Guess Who Came to Dinner

This afternoon I drove up to Salt Lake City to meet my mom, who flew in yesterday for her annual meeting of the Fellows of the American Society of Genealogists. (Just to brag about my mom for a minute: the Fellows are an elite group of 50 who are selected based on their published genealogical scholarship. They are appointed for life, and the group only has an opening when one of them passes away.)

Mom invited me to join them for dinner, and we sat next to Alvy Ray Smith, one of the founders of . . . drumroll . . . Pixar. Yes, the Pixar. I think his eyes lit up a little when I told him that we are the kind of fans who stay through the closing credits to make sure we don't miss a thing.

He was very kind when I shook his hand and then immediately asked if I could shake his hand again.

He told me stories about the early days, about George Lucas coming along and then Steve Jobs. I asked him where the name came from, and he told me that he grew up in New Mexico speaking a bit of Spanish and he wanted to come up with a name that was reminiscent of making pictures and sounded like a Spanish verb. He wanted an action word.

Sigh.