Airports aren't that romantic, but it was part of the trip.  It was a rather foggy morning, but PDX operations went on without any issues.  Surprisingly, even though it was a Friday morning, the airport was not overly busy.  We made it though check-in and the security point very quickly.  We had a nice quiet flight on a half-full plane.

The hotel is on the strip along with Disneyland and the convention center in beautiful downtown Anaheim.  Bed, bath, couch, and internet connection - what more could one ask for?  Well, a mini-fridge would have been useful.

Friday evening's event was a gathering at JohnM's house in Van Nuys to view the top 14 music videos and help pick the top video.  If you are familiar with the LA area, you know that Van Nuys is a long ways north of Anaheim.  Even longer in Friday evening traffic.  However, with patience and fortitude, we survived the pilgrimage.

John has a beautiful house that easily hosted the 40 or so of us.  The house was previously owned by a Hollywood effects producer and had beautiful wood highlights and stained-glass windows, and John recently finished building a recording studio in the home.  Before the movies, we got a tour.  Very impressive!

The videos were a wide variety of styles and music, and all were very good.  It was hard to pick our own top 5.  After everyone's choices were made, Brian and company took them off to combine them with the other judging to find a winner.