National Meeting of the

American Crystallographic Association

July 21-26, 2001

Westin Bonaventure Hotel, Downtown Los Angeles.

• Local information of ACA relevance

• Links to local information

• The weather

• Transportation to and from the Westin Bonaventure Hotel

• Downtown Map and Parking

• The Bonaventure Hotel

• Earthquakes, etc.

• Eating

• NEUTRON DIFFRACTION WORKSHOP!!! Didn't make it into the Call for Papers!

• Information for speakers using computer projectors (July 17 update)

• Social program, updates and athletic addenda

• Tourism

• Los Angeles Times articles of interest

• Pictures

• Practical items off-site

• Unclassifiables

Many visitors arrive at this web site by accident. For the information of web browsers: This is the local information web site for the next meeting of the American Crystallographic Association. This is NOT the web site for Adult Children of Alcoholics!

A lot more information (program and exhibitors info, for example) is building up at the main meeting web site.

By Dan Anderson, with contributions from Kathy Kantardjieff and Duncan McRee (i.e. it's a Local Committee production). Thanks, Tom Holton. Each LATimes article linked to this site shows author and copyright info. This is the (final?) update of July 17, 2001 (latest significant changes: 4/25/01 info about computer projectors; 5/14,17/01 Downtown parking info, Metro map, and Getty to LAX travel time; 6/29/01 clarification of what restaurant info will be in the meeting bags).

Sorry, some of the updates resulted in removing some jokes.

Since starting to count March 7, 2001, yours is visit number

Information for visitors is available at many sites, some of which are listed here, some more under Tourism, below.

The ACA meeting will be in the Westin Bonaventure Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles. Further information about the hotel is in its own section, below.

Here's a site of Los Angeles sites, @LA.

The city's web site might be useful if you need to build a bridge or something.

The Los Angeles Times web edition has a bunch of links, such as the Calendar section (calendarlive) Hotels and Visitors Info and here too. There are some relevant-looking LATimes articles, below. The Sunday Calendar section of the LATimes paper edition has listings of what to do, culture-wise.

The Los Angeles Convention and Visitors Bureau has a bunch of information for visitors, including recommended itineraries.

CitySpin publishes information (and brochures) about lots of US cities including Los Angeles.

Digital City also has web pages for lots of US cities also including Los Angeles.

Somehow Los Angeles Downtown News has something to do with publishing one of my guide books.

Yet more information is available from Downtown Center District. This site has a downloadable Downtown Area SHuttle (DASH) map, and a very detailed "Land Use" map showing the various districts. Unfortunately, not all the buildings on this map are labelled. A more colorful and useful file of the same map is linked under "Downtown Map and Parking," below. One of those districts is the Fashion District, with its own web site and maps.

The only accessible celebrities are these.

Public transportation information is here (linked through the transportation page of the city's web site). Some specific transportation items are listed under the Tourism and Getting to and From the Hotel sections. Here is the main web page of the Metro Rail system. The web site gives detailed instructions on how to buy a ticket, but the fares are a little cryptic. It seems to be $1.60 (November, 2000) for base fare plus transfer. The MTA site also tells you where points of interest are relative to Metro stops. There will be Metro maps inside brochures in the meeting bags. If you want them now, here are the Los Angeles Metro rail map, and the schedules of the Metro Green Line and Metro Blue Line.

For weather reports and such local stuff, look at the Los Angeles Times web edition, or go directly to the weather page.

Don't worry. The weather will be comfortable. There are just three weather-related items that might become relevant to the ACA: The UV index, the Santana Winds, and the temperature gradients. "UV Index 9" or more means that just about everybody gets a sunburn in a few minutes, so wear sunscreen if you are going to be out very much. Some of you will be unaccustomed to dry heat. In the event of Santana Wind conditions, be careful to stay hydrated, even if walking around doesn't raise a sweat. The San Fernando Valley during a Santana Wind feels like the inside of a furnace. The temperatures can differ as much as 40 degrees Farenheit between the inland valleys and the beach, although about 20 degrees might be more typical. It's possible to leave our hotel Downtown on a warm sunny day, and arrive a little while later at a freezing beach (meaning below 70F). Surfers and divers usually wear wet suits in the sea water.

Date of most recent serious rain: April 20, 2001. There was drizzle July 4, some drips July 6, but rain is defined as "I say it's raining," so April 20 is the latest.

Those of you with absolutely nothing better to do may look up temperatures as a function of postal code in the Los Angeles Times web site. Here are some example postal codes to help you waste time: Westin Bonaventure Hotel 90071; Beverly Hills 90210; Mann's Chinese Theater in Hollywood 90028; Westwood, next to UCLA 90024; Santa Monica Pier 90401. Pity the taxpayer.

Minor point: "Santa Ana" is the name of a city. "Santana Wind" I guess means the hot breath of a witch across the land, or something poetic like that.

The ACA local committee has absolutely no control over the traffic situation on the afternoon of July 26, 2001. If you plan to return to the airport via roadways, you have to consider the possibility of really slow traffic during peak driving hours, and at random other times. Traffic gets worse starting around 3:30 pm. You might miss your flight, if you try to get out at 4:30 pm. My longest ever drive from the Westside to Downtown was 2 hours 30 minutes, although 30-50 minutes is probably more typical. Only a miracle or a presidential motorcade will get you to LAX in the hotel's claimed 20 minutes. One of these guide books (see Tourism below) says to allow at least 1 hour to drive from Downtown to LAX.

One of the planned social functions is a post-meeting bus ride to the Getty Center, followed by a bus ride to LAX. Keep that in mind.

Riding the bus.

UCLA people living somewhere near Wilshire Boulevard may ride the Metro Rapid Line 720 bus (the red ones; schedule and map pdf).

Train travel to Los Angeles (suggested by Duncan McRee)

Union Station is a short cab ride from the Bonaventure Hotel. Also, it's next to Olvera Street (El Pueblo de Los Angeles, etc.). Those of you who arrive by Amtrak train and who like more adventure than riding a cab to the hotel may ride on the Downtown Area SHuttle (DASH). The fare is $0.25. The DASH system closes at about 6:30 pm, depending on where you are standing. The hotel is easy to recognize: it has five huge cylindrical towers. On weekdays, use DASH line B, get off at Central Library, just before it (the shuttle) turns around. On weekends, the DASH line past Union Station transmorgifies into touristic line DD (Downtown Discovery). It's cirquitous, and passes by the Bonaventure twice on its rounds. Also, the Metro Red Line can take you very near the Bonaventure Hotel. Get off the Metro at Seventh Street/Metro Center stop at 660 South Figueroa Street. The Bonaventure Hotel is the only building on the 400 block between Flower and Figueroa Streets.

The two main airports to investigate are Burbank and Los Angeles International. People refer to Los Angeles International as LAX, pronounced "L A X". Almost everybody will arrive at LAX. Burbank is closest to the meeting site (actually, just barely closer). You should only consider flying into Burbank if your flight will originate on the West Coast. Otherwise, it is prohibitively expensive. I, for one, don't even know where Burbank Airport is (don't forget that Los Angeles is HUGE!). Other airports within a zillion miles are Orange County and Ontario. Most fares into those airports are more expensive than into LAX, and I think the dictionary defines "zillion" as "an uncountably large number."

