late in the evening having taken the train from San Diego.

People who could not attend due to being out of town or prior engagements or other responsibilities include Brad, Kerry Colonna, Liz Ralston, Josh Pines, Jim Goodman and Emily, Adrian Iler, Marc Scaparo, Sari Gennis, Lynda Weinman, J Walt, Tom Betts, Don Rhodes (CPA), Wendy Elwell, Anne Adams, Ken Cope, Steve Segal, and Tuck Tucker. Dale Herigstad was in Europe I think. Richard Taylor helped out.  Ladd McPartland had recently passed away. Not all of these people may have received invitations in the last minute rush.

It was clear that I was not the only one suffering from career angst or dislocation. This is unfortunate because everyone there but perhaps myself is a respectable, knowledgeable, hard working citizen. who deserves to be doing fabulously well in our new digital age, but that does not seem to always be the case. I find this fascinating and unexpected. Even if we are not all where we might want to be at this point, I would have expected all of us to be valued in the marketplace.

I was astounded to get extra dWi film cartridges from Jane. Everyone was stunned to see a video that Ercolano had of a walk through of dWi sometime during the HB Attraction Period. Greg Ercolano seems to have acquired a fabulous classic contemporary mid-century house. Alhambra seems to be an interesting, Lauren-Canyon like neighborhood.

Probably it is best that I said nothing much at this event.  But if I had thought about it, I would probably have said something like, "There have been several periods of my life when I have been lucky to work with a group of people who turn out to be extraordinarily talented.   And as time passes it becomes clear how fortunate I was to be able to work with all of you.   I also feel that for a variety of reasons that were not exactly under the control of Brad and myself, we were not always able to provide the working conditions that everyone deserved to have.  It is one of the reasons that I did not want to start another production company, or even another company, as I did not want to repeat the same mistakes and without proper funding, that was the likely result.  Again, I want to say, it has been a privilege to work with all of you."

But I was too tired to even think about this until everyone had left.

I slept in the guest house and could not sleep a wink. Apparently the racoons drop things on the roof every 15 minutes or so with a bang.

Obviously we need to do this again so that more can attend.

I would like to encourage everyone there (and those who were not) to arrange to get together with me in the next year so we can catch up in more detail. It has been too long.

I need to get a copy of the Ercolano video.

Photographs to follow.