Small World!

I'm in LA for the final stages of the booth build for our gaming client. We're in a hotel seven city blocks north of the conventi0n center, so I end up walking down in the morning and then taking a cab back at the end of the day. A few pics from yesterday, most are of the public library that's just behind the hotel...






The game shown up top is one of those featured in our booth.

So, we're sitting around the booth and I'm chatting with the guy who is in charge of the technology used in the booth, let's call him Bearded Geek. We've collaborated closely on this project and have a great working relationship. He and three other guys had been in a horrible accident this past Friday where someone ran a red light, t-boned their car and flipped it over the roof to land back on the tires. All four were in seatbelts, all four walked away from the wreck. That led into a conversation about first aid and he and I both started talking about a class we'd taken in college on Wilderness First Aid. Another person asks where I went and I answer, "I went to a small school in western Massachusetts."

He looks at me in surprise and says, "Did you go to Hampshire?" I was shocked since NO one ever knows about Hampshire. "Yeah! How do you know Hampshire?"

"I went there."

"When?!"

"Fall of 84 through spring of 89. I took a year off."

"What was your Div III?" I asked. A Div III is one's final project. It's somewhere between a normal senior project and a master's degree. Turns out he'd done the production and technology for a play that I'd seen my first year! I can still remember it because they'd used a lot of modern technology to tell the story of "The persecution of the Marquis de Sade as told by the inmates of the insane asylum and directed by Marat" (the title was something close to that).

This is the first time since I graduated that I've met a Hampshire alumnus (outside of a school-oriented event). The school is only 40 years old and only graduates 200-300 people a year, so there aren't that many of us. I liked him before, but it's fun to know we're part of the same club of wonderful, creative, eccentric people that Hampshire attracts. The other sweet thing he did was bring me little onesies for the baby with the logo of his company on them!

Overall the booth looks great. In the end, it's been painful, but the collaboration this year was MUCH better between us and the other two vendors. Compared to other booths in the show, ours is MUCH cleaner and more coherent. I can't post pics until the public opening tomorrow, but I'll let you see it then. The client did open the front of the booth and use our idea for how to handle demo stations, so I can semi-proudly admit that I was the creative direct0r for this booth. It will certainly sound good in future job interviews!