| If you haven't read Adam's summation, start there. I have a few additional points but for the most part we were in the same places at the same time. Flew in on Wednesday, Adam was already there and Bernie had just arrived an hour before, so they waited on me at the airport. Got my stuff, and rolled to the Kona Kai resort on the bay. Immediately checked my bags in because they didn't have a room ready in the morning yet and went out with some of the tt.NET crew and Tetsu, Hideo and Mad Mike for lunch at 50/50 burger place: 50% beef and 50% pork. 
JWT tour (unofficial event) Someone got invited to JWT to see the MotoIQ salt flat car getting tuned. Then it turned into everyone got invited. I'd never met Jim before, so it was nice to put a face with the name. The JWT crew couldn't have been more polite to have 30+ meatheads running around their shop and inventory area. 
We went to Brigateen for dinner, which sounds like some crappy boy band... but the food was good (thanks Melissa for the off menu tip). 
300 Degree sticker on her daily 350 in the parking lot.
I won the drawing for a tour to the Nissan Design Center tour. Parking pass and tix. I gave them to Tetsu for at least a couple of the Japanese to go.
Bay view out my window
Judged Car Show I didn't snap a lot of pictures because I figured there were enough people with SLRs out there snapping away and I have my iPhone, so enjoy what caught my eye. 
Greg taking a picture of his Gold Cup car
Greg Roger's Cocoa Vert (I think we had all the rare colors represented this year)
Speedy's hood
Edgar's splitter
Woody's car with the new 300 Degree Stealth Hitch (modified for TwinZ bumper)
Roy's 'new' wheels
Adam judging Z32s and telling people to get all their sh*t out of the trunks and floors.
Matsuo-san's Z Sport Wagon. He drew a Z station wagon back in the beginning of the 240Z, but it never made it past sketches so Jay @ Phantom Z built it for him. It was interesting.
Here's where it gets REAL... Yamashita-san with Adam
tt.NET Low-Key Dinner We overran the place and it was Chargers/Cowboys game night, so it was busy. We filled the patio and a good chunk of the bar inside. The rolling car show outside was cool as well. Good times with tt.NETers and the Japanese club members... About 10p Yama-san arrived. This was my first real exposure to him during the convention. He was surprised by the gathering of Z32 enthusiasts. Somewhere there are some group photos we took. We got kicked out a little before midnight and retired to the lobby or the courtyard for more Yama time. I don't remember which now. 
Anyone else remember this car when it was black and called Spyder or something like that? We asked the guy that owned it if the car was ever all black and he said no. Not sure why he would deny it, although I also remember some stigma attached to it when it got posted up here (besides the usual BSing for cars that are modified like this). Funny thing... because later on he proved that it was. There are some things I kinda like about it, but the rear end is way out of place. Definitely looks better with the new paint job.
 
Melissa Drifts Canyon Run (unofficial event) 
Wolfpack's (Chris') FD... welded diff, cut knuckles. Car is a lot of fun. I rode on the way up to Julian to get lunch with pie and ice cream... then was lucky to get to drive back down. It's amazing how 'like' the Z it is from a driver's perspective. I hadn't driven a FD in like 20 years when they were new. But the pedals felt the same as a Z placement, height, weight... short shifter felt like the Z but a little less notchy, etc. Was easy to jump in and feel comfortable. Thumbs up for better visibility out of the rear corners! We scrubbed tires all over the place and I think we clicked over 120 on the highway trying to catch up with Mercer and Turk.
The FD's catch can has a catch can.
Wolfpack's choppers with me at the wheel.
Nissan Design Center Tour Well, one of my tickets went unclaimed so Tetsu asked me to be his date for the evening... done. They said no cameras, so I left my phone in the car. They let us take photos in the lobby, so look at Luis' FB album to see what was in there. Yama-san was with us. Again, rockstar w/ NDA. He used to work there 10 years ago, so the long timers there knew him well. Japanese Guest Dinner (unofficial event) We hosted the Japanese at the Corvette Diner with all the people that have traveled over there with Mad Mike during the last 17 years. I think we had 70 people in the room. Lots of gift exchange including Adam giving Tetsu a big-ass pinata boot. Afterwards it was back out to the courtyard with Yama-san and the regulars. People's Choice Car Show (Qualcom Stadium) 
The parking lot
Bernie with Yama and one of 2 ICOY awards signed by both Mr. K and Yamashita-san. I finally got around to having Yama sign stuff for me in the afternoon before he left. I got a few things signed including my ICOY, the Z32 cutaway print, my 1990 and 1995 brochures (for the cars I own), my NDA parking pass, and a photo of my '95 at the starting lineup for BBORR that Mr. K had signed previously.
The more interesting thing was that once Yama-san was done with the dev on the Z32, he was off to work something else (R34?). There's so much that happened with the Z32 after he let go of it he's not aware of. He was amazed at some of the cars at the car show. I asked him if he ever imagined an engine bay that looked like Greg's and he said no, that it was beautiful. He was probably completely beat down about the Z32 after telling the engineers NO so much that he was ready to disconnect. But I applaud him for sticking to his vision. There is a full size painting he made of the Z32 at the very beginning that if you look at it it looks almost exactly like the car that's in your garage today. 
Considering how many 'conceptual' drawings we see that once they make it to production look nothing like that cool thing that started the process, it's an amazing feat. Hopefully Adam can get the presentation and video he did at the closing dinner with some of the design challenges he faced. 
Harold's Deep Purple Metallic TT vert (this car was my fav. I love the color and the car is just super crisp).
Greg Roger's cocoa again. While I'm not keen on the color, it's nice to see the rarest of them all being taken care of.
Woody and Greg next to each other. Woody won Yama's choice.
Remember the car that wasn't black? I knew it looked familiar. Look at the bottom right corner picture.
Stuart's Black Emerald TT. While not as rare as the cocoa or purple, I haven't seen a whole lot of these and when I do, you can barely tell there's green in there. He says he doesn't do anything special for wax, but whatever it is it gets the color to pop. I like my Cobalt Green Pearl because it's more green, but this was really nice too.
While we're ogling paint, you could go swimming in this cherry red paint it was so deep.
I think this belongs to JoeZ? Lots of nice work here. I like the widebody execution and the rear work didn't get carried away like too many others.
Yama-san signing something for Randy Rodriguez!
Matsuo-san signing a shirt on Greg's car after the Yama/Greg/Adam photo shoot.
Closing Dinner 
Broccoli. 'nuff said.
Went to the pool's fire pit and hung out with Yama-san and a bunch of tt.NETers until the hotel had to shut down the fire, then we moved to the courtyard where Melissa, Wolfpack, the Courtesy guys and the Japanese joined us. I got back to the room at 2:50a. Thanks to whoever brought the bag full of McD burgers at the end... Got up and said bye to Mad Mike and Tetsu. Got on the plane and came home to see Mindi and Miles safely. There's a lot of other details that you'd just have to be there to understand, so you should have been there. As I mentioned in my other post, even with the little hiccups which every convention has this one was the best that I've been to so far. Everything was as relaxed as possible and I came home feeling like vacation instead of convention. Even though the locations in the future won't be able to be San Diego, I hope we can carry this vacation feel into the future conventions! Thanks to Dan, Melissa and Chris for the local support. Was good to see the Japanese, NoVa, S. TX, IPP, SZ, JWT, Calibusters, and the misc guys that make it every year again. We're planning for Memphis next June since it's 6 hours away and has a track. See you there!!
Later
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