Here's the dysfunctional Burbank Airport web site. And here's the almost useless web site for LAX, et al.

Those of you flying into LAX from the east or south, seated at the windows, will see how huge Los Angeles is. Downtown and the meeting site will be on the right side of the aircraft. The flight path coming from the north (prior to about 10pm) passes south of Downtown twice (because the planes fly out over the ocean first, then turn inland, to avoid the flight path into Burbank), so window seats on either side will get you a view.

If you haven't already perceived the immensity of Los Angeles, you will see some evidence in the form of traffic density while waiting for the shuttle. LAX is the world's third busiest airport (behind Atlanta and Chicago). There's more car traffic going in and out of LAX than the two busier airports because Los Angeles is the origin or destination of most trips, not a temporary stop. Also, LAX is third busiest in air freight (behind Memphis and Hong Kong) but that's not relevant because none of you will arrive on cargo aircraft. The plan seems to be to increase passenger capacity from 65,000,000-ish to 90,000,000-ish per year, but that's not relevant to ACA2001 either because it won't happen for years. All these useless factoids come from www.latimes.com.

When you leave LAX via the roadways, you will cross Sepulveda Boulevard. Sepulveda Boulevard runs north-south for 76 miles. LA is bigger than that.

From LAX to the Bonaventure Hotel via taxi. Rich corporate types can take taxis. Taxis are your only choice if you have given yourself a tight schedule. The fare is about $35 one-way, regardless of the number of passengers (I only called one example taxi company).

From LAX to the Bonaventure Hotel via airport shuttle. At the baggage claim area, go out the door where it says "Ground Transportation," walk to the blue and white sign hanging from the roof that says "Airport Shuttles". Last time I looked, only three of the airport shuttle companies survive, and it was pretty clear that one of the 3 won't last much longer. They are: LAXpress, Prime Time, and Super Shuttle (that's alphabetical). Near the blue and white sign, find the coordinator for one of the companies (actually, they will pounce on you, so they are easy to identify), and tell the coordinator that you want a shuttle ride to the Westin Bonaventure Hotel Downtown. The shuttles charge about $13 one-way, about $11 per additional person in the same group at the same pick-up with the same destination. The discount for multiple passengers didn't work when ACA Council members tried it. (I only called my usual shuttle company for example fare.)

The shuttles may go around the loop twice. If you get in at the start of the first loop, and traffic is bad, the two loops could exceed your tolerance for intimacy with airports. United Airlines is at the airport exit, but the shuttle might go all the way around the loop again if you board there. The space ship in the middle of the loop is actually a restaurant.

From LAX to the Bonaventure Hotel mostly via L.A. Metro. This trip has not been tried by ACA spies. You should first download the Los Angeles Metro rail map. In case the timings matter to you, here are the schedules of the Metro Green Line and Metro Blue Line. According to the schedules, the trip takes 14 minutes on the Green Line, then 25 minutes on the Blue Line. It takes a few minutes changing from Green to Blue. There's a free shuttle from LAX to the Aviation/I105 Metro Green Line station. Outside the baggage claim area, go to the black sign with white letters that says "LAX Shuttles." Wait for and then ride LAX Shuttle Line G (Green Line Aviation Station). Ride the Metro Green Line east to its intersection with the Metro Blue Line at Rosa Parks/Imperial/Wilmington. Ride the Blue Line north to its intersection with the Metro Red Line at the 7th Street Metro Center Station (the exit at Figueroa Street is very colorful). At that point, you might as well walk. Walk north (slightly uphill) on Flower or Figueroa Streets. The Westin Bonaventure is the 5-cylinder monster.

The bad news is that in the Metro, you miss the views of Downtown from the freeways.

From LAX to the Bonaventure Hotel by Rental Car. Read these next sections to completion. Are you sure about this? There are Budget and Dollar rental car offices inside the Bonaventure Hotel; you could rent a car only for post-meeting tourism. Driving could become too much exposure to the local culture for some of you. You have to look at a map first, and having a navigator in the passenger seat would help. The ACA local committee has absolutely no influence on or prior knowledge of weekend Downtown road closures due to movie production, although this information is publicly available. You may have to improvise on arrival Downtown. And some people still wonder why movies all look about the same...

Driving warnings. The alarmist warnings given here are based on direct observations by me, but from reading LATimes articles (see below), it looks like the same warnings apply outside California.

Many Californian drivers run red lights. That's illegal, even in California. Those of you with rental cars should look for aggressive drivers entering intersections after their light turns red, frequently at high speeds. They figure they can get across before the drivers with green lights can get started.

The California anti-traffic-jam law (flagrantly ignored) is a legalese statement whose meaning is: "Enter an intersection only if you can reach the other side before the red light."

The aggressive drivers are aggressive regardless of driving conditions. The probability of rain in Los Angeles in July is nil, but if it does rain, the roads will be extremely slick, and the aggressive drivers don't back off. They get into unprovoked spinouts, they (try to) accelerate and decelerate just as hard as always. It rains so little outside the winter rainy season, and there are so many cars dripping oily stuff, that in the first hours after it starts raining, the roads become hazardous.

A few words about SUV drivers: Which came first, the aggressive chicken, or the egg containing an aggressive fetal chicken?

Aggression is good in sports and commerce and a few other situations.

Driving directions from LAX to the Westin Bonaventure Hotel. First, get out of LAX, somehow. If you don't want to think, follow the signs to Century Boulevard. I like to follow the signs to Sepulveda Boulevard going north, then cross over to the freeway at Manchester, but I'm a native. Your choices are: Century Freeway or San Diego followed by Santa Monica Freeways. Century Freeway (Highway 105) may or may not be below the water table by July, 2001. Century Freeway has a carpool lane(s?) so it's theoretically the fastest, if you have two or more in the car. Probably you shouldn't use any freeway if there's nobody in the car (that's a joke!).

Being so patterned, I would drive north on Interstate 405 (the San Diego Freeway, away from San Diego, towards Sacramento). Drive east (to the right) on Interstate 10 (the Santa Monica Freeway towards Downtown, away from Santa Monica). Gradually work your way over to the left two lanes. Please observe that some drivers go much faster than the traffic around them, by means of changing lanes constantly. They must be day traders.

At the interchange with Highway 110 go north (that's why you need one of the left two lanes). The Harbor Freeway turns into the Pasadena Freeway depending on if you are between Downtown and L.A. Harbor or Pasadena. I hope you Easterners see the naming pattern here.

At this point, the Century and Santa Monica Freeway routes converge, but there's a nice view from the Santa Monica Freeway. The enormous blue and green structures are the L.A. Convention Center. Staples Center is the space ship that says "Staples Center" on top.

Regardless of how it looks on a map, it's easiest to exit the freeway at the 9th Street/Convention Center offramp. Proceed east on 9th Street, turn left (north) on Figueroa. The Westin Bonaventure Hotel is between 4th and 5th Streets, with entrances on both the Figueroa and Flower Street sides. At 4th Street, turn right and park either at Arco Plaza, 400 Flower Street (about $26 per day), or turn right again onto Flower Street, park at the Bonaventure (about $19 per day for hotel guests, about $26 otherwise).

