My turn to clarify: When I ask my friend if he wants a question asked, I am asking him because he i my friend - not simply to network. I am not using him.

Buit that dynamic is there, because he is important to my network and I to his, as I am someone he can point to as a success he helped create.

So I also genuinely want to know if he has questions and I genuinely want to represent my alma mater and my former professor in a positive way.

But it is also true, that all this can be faked.

And books suggest it.

I find it ridiculous to stay in contact with people I barely know just for the sake of staying in contact with them.

But I take the book's advice inasmuch as doing so with actual people firmly in my network strengthens the relationship.

Skywalker Ranch/ Skywalker sound is such a beautiful, elegant, absolutely amazing place that it just ought to exist.

It is so low key and relaxing that having spent about 6 hours there yesterday, I feel like I have had a couple of weeks vacation.

Do you know who is not allowed into Skywalker? Idiots.

Absolutely everyone I ran into was genuinely friendly, not phony, polite - but not fake-polite - and we all shared a common interest and were there to learn and share, and we all had achievements. There was absolutely no one-upsmanship.

When you talk to average people, and mention, for instance, that you worked at Queensryche's default studio, they tend to think you're bragging. At these events, people understand it for what it is. They respond with "Who else worked there?" And someone else chimes in "I do a lot of children's records - but that's kind of a specialized clientele." And you say "Do you know "Band X? They used to do a lot of children's ecords at our place!" and they say "Yeah - I do! I ran into them at a convention somewhere down south. They did a record with "so-and-so." "Wow! He was friends with my boss there!."

It's not name dropping - it's filling in the connections between people and between ourselves.

It was like some sort of Aspie heaven.

A world without idiots.

It really seemed that we all knew each other within one person, but had just never met personally.

The first thing I saw after the guard shack - not visible from the road - were three adolescent deer eating the dry yellow California summer grass in a meadow under some oaks. And it got better. Greenhouse? Shed? Vineyard? Yes. Lake? Absolutely. With little imported white sand beach and a floating swimming platform.

And not a soul in sight. Quiet.

The scoring stage was huge. I would estimate 35-40 foor ceinings. There were 50 guests total, and we and our tables didn't take up 20% of the floor place in there. And, for those unfamil;iar with recording environments, acoustically treated (adjustably) so that todays reverb decay time was in the 600 millisecond range, even for such a cavern. Awesome. Relaxing. No noise.(That time is adjustable upwards to over three seconds.)

We chatted with fellow non-idiots (voting members of the National Academy and members of the Producers and Engineers Wing) enjoyed grilled rosemary chicken sandwiches with fresh mozzarela and tomatoes, and eventually listened to an array of Neumann and Sennheiser microphones and did A/B comparisons using an ultra-phenomenal jazz vocalist and her piano player as source material.

It was art, it was science, it was leisure, it was work - all rolled seamlessly into one. As life ought to be.

I even was chatting with a Neumann rep from Seattle who seemed excited that he ad just visited my favourite purveyors of audio gear up there yesterday - one of whom is also a former student of my friend and former professor from Evergreen, and had seen my former boss from Triad the day before that.

He'll be passing my greetings along - and that, my friends, is "networking."

He'll say "Hey, I ran into V-Dog down at Skywalker Ranch last week" - and thus make himself more connected to them, and me more connected into their world again too, and they will be connected to Skywalker through me.

Anyway - It's a beautiful, beautiful place - and you would have no idea that it is Lucasfilms headquarters or the home of Skywalker Sound if you just parachuted in. It's positively bucolic, complete with baby deer and tiny geckos running around - straight out of central casting. Even the pass I got has no mention of the name of the place on it. It's a low-key internal document - not self-promoting or souvenir like at all. Very classic. And good for the vibe. It's no wonder so much creativity comes out of there. They have the environment to foster it.

I won't bore people with the frequency response curves and polar pattern graphs we used to describe objectively what we had all heard differently subjectively, but it was a good meeting and a happy day.

