dennis yang dot com

Today, Genentech (where both of my parents work) had a huge party to celebrate their 30th anniversary.. My dad invited me along since he thought it would be a great opportunity to meet some of the Genentech folks (and maybe drum up a little Techdirt business). A few years ago, they had a big party to celebrate something else, and they threw a huge bash with Elton John, Mary J. Blige and Matchbox 20 — so the bar had already been set fairly high..

It was a gorgeous day in South San Francisco, bright and sunny, temperatures in the 80s, and a nice, steady breeze so that it didn’t get too hot. I did get a nice tan though. So there was quite a lot of speculation about what bands were going to play the party — the management supposedly sent out a bunch of clues, encoded in various stages of encryption like ROT13, so people were furiously working on the clues trying to figure out who would be there. However, the biggest clue was given by Huey Lewis in an interview published in the Missoulian a few months ago. Although he calls the company “Genetex”, he sure did let the cat out of the bag.

So yah.. the bands that played the party today were The Foo Fighters, Bob Dylan, Black Eyed Peas and The Eagles.. Pretty damn cool for a company party, I’d say.

We weren’t allowed to bring cameras into the show, so I left my camera at home… That said, there’s already a few pics showing up on flickr from the event… (look, it’s the eagles)

So yah.. it was a really cool event. Probably like 10,000 people or so.. And, I got to meet the Foo Fighters and the Black Eyed Peas.. Both groups were actually very nice for like the few minutes that I got to chat with them. Fergie is super cute in real life.. I didn’t get to meet Bob Dylan or the Eagles though… oh well.

Anyway… actually, the highlight of my day was probably when I met Dr. James Watson, Nobel Laureate and co-discoverer of DNA. I’m kicking myself for not getting a picture with him with the ol’ cameraphone, but oh well.. I met him, and actually got to chat with him for a little bit. Nice ol’ guy. I mean.. meeting famous pop stars is cool and all, but famous scientists? Awesome. Wow, I’m a nerd for sure.

Happy 30th Genentech.. we’re the same age.

Update: As my dad points out.. “A minor correction, Watson was the co-discoverer of the DNA structure. It was the structure, not the DNA.”

This entry was posted on Monday, September 18th, 2006 at 11:25 pm and is filed under parties. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.