If you by misteak get off at the 6th Street exit, you will see the Bonaventure on your left, but it will take you an eternity to figure out how to get there (the solution to the puzzle appears to be: 3 right turns to get turned around to the north). If you get off at the 4th Street/Music Center/Museum of Contemporary Art exit, you can practically touch the Bonaventure from the passenger side window, but mostly you will find out why some futurist movies are set in multi-level cities. The 3rd Street exit will send you entirely off the planet (see Dinner With a Rental Car, below).

From the Bonaventure to LAX in a rental car. Your trip will start on Flower Street. Turn right at 5th Street. Go south on the Harbor Freeway (110) towards L.A. Harbor. Etcetera.

Because of the distances and traffic in Los Angeles, and the densely packed ACA schedule, the "locals" are better off staying in the Bonaventure Hotel than commuting. I wish I could convince the "local" professors of this one. In the unlikely event that UCLA or Caltech professors are reading this: ACA2001 is only a tiny bit more expensive than other ACA meetings (except for splurge dinners), minus the air fare. Here is parking information for those who commute.

I downloaded a PDF file of a Downtown map from Potentia Group's web site (which is what, Dan?). If that button doesn't work and you are using Netscape, try shift-left mouse button. Most of the public parking places are marked with "P".

Parking very near the Bonaventure is expensive: $27 per day at the Bonaventure ($19 for Hotel guests), $27 also at Arco Plaza across Flower Street, at Wells Fargo Center, or Central Library (but about $6 weekends). Note that Arco Plaza and its parking are not on the same block.

Parking can be cheaper further out, or in the open-air lots. You have to decide your own balance between saving a few bucks and walking the streets at night to retreive your car. Some of these are closed on Sundays or all weekend.
Pershing Square (5th and Hill Streets) $14 per day ($6 weekends).
Open air lot on the north side of 5th and Hill is $8.19 per day.
California Plaza (entrances on Lower Grand Avenue and Olive Streets) $15 for early arrivals, $27.50 non-early, $5 weekends. Note that "Lower" specifies a vertical direction.
Open air lots north of Wells Fargo Center, between Hope Street and Lower Grand Avenue, about $9 per day.
7th Street Market Place (entrance 8th and Figueroa) $23.50.
Open air lots along 8th Street are about $6-8 per day, but with varying restrictions about when you have to leave.
Macy's Plaza parking is $19.80 (I already forgot if the entrances were on 8th or Hope streets).

The ACA meeting and some social functions will be in the Westin Bonaventure Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles. The street address is 404 South Figueroa Street, Los Angeles, CA. The telephone number is 213-624-1000.

I typed this paragraph because many of you will get so completely lost in this huge hotel. One of my Los Angeles guide books recommends that first-time visitors carry a compass to find their way back out. The central lobby ("Atrium") has entrances on both Flower and Figueroa Streets. The tower "colors" and "shapes" seem to be distinguishable only from the signs on the elevators. The hotel registration desk is between the "Green/Square" and "Blue/Triangle" Towers, on the same level as the Flower Street entrance, but one level down from the entrance on the Figueroa Street side. Look for the "Yellow/Diamond" Tower to find the rooms for ACA registration, scientific program, posters and exhibits. ACA registration will be in a booth at the base of "Yellow/Diamond" Tower, one level down from the lobby. Very tall people walking around at lobby level should be careful not to get wet.

Almost everything visitors want is available inside this hotel. There are about 20 places to eat, ranging from the cheap food court (mostly level 4, some on level 6) to medium (level 6) to moderately expensive (level 35, "Red/Circle" Tower). There's a rotating bar on level 34 ("Red/Circle" Tower). There are even Budget and Dollar rental car offices in-house.

Here are some useful details, transcribed from a Bonaventure letter. To cancel your reservation, call at least 72 hours in advance. Otherwise, you lose your deposit. When you check in, you must verify your departure date. They charge $25 for departure earlier than what you say at the moment of check-in. Single rooms contain one huge bed each. "Double/twin" rooms contain one "double" (pretty big) size bed and one "California twin" size bed (smaller than "double," but longer than the standard "twin"). Maximum occupancy is 3 people per room. Three people in a "double/twin" room means that two sleep together in the same bed.

This information is not in the letter from the Bonaventure: The beds are extremely comfortable.

The Mid-Week Mixer will be in the Bonaventure Brewing Company, a microbrewery on the pool level of the Hotel (level 4), upstairs from our meeting rooms. It is between the "Red/Circle" and "Yellow/Diamond" Towers. There is no elevator service (that anybody will find) to the even-numbered levels in the Atrium. To minimize labor on your way to the Mixer, you may ride the "Red/Circle" or "Yellow/Diamond" elevators up to level 5, then walk or ride the escalator back down.

Numerous movie scenes have been shot in the Bonaventure. A partial catalog is hanging on the walls one level down from our posters and exhibits in the Pasadena Room. Some famous scene locations are marked with plaques throughout the Hotel.

Those of you ACA meeting attendees who worry about safety are partway right to worry. California is California because of the earthquakes. Californians for decades have been worrying about earthquakes, and that worrying has been built into the infrastructure and the building codes. In the unlikely event of a catastrophic earthquake during the ACA meeting, emergency services are already in place and waiting. It is extremely improbable that the hotel will collapse, although it may look ugly after a direct hit from a 7.2. There's a LATimes article linked below about why earthaquakes of equal magnitude are so different.

Each of you can protect your possessions from some aspects of earthquakes. For example, cameras and other fragile items should never be left on a table. When not in use, keep cameras at floor level, and pay attention to what might fall on them in the event of about 1g horizontal acceleration. Laboratory capital equipment in earthquake areas is supposed to be anchored to the bench tops. Laboratory chemicals get stored in cabinets and on shelves with "lips" or railing on them.

And keep your shoes next to your bed at night.

When in Rome... There's no water in California. Take fast showers. Don't run the water while you brush your teeth. And don't even think about running the water overnight to help you sleep. Here's a childhood memory: Gasoline was $0.32 per gallon. Tap water was $0.28 per gallon. My mother said "We might as well take baths in gasoline."

Somebody will ask about safety on the streets. It says here in the LATimes that crime happens at these four bus stops near our meeting site: Spring and 4th Streets; Spring and 7th Streets; Broadway and 7th Streets; Broadway and 5th Streets. The crime is mostly picking pockets, and some harassment. The article also says that the statistics are becoming ancient history. Another LATimes article (about the changing Downtown residential real estate situation) said that Downtown crime is at a 10-year low. One of these guide books says that Downtown is perfectly safe, with the caveat about pickpockets.

Another LATimes article said that there is a lot of crime (selling drugs, etc.) at the intersection of Hollywood Boulevard and Western Avenue.

There are some homeless people on the streets (near Central Library, for example) who will make many of us uncomfortable.

You don't have to leave the hotel (see above). This section is for those of you who do venture outside.

Los Angeles will be unique among ACA cities in that Downtown is so detached from the the lives of most of us local organizers that we will have to rely on published restaurant lists, LATimes articles, and the various guide publications, rather than on a personal picks list. Your registration packet will contain a list of restaurants divided into "casual" and "fine" groups, but without commentary. The concierge has a list of restaurants near and not quite near that specifies which are open on Sundays. If you want commentary on Downtown restaurants, download and print this Los Angeles Times article. For a few percent more adventure, ride the Metro Red Line into Hollywood for dinner. Chinatown and Little Tokyo are within easy taxi distance.

