Celebration report, part I
Celebration IV was a blast. Many of the issues with CIII were fixed and there were only a handful of new problems. I hope fans had as good a time as I did. (Anyone get a read on fan reaction?)
Since I returned on Tuesday night, I had to work a 12-hour day on Wednesday and a 9-hour day Thursday. I still managed to unpack and get my pictures onto my computer hard drive and some online - next step is figuring out this Flickr CJ thing (how is it that I can take 190 photos and still feel that I didn’t take enough?). There’s also laundry to do and a stack of newspapers waist high that need to be read.
Monday: Rich, Caroline and I arrived in LA at 11:50 p.m., got to the hotel and asleep around 1 a.m. - or 4 a.m. EST. Caroline’s bag was almost lost. It vanished in Dulles - we had gate checked it in Burlington, but it wasn’t with the gate-checked bags, and the luggage handlers were very rude about it. They thought we were lying. It turned up just before we got on the plane to LA, so we were very lucky. I learn that Caroline is attached to her clothes.
Tuesday: I went downstairs to the hotel lobby at 8:50 a.m. and learned there was a bus tour of LA leaving in 25 minutes. We miraculously made it. We saw the Hollywood sign from a distance, the stars on Hollywood Blvd., foot/hand imprints outside of Grauman’s theater, Rodeo Drive and had lunch at a farmers market. Grauman’s theater was all prepped for a movie opening, with red carpet everywhere - either Oceans 13 or Mr. Brooks, I think.
Most embarrassing moment: A guy on the tour was talking on his cell phone really loud, and someone yelled at him to be quiet. Instead of hanging up, he passed the phone to his wife, who was sitting in front of me. So I told her to be quiet. About 5 minutes later, Rich’s cell phone rings - it’s Mary Franklin. Rich didn’t dare not talk to Mary, so I kept telling him to whisper as low as possible.
Some pics:
Caroline with the Hollywood sign far away
Rich with Wilt Chamberlain's house behind him:
Caroline and Harrison Ford:
I finally find an R2 mailbox (in Hollywood)
Very bizarre store on Rodeo Drive:
Rich was supposed to be at work in the Archives at 3 p.m., so that’s when we went to the Convention Center. (Caroline stayed in the room to write her economics paper.) The center is BIG! The first day I felt very confused, with all the long hallways and cavernous rooms - especially since there were no signs or banners anywhere. We immediately ran into lots of people. Paula, Cyndi, Beth, Amy, Heather and others (Char? Sara? Nancy? Diane? I don't remember when I ran into who) … I went with Rich to the Archives, said hi to Diana, a Lucasfilm person who I had met the last time, and saw Liz and Dan and Chris, all working hard. I wandered around for a while with other Club Jaders trying to figure the place out - Beth was our tour guide.
The Center had its own R2 unit mailbox:
I'm not sure what Nancy is begging Dan to do; this was at the Kessel Run booth in the Fan Fair Hall:
Eventually we all found each other (which is amazing, considering just how big this place is), picked up our stuff at Will Call, walked back to the hotel and for dinner, took over a Brew pub across the street from the hotel and in a strangely deserted basement food court.
A bunch of us then hung out in a pod - there were these seating areas on the fifth floor that looked very much like the floating Senate pods in Star Wars. The hotel, by the way (Westin Bonaventure) was very strange. Cement formations everywhere, curvey hallways, four elevators - I think we all got lost at least once.
Since I returned on Tuesday night, I had to work a 12-hour day on Wednesday and a 9-hour day Thursday. I still managed to unpack and get my pictures onto my computer hard drive and some online - next step is figuring out this Flickr CJ thing (how is it that I can take 190 photos and still feel that I didn’t take enough?). There’s also laundry to do and a stack of newspapers waist high that need to be read.
Monday: Rich, Caroline and I arrived in LA at 11:50 p.m., got to the hotel and asleep around 1 a.m. - or 4 a.m. EST. Caroline’s bag was almost lost. It vanished in Dulles - we had gate checked it in Burlington, but it wasn’t with the gate-checked bags, and the luggage handlers were very rude about it. They thought we were lying. It turned up just before we got on the plane to LA, so we were very lucky. I learn that Caroline is attached to her clothes.
Tuesday: I went downstairs to the hotel lobby at 8:50 a.m. and learned there was a bus tour of LA leaving in 25 minutes. We miraculously made it. We saw the Hollywood sign from a distance, the stars on Hollywood Blvd., foot/hand imprints outside of Grauman’s theater, Rodeo Drive and had lunch at a farmers market. Grauman’s theater was all prepped for a movie opening, with red carpet everywhere - either Oceans 13 or Mr. Brooks, I think.
Most embarrassing moment: A guy on the tour was talking on his cell phone really loud, and someone yelled at him to be quiet. Instead of hanging up, he passed the phone to his wife, who was sitting in front of me. So I told her to be quiet. About 5 minutes later, Rich’s cell phone rings - it’s Mary Franklin. Rich didn’t dare not talk to Mary, so I kept telling him to whisper as low as possible.
Some pics:
Caroline with the Hollywood sign far away
Rich with Wilt Chamberlain's house behind him:
Caroline and Harrison Ford:
I finally find an R2 mailbox (in Hollywood)
Very bizarre store on Rodeo Drive:
Rich was supposed to be at work in the Archives at 3 p.m., so that’s when we went to the Convention Center. (Caroline stayed in the room to write her economics paper.) The center is BIG! The first day I felt very confused, with all the long hallways and cavernous rooms - especially since there were no signs or banners anywhere. We immediately ran into lots of people. Paula, Cyndi, Beth, Amy, Heather and others (Char? Sara? Nancy? Diane? I don't remember when I ran into who) … I went with Rich to the Archives, said hi to Diana, a Lucasfilm person who I had met the last time, and saw Liz and Dan and Chris, all working hard. I wandered around for a while with other Club Jaders trying to figure the place out - Beth was our tour guide.
The Center had its own R2 unit mailbox:
I'm not sure what Nancy is begging Dan to do; this was at the Kessel Run booth in the Fan Fair Hall:
Eventually we all found each other (which is amazing, considering just how big this place is), picked up our stuff at Will Call, walked back to the hotel and for dinner, took over a Brew pub across the street from the hotel and in a strangely deserted basement food court.
A bunch of us then hung out in a pod - there were these seating areas on the fifth floor that looked very much like the floating Senate pods in Star Wars. The hotel, by the way (Westin Bonaventure) was very strange. Cement formations everywhere, curvey hallways, four elevators - I think we all got lost at least once.