Pomona, 2009

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In the weeks leading up to the show, I quizzed bluroc (Kevin Wade) to see if he was thinking about attending this year. I've sparred with him on eBay for many years but never actually had the chance to meet him in person. His response was disappointing: "Thinking about it is as far as I'm going to get. My son is in driver's ed this summer and the cost of insurance will have me working overtime for awhile." Too bad.

Then I heard that Ken Schwartz was begging off because his wife Teenie is having surgery. Well gee, that's a shame. At least I knew that Ralph Van Brocklin would be there. I hadn't seen Ralph in a couple of years, even though we now were Southern neighbors (sort of) and he's always a pleasure to chat with, even if the topic of conversation involves (snoozzzze) bottles.

I hauled out of Atlanta at midday on Friday on a plane that was so full that it could barely make it off the ground. I spent the next 4-1/2 hours glued to the window. I know most people view flying as a chore (or worse), but I can't get enough of the unique views of the earth from 38,000 ft in the air. When I lived in Philly, flying west meant traveling over canyon country - as spectacular from the air as on the ground. Flights from Atlanta take a more southerly route, and I watched in fascination as we flew over the deserts of Texas and Arizona. The colors and contours of the arid ground are something to behold and then, in the middle of nowhere, one sees acres of buildings built in a precise grid with no clue as to their function. Are these US Government testing grounds of some sort? Elsewhere are aqueducts that have been built to carry water from rivers to remote locations many tens to hundreds of miles away, where the water is used to turn a remote patch of desert into a lush green tapestry of circles and squares.

Bizarre, to say the least.

The flight dropped me into LA on a Friday afternoon in the middle of rush hour. Pomona (the show location) is located 50 miles from LAX on the opposite side of the city - a drive that took two and a half hours, much of that time being spent crawling along the infamous 405. Gotta love LA!

When I finally made it to Pomona, I discovered that the host hotel (Sheraton Suites; right) sits on the edge of a vast LA County Fair complex ("Fairplex"), with the show itself being held in Fairplex Building #5 immediately behind the hotel.

The hotel had recently been modernized and was very comfortable: perhaps the best hotel I've stayed in recent years. The FOHBC had negotiated a package deal that made the two-night stay very reasonable, so I settled in for the evening and eagerly awaited the hunt that was to begin shortly after 1:00 pm PDT the next day.

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