Sunday lunch. Because of the commuting lifestyle of most people who work in the Downtown Los Angeles Financial District, most eating places within easy reach will be closed at least for lunch during the weekend portion of the ACA meeting. During weekdays, lunch can be located by the usual mechanism of meandering. There are numerous eating places within the hotel. Costs range from cheap (Starbuck's at ground level, and the food court on levels 4 and 6) to expensive (LA Prime on level 35).

Wells Fargo Plaza and the Mentor/Mentee Dinner. I typed two sets of walking directions. This first one takes you past a bunch of outdoor sculptures. The other one follows the paragraph about Central Library, below. Take the "Blue/Triangle" elevator to level 5, walk up to level 6 (there is no elevator service to even-numbered levels within the Atrium). Follow the signs that say "ARCO Garage/YMCA" to the "Skybridge." Walk towards the brown monoclinic-looking buildings that say "Wells Fargo" on top (the Wells Fargo Towers look orthorhombic and tetragonal from the other side). This walk takes you past the entrance of the YMCA, admission to which used to be $7.50 at the hotel concierge's desk. California Pizza Kitchen and the Mentor/Mentee Dinner is in the (comparatively) little building between the towers. MacDonald's and California Pizza Kitchen are open for lunches including weekends. Everything is open for dinner. There are sculptures in and out of doors at Wells Fargo Center. KooKooRoo is across the street from Wells Fargo, to the north.

California Plaza is worth a visit even if you don't eat lunch there. Walk to Wells Fargo Center, walk across it, cross the street. The Museum of Contemporary Art serves lunch every day, for a price (typically less than $15; closed Mondays). The museum architect was Arata Isozaki. During an ACA scouting expedition Saturday July 1, 2000, the only other thing open for eating mid-day was Starbucks, but it was closed 2/4/01. Maybe the Omni Hotel ("Hotel Intercontinental" on the map, inside back cover of the Call for Papers). serves lunch, too. There are several other restaurants there, open weekdays and one for weekend dinners.

Grand Central Market. This is more of a walk, but it looks like a foreign country. The Central Market has lunch-eating places, and also contains the nearest thing to a grocery store anywhere near the Bonaventure Hotel. Prior to February 1, you could have gone there as follows: go to Wells Fargo Center, California Plaza, take the Angels Flight funicular to the bottom of the hill ($0.25 each way). Angels Flight crashed February 1, 2001. See the LATimes article linked below. You can also get there by walking on 5th Street past Central Library, and walking around to the other side of Bunker Hill, turning left on Hill Street. The Bradbury Building (a tourist attraction) is across the street on the east side of Grand Central Market.

Los Angeles Central Library has two eating places: Bookends, open weekends for lunch, and the more upscale Cafe Pinot, closed Sunday, dinner only Saturday. Serves breakfast and lunch weekdays. Bookends contains 4 semi-independent operators: Panda Express (non-authentic Chinese), ice cream, pizza/sandwitches, and coffee. The Central Library is worth a visit, even if you don't eat lunch there or look at the books. The ACA Opening Reception will be at Central Library (see Social Program section, below). Central Library is across the street from the Bonaventure on the diagonal, at the intersection of 5th and Flower Streets.

Here's a very nice but more athletic way to go to Wells Fargo Center and California Plaza. Walk over to 5th Street but don't cross it. Walk to a point perpendicular to Central Library's 5th Street entrance. Walk up or ride the escalator up Bunker Hill on the stairs with running water ("Bunker Hill Steps"). There are some sculptures beside the Steps. The tallest building along the way ("Library Tower") is the tallest office tower West of the Mississippi. It's cleverly designed so that it's hard to see how big it is when you are standing right next to it. Seen from a great distance, it's huge! There's a popular seafood restaurant (McCormick and Schmick's) about 4 levels up with entrance on Bunker Hill Steps, but it's closed for weekend lunches, and their hours list was pretty unintelligible during ACA scouting July 1, 2000. They do Happy Hours Monday through Friday. Some people compare Bunker Hill Steps to the Spanish Steps in Rome. The Spanish Steps have a church at the top. Bunker Hill Steps have a Robert Graham sculpture at the top. Having reached the top of the steps, keep going uphill in the same direction, towards the asymmetric brown towers of Wells Fargo Center.

Some of us locals like Otto's, underneath the Music Center, for dinner ($!). Call 213-972-7322 for reservations. The Music Center is 2 blocks North of Wells Fargo Center, and looks like an ancient (1964) Greek temple complex. There's also Impressario restaurant on top of Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, but if you have to ask... The construction site along the way is the new concert hall designed by Frank Gehry. It should have some of its outer shell up by the time of our meeting. Its steel framework is really strange (exposed as of January, 2001). The new L.A. Cathedral is under construction on the other side of the Music Center.

Several people have said that impoverished ACA people should eat at Original Pantry Cafe at 877 S. Figueroa St. (phone: 213-972-9279). There's a short paragraph about it in the LATimes Downtown eating article, linked below and above.

Study a map first before trying any of these! And see the above section on how to get to the Bonaventure in a rental car. There are thousands of restaurants over here. This section is mostly about restaurant clusters. The first four are among the few places in Los Angeles where you can witness large numbers of people on foot:

The Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica has a bunch of restaurants, and a year-round carnival atmosphere. See the LATimes article, below. This is about a 20 mile drive (MORE THAN 20????) each way. Drive west on 5th Street, then the Harbor Freeway (110) south (towards the harbor), Santa Monica Freeway (10) west (towards Santa Monica), get off on 4th Street, follow the signs towards Downtown Santa Monica, park in the structures on 2nd or 4th Streets. Parking gets easier as you drive further from the freeway; I almost always park in structure 2 near 2nd Street and Wilshire.

The business section of Brentwood has restaurants. Drive west as above, but then go north on the San Diego Freeway (405; away from San Diego, towards Sacramento), get off at Wilshire West, then at San Vicente Boulevard, go north (and then west). Parking in Brentwood is not funny.

Westwood, just south of UCLA, seems to be reviving, but Westwood Boulevard is still alternately bleak and pretty nice. The good news is that in the past months, there have been signs of investment (renovation work). See the LATimes article, below. Driving directions are the same as for Brentwood, but get off the San Diego Freeway at Wilshire East. The part of most interest is north of Wilshire Boulevard.

Old Town Pasadena (near Caltech) is about 10 miles north of the Bonaventure. There are many restaurants and shops on or near Colorado Boulevard (as in Rose Parade). To go there, drive north on the Pasadena Freeway (110), turn left at Colorado Boulevard or thereabouts. Park a block or two north or south of Colorado. During ACA surveillance 3/25/2000, the theme of running red lights continued, even in this walking district (see section on driving, above).

If you have to ask... There are a bunch of restaurants throughout Beverly Hills north of Wilshire within a few blocks of Rodeo Drive. Some more restaurants are south of Wilshire near Beverly Drive. There's a restaurant row along the east edge of Beverly Hills, on La Cienega Boulevard north of Wilshire Boulevard. The original Hard Rock Cafe is at the north extreme of the Beverly Center (some of it looks like Centre Pompidou) about a block north of the intersection of La Cienega and San Vicente. Beverly Hills is not near any freeway (guess why), so there's no quick way to get there. From Downtown, you can take 3rd Street west for a long time; along the way, note LA's cloisonee finances. You can go west via the Santa Monica Freeway as above, then go north on La Cienega for a long time. It might actually be easiest to drive around to the other side as though you are going to Westwood (see above), but then keep going east on Wilshire. If you overshoot, you will pass by Rodeo Drive, Spago (at Canon and Wilshire), Beverly Hills Ferrari, Larry Flynt Publications, Petersen Publications, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Museum Row, Screen Actor's Guild, The Variety, E!, my favorite Marie Calenders' restaurant, etc. You can get back to Downtown this way.

