Cappuccinos with Vincent Versace
For those of you who know me, you know that I love cappuccinos and am always in search of the best one.
I'm down in Los Angeles for some meetings for a couple of days so when I finished up early on Monday, I called Vincent Versace (because I owed him the latest copy of Genuine Fractals and he's fun to hang out with). After about 5 seconds of trying to think of a coffee shop that was close to where I was and where his studio is, we ended up meeting in Beverly Hills at Il Fornaio. If you're ever in that area and are in need of a cappuccino, look no further. It was probably one of the best cappuccinos I've ever had - though I still think the best one I had was back in 1999 at Trovata in East Sydney.
Anyway, over about 5 cappuccinos and 3 hours we talked about all kinds of things from Genuine Fractals to DSLRs, lenses, Lightroom, Photoshop CS3, Aperture and Capture NX. Vincent was also kind enough to give me some great photography advice as well.
But what I wanted to share with you was one of the strangest things I've ever witnessed. Vincent and I were sitting in the restaurant drinking our coffee and his back is to the door and I'm facing the front of the building and even with that, I can't see out really because of the placement of the windows, plants, etc. (this is important later).
In the middle of a sentence, Vincent stands up with a concerned look on his face, does a 180 to look behind him and says, "I'll be back in a second" as he hurries out the door. He comes back in about 5 minutes later to grab his wallet, phone and his motorcycle insurance and says "Sorry, they're about to impound my motorcycle, be right back." About 15 minutes later he comes back with a look of relief on his face and he tells me that he's managed to explain everything to the police officer's satisfaction and has avoided any tickets and getting impounded. But what threw me for a loop was that the whole time this went on, I didn't see the police pickup truck until it was about to leave and had moved forward. So if I'm facing the window and Vincent had his back to the door, how did he, how could he have known his bike was the subject of interest to Beverly Hills' Finest?
So of course, I asked him how he knew...
Vincent: "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."
Me: "Try me. I just saw it with my own eyes."
Then he told me the best way he could describe it in a way I might understand was that he felt a disturbance in the force around his bike. Well, growing up on Star Wars, I immediately understand the reference and I did see the whole thing happen and believe me, there was NO WAY he could have seen what was happening outside. Crazy. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it.