Tales From The Industry, I

So it seems like an age ago, but it wasn't really..... [Flashback, Apr. 21st '04] Roberto Emparan had come to give us a seminar entitled "New Horizons in Higher Dimensions", (on higher dimensional black holes and their cousins) which was excellent. As he is a good friend of both of us, my wife and I took him on one of our standard (back then) guest routines wcih we enjoyed very much: Dinner out West (that time at Joe's on Abbott Kinney in Venice), and then ice cream at that excellent place two doors down with the very authentic tasting ice cream (Massimo's?..... closed down not long after....have not been to the new one, whereever it is). From there, take the ice cream the four or five blocks to the beach and walk along the isolated (why oh why isolated? -It's great at night!) beach and walk. So we got to ...