A lot of people like Gladstone's 4 Fish on the beach at the dead end of Sunset Boulevard in Malibu (Pacific Palisades, really). It's loud. They have (mandatory?) valet parking. Reservations: 310-454-3474. Driving directions? It's a little like the Restaurant at the End of the Universe.

Program revisions will be posted to the main meeting web site, and that is where you should be looking, but this added workshop was a total surprise to a lot of us, so it appears here also.

This additional fourth workshop will be simultaneous with the other three workshops July 21, 2001. Registration will be the same as for the other workshops: $60 students, $70 non-students. Here's a description of the added workshop:

The prospect is at hand for an exciting new era in biological neutron diffraction studies at steady state and spallation neutron sources worldwide. This is the result of new and upgraded neutron sources, advances in neutron detectors, and better understanding of the process of crystal growth. This confluence of events will provide both opportunities to grow large crystals on the International Space Station, and to collect data at steady state and spallation neutron sources such as ILL, JAERI, ISIS, LANSCE PCS, SNS, and the proposed ESS. The role of this workshop is to acquaint a new generation of protein crystallographers with the merits of neutron diffraction studies of macromolecules. Beyond providing a scientific case for neutron diffraction, presentations will include tutorials on large crystal growth, deuteration and perdeuteration of proteins and crystals, neutron data collection and refinement strategies, cooling of large crystals for low temperature data collection, and potential funding sources for neutron crystallography projects.

This section is a revision and clarification of the information in the Call for Papers, page 12, right column. Information in this section has stabilized, in that I'm leaving soon. (July 17, 2001 update)

At ACA2001 we will provide PC's for speakers using the computer projectors. Speakers may use the provided PC's or bring portable laptop computers.

If you will speak using your own portable laptop computer, then prior to the start of your session, you should connect it to the switchbox that we will provide in each session room. You must prepare and know your own computer: It must never time out or reboot, never activate a screen saver, and you must know how to synchronize it to a projector that is already on (Function-F5, for example). An identical projector and switch will be available in the speaker-ready room (La Brea Room, see below). Please check for compatibility and practice synchronization prior to your session. If you bring a Mac, bring your own Mac to VGA adapter.

To use the computers that we provide, bring PowerPoint and other files on Zip Disk or CD and copy the files onto our PC's hard drives. Please copy your files onto our PC's long before your session begins. Please don't use unusual fonts, such as "Far-East" fonts, but if you do, bring the font files with you.

The computers that we provide will be Compaq (IBM-style, Intel-based) PC's with Windows 2000 operating system. These computers will be loaded with MicroSoft PowerPoint and MediaPlayer software, Netscape 4.7x, and QuickTime 5.0 Pro. See the next paragraph about why QuickTime is included. Speakers who will use our PC's and who require other software, such as Netscape plug-ins, should notify us (dha@mbi.ucla.edu) well in advance (meaning weeks or months in advance). We will probably need an example file, as an e-mail attachment. A duplicate PC and projector will be available in the Speaker Ready Room (La Brea Room; on lobby level, walk past "Yellow Tower", turn left at Santa Barbara Room, and La Brea is at the end of the hallway). Speakers should test presentations on this equipment before going "on stage." Problems should be reported to the locals immediately. Note that we will not have internet access in the La Brea Room or in the session rooms, and we will therefore not be able to quickly download remedies from MicroSoft's web site and other sources.

Before flying over here, you should prepare QuickTime movie files in a format that PowerPoint 2000 can read. For details of compatibility, see Microsoft's documentation. Strangely, that doesn't seem to work in Netscape. Please use QuickTime 4.0 or 5.0 Pro to write the PowerPoint compatible files. We will bring QuickTime 5.0 Pro to try to rescue presentations that don't work. QuickTime format changes are not instant, so expect standing in lines of nervous speakers. Uncompressed AVI files work great!

Under Windows 2000 (with Mac Opener), Mac format disks and simple PowerPoint files are supposed to work fine (but see above caveat about QuickTime movies). To be safe, bring Mac CD's, not Zip's. This is an anti-Mac world over here, and we have just a few Mac files to play with.

All the old speakers' preparation wisdom still applies: Use slides OR overheads OR the computer projectors, but don't alternate. To protect yourself from the possibility of equipment failure, bring transparencies for use on the overhead projectors, whatever your main medium may be.

If you really want to obsess, you may download the LCD projector manual.

This section will be updated as the situation evolves.

Mentor/Mentee Dinner will be held at California Pizza Kitchen at Wells Fargo Center, July 22, 2001. This event is simultaneous with the MOCA party in the next paragraph; finish this dinner, then go to the party. Here's the first set of directions repeated from Eating, above: Take the "Blue/Triangle" elevator to level 5, walk up to level 6. Walk across the "Skybridge" in the "ARCO Garage/YMCA" direction. Walk towards the brown buildings that say "Wells Fargo" on top. California Pizza Kitchen is in the low building between the towers. And here's the second set of directions, also repeated from above: Walk over to 5th Street but don't cross it. Walk to a point perpendicular to Central Library's 5th Street entrance. Walk up or ride the escalator up Bunker Hill on the stairs with running water ("Bunker Hill Steps"). Then keep going towards the big brown towers.

We will after all have a party at Museum of Contemporary Art, Sunday July 22. The official announcement will likely be elsewhere, not here. Stay tuned. Walking directions are the same as for the Mentor/Mentee Dinner, but then cross Grand Avenue, turn left and walk past 3rd Street. When you cross Grand, you should turn left because if you don't you will walk into an outdoor performance of Rachid Taha and Les Yeux Noirs (Moroccan, New Orleans, French Gypsy, etc.). MOCA is the brown building with pyramids and a horizontal cylinder on top. Enter from Grand Avenue, not from the back side. The exhibit "David Hockney Photoworks" opens to the public the day of our party. For once, I agree with the curator: this new exhibit is "about the art of looking."

Midweek/YSSIG Mixer will be at Bonaventure Brewing Company, a microbrewery on level 4 (swimming pool level) of the Hotel, upstairs from our meeting rooms, July 23, 2001. It is between the "Red/Circle" and "Yellow/Diamond" Towers. There is no elevator service to the even-numbered levels in the Atrium (!). To save your strength for drinking beer, ride the "Red/Circle" or "Yellow/Diamond" elevators up to level 5, then walk or ride the escalator back down one level. I suppose this sandwiches our meeting between beers.

The Rigaku/MSC Fun Run will be Tuesday July 24, 2001 in Echo Park (echo park).

2001 First Annual ACA Squash Tournament. For information, see the Squash Tournament web site. The organizer of this event will be Lisa Nagy (lisanagy@uab.edu).