The room was so big that the 50 or 60 people in there seemed like 5 or 6 really, because it was spcious and quiet, even with everyone talking at once.

Skywalker rocks hard.

There's not much to say to that report, except "I'm glad it was more than you expected, and that you had the chance to be there for that."

Thanks Bart.

Sounds like heaven to me.

Glad you enjoyed your time there, v-dog.

Seriously, Dan - the most low-key event imaginable, especially given the credentials of a lot of the people there. I know that Aspies aren't supposed to enjoy socializing, but this has changed my perspective on that.

I never felt uncomfortable there. No one was presumptuous or intrusive.

I was asked my name a total of three times by the people "in authority" there - and that was it. No one tried to sell me anything, tell me what to do, tell me where to sit, tell me who to talk to - and that was true for the others there as well - and that's what allowed everything to come together so seamlessly.

There was nothing to fight against. No distractions.

It really reinforces my thinking that Aspies (and engineering is a typical Aspie career) need a "different" environmnt - and that we can thrive in it.

How many Aspies here would say that they really enjoyed being stuck in a group of 50 or 60 strangers and had no Aspiness in the middle of that?

This is a first for me - I wasn't happy about the prospect of what could go poorly - but they did everything right.

Between Lucas and his CGI nerds, and Neumann, and their audio nerds, it was like they were just attuned to what we wanted and needed, and it worked beautifully.

So my vote goes to: Accomodating Aspies better. We all win. Is it so hard to make a quiet nice space and not push people around with systems ?

Today I read one in every hundred kids in America are born with ASD of some sort.

This paradigm is the future.

And it's likely I'll be back there, in some capacity. I'd like to bring a project there - not just because of the setting and on-site accomodations - but because I really want to play with a rock'n'roll drumkit in that room.

The sound of it, with the .6 second 'verb decay, reminds me very much of the sound of a snow-covered field. We never realize the constant pressure of sound on our ears until we enter an acoustically controlled space or the middle of a snow-covered field, where the snow is absorbing so much acoustic energy.

I think a recording of a hard rock drum kit in the middle of a snow covered field could really capture true pathos. Something powerful and huge and even violent robbed of its power by context.

There's your metaphor. Enjoy!

I have NEVER been in a large group of people and not felt as Aspie as all heck. That must've been a very unique experience for you.

"So my vote goes to: Accomodating Aspies better. We all win. Is it so hard to make a quiet nice space and not push people around with systems ?"

Apparently it is. Humanity has created the systems that push us around and de-humanize us. Weber's "Iron Cage of Rationalization", if you want a sociological interpretation of the phenomenon. Something I find deliciously ironic, as I generally have quite a low opinion of humanity in general. Ha, ha.

I hate to say it, but this phenomenon is very Los Angeles. It's so much a home to the global entertainment world, and thus some very odd characters, that people have to treat everyone nicely, because they never know who you are.

It's an entertainment biz function. Held in the sandbox of movie business people.

I think they're just afraid to mess with people.

I like it.

I went to a business-related seminar a couple of years ago, about 3 hours away.

30 or so people with similar jobs to mine, all around the country. I didn't know any of them.

Basically one night, then full day/night, then day and depart.

About halfway through, I realized that I had chatted with more than half of them at one gathering or another, and decided the game would be to achieve that with all 30. And I did!


I also learned something from all of them, regardless of the size of the company that they worked for.

I truly believe this behavior can be learned to a great extent - maybe not to that "extreme" in all cases, but to a point where attending such an event is not a trial.

There's a set of social conventions that if followed, usually produce positive results, especially at an event like this - which is a bit like v-dog's.

Everyone knows we're all invited there for a reason, and we have similar skills. So there's no need to overscrutinize - the selection process has taken care of that issue.

Well - I'm not sure euthanasia is a great answer here, with regard to the "selection process."

But I'm sure Blackwell would be far more fun to talk to about that issue - because I simply don't believe in it.

Just sent my reports to both my alumni magazines - because this is a full on PR war and re-networking thing.

Now I just have to be working on me - so I can make hay while the sun shines.