Annual Banquet and Awards Ceremony will be at the Regal Biltmore Hotel. Here's the same information from the Call for Papers: Our banquet will be held in the opulent and historic Regal Biltmore Hotel. This Beaux Arts structure was designed by Schultze and Weaver (1923-28), the same architects who designed the Waldorf Astoria in New York. The ceilings were painted by Giovanni Smeraldi. The Biltmore Hotel has been used as the set for numerous movies, and has been the site of historic events large and small. It's a tourist destination as are so many European palaces. To reach the Biltmore starting from the southeast corner of the Bonaventure Hotel (5th and Flower Streets), walk 1 block east on 5th Street past Central Library. Entrances to the Biltmore are on Grand Avenue, 5th Street (most direct), and Olive Street (most interesting, but a longer walk). Reception with cash bar begins at 6 pm July 25, 2001 in the Tiffany Room, then the banquet begins at 7 pm in the Crystal Room.

Post-ACA meeting excursion to the Getty Center. The information in the Call for Papers is malleable. For example, the buses can stop at the Bonaventure Hotel after the excursion. Be careful with the timings discussed in the next paragraphs!

You will have to schedule your flight out of LAX a comfortable time after this excursion. In the hypothetical case of absolutely no traffic, I think it would be about 20 minutes travel from the Getty Center to LAX. LAX is huge. If the bus were to go around the loop with absolutely no passenger stops and no red lights it could easily take more than 5 minutes within LAX.

The reality is that we cannot predict the traffic situation or what airlines people will use. You should schedule your flight assuming pretty bad traffic, so maybe 30-60 minutes to reach LAX, then as much as 20 minutes to go around the loop. If you fly on Southwest, you would exit the bus at the start of the loop. If you fly United, you would be the last off the bus; Terminal 7 could turn out to be the eighth stop.

Here's the information from the Call for Papers (update at the end): After the conclusion of the meeting, we will send buses with luggage compartments to the Getty Center, one of the world's great masterworks of architecture (Richard Meier; gardens by Robert Irwin). The hilltop site provides panoramic views of the city, the Santa Monica Mountains, and the Pacific Ocean. The structures frame the views, the volumes, and the light. You could spend days on a pixel-by-pixel examination of the Getty Center, then days in the collections and exhibits. You will need comfortable shoes and sunglasses; it is literally and figuratively dazzling. Buses will leave the Bonaventure Hotel at 1 pm July 26, 2001. Getty Center food services range from portable coffee carts to a restaurant (with an Alexis Smith installation) that requires reservations. It takes about 20 minutes to walk down, about 5 minutes to ride the tram down to the parking garage. Buses will start loading at 5pm, then leave the Getty Center parking garage at 5:30 pm, and take you and your luggage to Los Angeles International Airport.

The subject of a post-ACA meeting hike comes up sometimes, as an unofficial addendum to the Social Program. If anybody is interested, the contact person is Lukasz Salwinski (lucasz@mbi.ucla.edu) . It would probably have to be July 27, 2001, at the earliest. This would require a lot of logistics effort and extra hotel nights. On the subject of ballet dancers, I think George Bernard Shaw once said something almost symmetric to "I don't know much about crystallography. But I do know that after a hike, crystallographers smell like horses." So everybody involved would need housing and transportation and local committee effort. One possibility would be hiking out to where MASH used to be filmed. It might be too strenuous to be fun, but in the collection of LATimes articles, below, see the article about Mt. San Jacinto (and its high-altitude restaurant) and Palm Springs. The restaurant is at the top of the picture in Physics Today, January 2001, p. 23, at the bottom. The little red blip in that picture is the aerial tram beginning its trip.

I will make no attempt to duplicate the many tour books about Los Angeles.

I advise those of you planning to visit this city (before or after, not during the meeting, of course) to plan your visit in advance. Los Angeles is huge. Even if all you do is visit art museums, it's huge. The city is huge in terms of the number of things worth visiting, and also in horizontal distances between sights. The distances are compounded by LA's fragmentary Metro, although the situation has improved drastically since most of these guide books were published. Anything typed by the ACA local committee is going to be hopelessly biased.

The "Streetwise" map of Los Angeles covers only the East-to-West strip that most interests visitors. The rail portion of the Metro reaches northwest into Hollywood, and south to Long Beach. Don't visit Long Beach until you have covered the "Streetwise" map.

Here are the LA guide books in Dan Anderson's apartment. Note that this private collection is a microscopic fraction of what's available.
Discover Los Angeles. An informed guide to LA's rich and varied cultural life, by Letitia Burns O'Connor. 1997. Published by J.Paul Getty Trust, Los Angeles. ISBN 0-89236-479-3. Nice book, with tons of interesting reading, if all you like is culture.
Architecture + Design LA, by Michael Webb. Published 2000 by The Understanding Business, Berkeley, CA. ISBN 0-9641863-6-5. 96 pages. Contains an intimidating number of tiny 1-paragraph descriptions of buildings to look at, with a good balance of positive and negative remarks. Covers a little in San Diego, Santa Barbara, etc. Gadzooks! What's that on the front cover!?
ACCESS Los Angeles, by Committee. ACCESS Press (Harper Collins), 1999. ISBN 0-06-277259-7. Nice book, if you like building-by-building history. Recommended by Melanie Bennett. This is how I found Casey's Bar, once considered as the venue for the "Young" Scientists Mixer.
Insight Guides Los Angeles, John Wilcock, ed. APA Publications, Maspeth, NY. 1998. ISBN 0-88729-704-8. The text is ok, but the pictures are mostly contrived for impact, and I recognize hardly anything they show.
Downtown Los Angeles: A walking guide, by Robert D. Herman. City Vista Press, Claremont CA. 1999. ISBN 0-9652752-0-5. High magnification (almost 300 pages) view of downtown.

Once you are here, you can look at paper brochures about what to visit in the hotel, or at the Visitor Information Center of the Los Angeles Convention and Visitors Bureau at 685 Figueroa Street (closed Sunday). That's downhill from the Bonaventure Hotel, on the Figueroa Street side. There have been 2 or 3 concierges on duty every time I went spying at the Bonaventure.

If you have a rental car, you can go all over. There's a Budget Rental Car office inside the Bonaventure Hotel. This, I think, is somebody's guide to where to go.

On a bright, warm Saturday afternoon (February 13, 1999) I was at the Getty Center, lugging around a ton of camera equipment for black and white photography. A visitor from Philadelphia struck up a conversation with me. His wife seemed shy; she drifted away and looked at vegetation. The man from Philadelphia wanted to know my views about digital photography, we discussed black and white, and he told me of the convenience of sharing digital photos with his grandchildren via the internet. They were visiting Los Angeles during a one-day stop on the way to Sydney. Finally, the gentleman pointed at some snow-capped peaks off in the distance, and he asked "Is that snow?" I replied, "Yes, those peaks are about 12,000 feet, and the white stuff is snow, not granite." He thought for a minute, then asked "Are those mountains within the California border?"

It took me a long time to organize my thoughts. Finally, I replied "At freeway speeds, those mountains are probably about two hours drive from here, and I don't think they are even outside Los Angeles."

Tourism near the hotel.

There are very nice Downtown walking guides titled "Angels Walk LA" published by Angels Walk, Inc. The paper brochures are $4 each if they mail it to you. There are Angels Walk information kiosks sprinkled around, so you don't actually need their brochure in hand. Their recommended walking tour map is on their web site. You can download and print it. Note that they consider our meeting site as being worth a visit, so you could start your tourism with the restaurant ($$$$) and rotating bar atop the Bonaventure.

The Los Angeles Conservancy offers walking tours of Downtown and its sights (213-xxxxxxx). See the LATimes article about this organization, below.

One building of the Museum of Contemporary Art is at California Plaza, on Bunker Hill northeast from the Bonaventure. The main exhibits at California Plaza will show David Hockney Photo Works (opening the day of our party), and a cross-section of the permanent collection. The other MOCA building, in Little Tokyo, may be reached via the Downtown Area SHuttle (DASH), or on weekends, MOCA's shuttle. MOCA has its Thursday night beer tasting and jazz party every summer Thursday night, but the week of our meeting at the Little Tokyo facility.

(Subjectively) Most of the stuff worth visiting is on a narrow strip somewhere near Wilshire Boulevard, from the beach in Santa Monica to 1 block east of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, plus things near Colorado Boulevard in Old Town Pasadena. After the ACA meeting, one could stay in the Bonaventure as a base, or one could move to another hotel in or closer to Santa Monica (see LATimes article, below), to get closer to lots of sights. Probably a Pasadena visit would require a rental car.

You can visit Hollywood via The Metro Red Line. Walk down to the 7th Street Metro Station, get on the Red Line train headed towards North Hollywood (the routes diverge at the Wilshire/Vermont Station). The stations of touristic interest are: Hollywood/Vine, Hollywood/Highland, Universal City, and not so much North Hollywood. Melrose Place is a television show. Make no attempt to find it because it doesn't exist.

You can get all the way to Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica on the Metro Rapid bus line 720 (supposed to be the red ones, but some are red and white or just white). This is a really long bus ride, so don't try it in mid-meeting. See the LATimes article below. These buses make only Important Stops (suitable for ACA members), and the preliminary publicity said that they trigger green lights as they go along. The westbound Metro Rapid bus passes by the south side of the Bonaventure Hotel on 5th Street. It follows the Wilshire corridor, and thus passes by almost everything: Museum Row, Beverly Hills, Westwood, comes close to Brentwood, then continues into Santa Monica and the beach.

The Getty Center is one of those "don't leave earth without it" places. Take sunglasses, and wear sunscreen. It's easier to photograph than the Pantheon in Rome, although they prohibit camera supports. As a post-ACA treat, we will send buses (with luggage compartments) to the Getty Center, continuing later on to LAX. What follows applies to those of you wanting to go independently. The parking reservation situation is still in flux, so look at their web site if you are going by rental car. As of October, 2000, they don't require parking reservations Thursday and Friday evenings, and all day Saturdays and Sundays. To get there by bus, get off the Metro Rapid bus (720) at Westwood Boulevard, transfer to northbound MTA bus 561, or continue to Bundy Drive, transfer to northbound Santa Monica (blue) bus 14. The Getty web site has links to other transportation mechanisms.

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art has a Friday night jazz party (every Friday). It's on the Metro Rapid bus route 720 along Wilshire Boulevard. LACMA is worth days and days of visiting... Hancock Park (renovation completed 1999) contains LACMA, the LaBrea Tarpits, Page Museum, and nice places to walk around. This is at one end of Museum Row. This is all adjacent to the Museum of Miniatures and the Petersen Automotive Museum. The Marie Callender's restaurant 1 block east of LACMA I view as the east boundary of what's worth visiting on the west side of Los Angeles (323-937-7952; reservations are 15 minutes wide).

I think (without further investigation) that the easiest way to get from the Bonaventure to Disneyland is to ride a shuttle back to LAX, then the Disneyland bus from LAX to Disneyland. That information is included here because somebody might ask; I haven't been there since 1974. Ask the concierge or read a guide book for accurate info.

The Getty Villa (antiquities museum) in Malibu will reopen after renovations probably in 2002.

I saved a few LATimes articles (see Links, above) that might interest some ACA people, and therefore, it's a biased list of articles. It looks like LATimes.com will maintain links to broad-interest articles such as information on the choice of beach. You should look around the LATimes.com web site if you want more. Author and copyright info is included in each file. Just a few of these files are "trimmed" for rapid downloading. It's a lot of work to extract the text from some of these files. Some of the links within the LATimes articles don't work.

Los Angeles, like so many other cities, is trying to discourage running red lights by installing intersection cameras, but thus far the effect in Los Angeles hasn't spread beyond those few intersections. Here's an update about the cameras.

Downtown Los Angeles is very different from other city centers that we (both "we" the ACA and individually) have seen. Here's an article by the LATimes' prolific and very entertaining Susan Spano about how visitors react on arrival at the "center" of a decentralized megacity.

Yet another listing of restaurants in and around Downtown. This file is ascii only to minimize clutter. Note that hardly anything is available for weekend lunch. We might have to resort to finger-sucking to kill the pangs. Wash your hands first.

The Metro Red Line towards Hollywood opened in June, 1999. The LATimes ran an article about the Red Line stations because each one is a public art work. The Red Line all the way to Universal Studios opened in June, 2000 after years of work and a gazillion bucks. The LATimes did us a favor and listed restaurant clusters and such along the Metro Red Line. The Metro Red Line brings some studio tours within reach. Excavation for the Metro Red Line revealed many fossils.

Here's an article about eating in Santa Monica. It's a long trip.

Here's an article about why earthquakes feel different even with equivalent magnitude numbers. And this article says how identification of seismic hot spots is becoming important in preparing for the next one.

There used to be some discussion of adding another social function after ACA2001: hiking. One possibility would be Mt. San Jacinto, near Palm Springs.

Somebody will ask how to pick a beach, so here's an introduction. The pictures didn't all get into my file. The whole article is at the LATimes web site (see links, above). Note that out meeting hotel is nowhere near any beach.

The street signs and numbers in foreign capitals warrant inclusion in guide books, so I saved an article about addresses in Los Angeles.

Pasadena is so far from other parts of Los Angeles, that the LATimes published an article about it in the Travel Section. The author stayed in a hotel rather than drive there and back. It's about 10 miles from the Bonaventure Hotel. There's all kinds of art in Pasadena. The Norton Simon Museum is much nicer to visit and much more popular since its renovation by Frank Gehry.

Here's an article, also from the Sunday Travel section, about the visit Downtown of a family of four.

Hollywood isn't what you think it is.

Under Eating, above, I mention riding the Angels Flight funicular railroad (resurrected 1901 relic). Angels Flight crashed February 1, 2001. Sorry, the pictures didn't make it into my file.

Construction has resumed on the Disney Concert Hall and thus the makeover of Grand Avenue. Frank Gehry is the architect for the concert hall project. There was one statement somewhere saying that by the time of ACA2001, they might have a lot of the outer shell up, so you wouldn't see much of the really strange steel armature underneath. But here it is April, 2001, and there's no shell on it yet. Downtown renovation and building projects attract controversy because the streets have been empty on weekends, and there's no telling what's the critical mass to achieve liveliness. Qualitatively, the number of visitors on weekends has been increasing lately.

One of those building projects was the Staples Center, whose construction caused the usual discussion, and then restaurants are supposed to have started gravitating towards it. Note that this migration is not visible, at least not from my car window. Sports teams! Beef

Some people live to shop. You can spend your net worth on jewelry, without a rental car. If you travel a little, you can spend yet more. And then there's the Metro Red Line, so you can reach your credit limit in Hollywood.

Westwood (near UCLA) is still reviving as of the 12/29/00 revision.

Starting from the Bonaventure Hotel, you can visit points west at minimal expense by riding the new Metro Rapid Bus, line 720. Santa Monica is a very nice place, and as far west as you can practically go short of getting wet.

The song says "Nobody Walks in LA" but these people did. They walked the entire length of Sunset Boulevard.

When you arrive Downtown, you will see old and new. Here's an article about what the Los Angeles Conservancy is doing. They are important in preserving the old movie palaces, among other things.

There are now two Disneylands. The new one is the California Adventure theme park, next to the Disneyland discussed in the guidebooks. It's supposed to be high-tech. It's expected to be pretty crowded when it opens. Sorry, I'm tired of saving articles about it.

The ACA2001 promotional materials distributed at ACA2000 looked the way they looked because Los Angeles is so huge and diverse that there is no compact introductory brochure as we have seen for previous ACA and IUCr cities. A brochure with enough pictures for a cross-section of Los Angeles would look like a small book. Sorry, I had to get that off my chest.

These pictures (impressionistic, eh?) were downloaded from somewhere in Webland by Kathy Kantardjieff: Downtown view in winter; Hollywood; night cityscape; LA at night fabricated image.

Los Angeles Central Library routinely has exhibits of LA-related pictures. The Getty Gallery is next to the Rotunda, adjacent to where our opening reception will happen, one level up from street level.

The Los Angeles Convention and Visitors Bureau has a collection of pictures of Los Angeles from PictureLA intended for promotions. They have fingerprints on them, until you register with them, etc.

Here are a few pictures downloaded from the aforementioned PictureLA web site. All on this list are by Michele and Tom Grimm, used courtesy of Los Angeles Convention and Visitors Bureau and PictureLA.com.
Convention Center, near our meeting site;
Downtown at dusk.
Movie premier in Westwood, thoroughly messing up traffic near UCLA.
Museum of Contemporary Art, where we may have a party, after all.
Beverly Hills Hotel.
On the cliff above Santa Monica Beach, a very nice place to walk around.
Los Angeles City Hall, whose finial supposedly looks like the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, except with microwave dishes rather than lions.
Pavilion for Japanese Art at Los Angeles County Museum of Art;
Japanese Gardens in Huntington Gardens, near Pasadena.
Some dumb surfer.
California Plaza Water Court computer-controlled fountain at night.
Westin Bonaventure Hotel, our meeting site, with a restaurant and a rotating bar atop the central tower. I keep saying that, but I can't afford to go up to level 35.
Westin Bonaventure Hotel in situ at dusk.

Here are some independently accumulated pictures.

I have thousands of pictures but am too much of a creep to share very many of them (Call for Papers p. 2 and 3).

Although the abstract deadline is eons before the meeting, some speakers may arrive with unprocessed slide film to process. They process film in Hollywood. The A&I (Alexander and Ishihara) color lab accepts E-6 film for processing until late, available for pickup early. All you have to do is figure out how get to 933 N. Highland Avenue in Hollywood. Maybe the Metro Red Line will get you there.

Some of us here were beginning to like and use the photo services of Imagexperts, at 7095 Hollywood Boulevard, also in Hollywood. Closed Sunday, pick-up and drop-off only (no processing) on Saturdays. Note that they won't mount your slides unless you say so. With E-6 processing in 9/00, it has been a mystery what they will do: sometimes it's sleeved, sometimes in PrintFile sheets, etc.

Post Offices: Macy's Plaza, California Plaza, closed weekends.

Nearest off-site photocopy services found by ACA spy scouting:
Copy Page, 255 Grand Avenue, next block north of Wells Fargo, across from MOCA.
Kinko's at Figueroa and Wilshire (6.5th Street).
You can do photocopying at the Business Center within the Bonaventure Hotel.

7th Street Market (at Figueroa and 7th): clothing items (Ann Taylor and Robinsons-May), American Express, yet another California Pizza Kitchen. Some of these guide books say that it's worth the hike.

Macy's Plaza (at Flower and 7th): yet more clothes, some fast food.

California Plaza: One of many Starbucks, but open weekends; cleaners, FedEx, Postal Store, and several stores selling snacks and personal items such as shaving cream, but all closed weekends, so pack personal items attentively!

Bananas, etc.: Grand Central Market, see Eating, above. Also, there's an uninvestigated market (Joe's Market?) across 7th Street from Macy's Plaza (open weekends!!!).

Don't expect much of a reply to e-mail requests. We all have day jobs, and none of us is a travel agent.

Question: Where can I rent a sailboat?
Answer: No idea, but according to the phone book in my apartment, you could try: Marina Sailing 310-822-6617, Southern Calif. Boat Club 310-822-0073, Wind'n'Sea Sailing Club 310-472-6037, Club Nautique 310-822-4478, Bluewater Sailing bluewatersailing.com 310-823-5545, Calif. Sailing Academy 310-821-3433. They all seem to be in Marina Del Rey. The ACA meeting is nowhere near any beach.

Factoid: The full name of the city of Los Angeles used to be something like: "El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de Los Angeles de Porciuncula" or "El Pueblo de la Reina de Los Angeles sobre el Rio de la Porciuncula" depending on who you ask. Either way it needs tildas (tildi?) etc.

Factoid: The Los Angeles area has 10 area codes. Use the telephone carefully.

Silliness: Here's one of those joke lists that travels via e-mail, forwarded to me by Kathy Kantardjieff:

You know you are in California when
1. Your coworker has 8 body piercings and none are visible.
2. You make over $250,000 and still can't afford a house.
3. You take a bus and are shocked at 2 people carrying on a conversation in English.
4. Your child's 3rd grade teacher has purple hair, a nose ring, and is named Breeze.
5. You can't remember...is pot illegal?
6. You've been invited to a baby shower that has two mothers and a sperm donor.
7. You have a very strong opinion about where your coffee beans are grown and can taste the difference between Sumatran and Ethiopian.
8. You know which restaurant serves the freshest arugula.
9. You can't remember.....is pot illegal?
10. A really great parking space can move you to tears.
11. A low speed pursuit will interrupt ANY TV broadcast.
12. Gas costs 75 cents per gallon more than anywhere else in the U.S.
13. A man gets on the bus in full leather regalia and crotchless chaps. You don't even notice.
14. Unlike back home, the guy at 8:30 am at Starbucks wearing the baseball cap and sunglasses who looks like George Clooney IS George Clooney.
15. Your car insurance costs as much as your house payment.
16. Your hairdresser is straight, your plumber is gay, the woman who delivers your mail is into BDSM and your Mary Kay rep is a guy in drag.
17. You can't remember...is pot illegal?
18. It's sprinkling and there's a report on every news station about "STORM WATCH 2001."
19. You have to leave the big company meeting early because Billy Blanks himself is teaching the 4:00 PM Tae Bo class.
20. You pass an elementary school playground and the children are all busy with their cell phones or pagers.
21. It's sprinkling outside, so you leave for work an hour early to avoid all the weather-related accidents.
22. Hey!!!! Is Pot Illegal????
23. You AND your dogs have therapists.