Sunday 11:30 AM Leave Oakland on Southwest
Sunday 12:30 PM Arrive Burbank
Sunday 3:00 PM Leave Burbank on America West
Sunday 5:00 PM Arrive Phoenix
Wednesday 8:00 PM Leave Phoenix on America West
Wednesday 8:00 PM Arrive Burbank (I like time zone changes)
Saturday 8:00 PM Leave Burbank on Southwest
Saturday 9:00 PM Arrive Oakland
Obviously, the only day that gave me concern was Sunday. I made
sure to give myself enough lag time to account for a reasonable
delay.It's a good thing I did too. When I arrived at Oakland airport on Sunday, I saw that my flight was *cancelled*. Instead of going into a panic fit, I calmly walked over to Southwest's information booth and said "I see my flight to Burbank is cancelled" The nice person in the booth said "You're guarenteed a seat on our noon flight."
So, after leaving my un-made-up room on Monday afternoon, I went back to the theatre and was able to get a ticket for the 10:10 PM show. Near the Cine Capri is one of my favorite places to eat and have a beer or two--Cayote Springs restaurant and brewpub; I always stop by at least once each trip.
During my previous trip, my waitress sugested I have some pizza. She also challenged me not to eat the pizza with a knife and fork by saying "You know I'll laugh at you if you use your knife and fork." Since I didn't want to be laughed at, I ate the pizza the old fashioned way "with a slice in one hand, and a beer in the other", though when I finished my beer, I started reading a book. My waitress said she was impressed and we started chatting, and she told me her name--Frances--and I told her mine. It turned out that it was her first night without supervision.
Anyway, this time I walked in, and the first person I saw was Frances. She said "Hi Sean! Sit here!". I said "Thanks Frances!" We were both surprised that our names were remembered. (Given the number of people a waitress interacts with, I'm really impressed she remembered my name). Again, she made some good suggestions: clam chowder and a chocolate dessert. Mmm mmm.
What, you were expecting more? Star Wars was good too.
There's not much else to mention about Phoenix.
Cindy warned me that she might be a little late, so I took my time deplaning and was one of the last people off the plane. As she had warned, Cindy was just a little late (I only waited two minutes). She compared the walk to the gate to a salmon going up stream. The "downstream" walk was quick, and because Cindy had timed things well, we quickly got out of the parking lot.
The second floor of the museum is a gallery of photos of various famous people who have appeared at the bowl. Unfortunately, most of them are "staged". The coolest photo though, was actually a poster from a previous exhibit at the museum--a showcase of artworks that were also musical instrements. On the poster was this funny looking wind instrement. It looked ceramic, stood on four legs, and had two series of four pipes that ended on oposite ends. We asked about the instrement at the front desk, and the guide said that it was a big instrement, played by two people who sat across from each other. She said that it sounded like a bassoon, only deeper. Oooh.
After that, Dori and I strolled up to the Bowl itself, and walked around. Even empty, the bowl was impressive. We climbed the stairs of the seating are to a point where we could see the "Hollywood" sign. By this time, we sat in the wooden benches and took in the scenery. Workers, who were replacing some of the wooden benches, took a break, while other tourists, who also were looking around, ended up leaving. While Dori and I were enjoying the serene scene, I noticed a family of deer walking across one of the hillsides behind the bowl. In "Swimming to Cambodia" talks about "perfect moments"; this was one of them.
The serenity was borken up by another bus of tourists, so we went back to the car. By this time, we had to decide where we were going to eat before the UCla game that night. We decided to pick up Daniel from day care, go back to Dori's house and eat there (like I said, it was a leisurely day).
Some comments:
Both Dori and Larry had gotten the day off, and my friend Tim (who's also been in other naratives) also decided to join us. After leaving Daniel at day care, we got to the park, and had a nice close parking spot. Dori and Larry had their Universal passes which they had bid on at the Cal Band's So Cal party. Tim and I bought tickets for ourselves.
It was a nice day, though a bit cold. We started off by going to the "Back to the Future" ride. On our way, we got to see a "second unit" film a stunt shot at one of the restaurants. That was kind of cool. they even let some kids help out.
On to Back to the Future; If you are not familiar with it, it's a simulator ride. The queue area is very well done, and sets up the ride's story very well. The ride itself is also somewhat impressive. You get to travel to various times and jostled around while chasing after "Biff" who's stolen the original Delorean time machine. Unlike Star Tours, the simulator is open so that your field of vision outside the "car" is filled by the Omnivision screen. At the same time, there's a small view screen on the dash in which you get to see Biff communicating with your vehicle. Unfortunately, you can't see the small screen if you're in the back (though you get jostled more), and if you're in the front, you can see the other simulator cars. Oh well...that said, I prefer Star Tours.
After Back to the Future, we worked our way down to the lower part of the park. Our first stop was "Jurasic Park: the ride". Before getting in line, we watched a few of the boats go down the drop and produce picture perfect splashes. One thing we noticed was that most people wimped out and rented ponchos for the ride--what's the point of riding a water ride if you don't get wet?
The line was short, and Tim let me sit on the left hand side of the boat. Not all of the elements (dinosaurs) were working (Tim says that the ride has always had problems like that), but the left hand side is definately better. The dinosaurs are impressive, and there are other nice little touches that have been made, but the coolest part is THE DROP. It's long, and it's steep. I was able to feel the "negative G forces" on the way down and the splash was good.
Like other drop rides, they also have photos you can buy. Since I was wearing my blue and gold Cal Rally Comm rugby, I stood out very well, but I didn't buy one.
Since we wanted to dry off, our next stop was the Backdraft effects show. We ended up ariving late, so we were put in the back for the film presentation portion of the show. We then were ushered into the fire effects room, and were presently surprised to find ourselves in the front row! The fire show is pretty hot, though a long set of fans blast a column of cool air between the audience and the "stage". Cindy had told me earlier that she was surprised that the lawyers had let them get away with some of the things they did. My surprise was that railing between the audience and the stage is pretty low. Some idiot could hop over it or easily toss combutsibles onto the stage. The Discovery Channel's "Movie Magic" demonstrated the safety features of the attractions, and they are impressive, but given how paranoid lawyers can be, I agree with Cindy.
After Backdraft, we walked into the special effects/foley demonstration. This isn't all that great...if you're not familiar with how blue screen effects, falling effects, and sound effects are done, or if you want to be a ham, then go ahead and take in the attraction, otherwise, you can skip it.
While we were eating, we noticed that someone dressed up as Marylin Monroe was wandering around the tables. We talked with her a little bit...It was more fun when weren't talking about stuff that would let her get into character. Of course, I didn't ask any of the tacky questions that I could have ("Wait a minute, did Doc Brown fetch you in his time machine?" "Aren't you supposed to be at Fox?" "How was working for Darryl Zanuck?") Actually, I guess Cindy has had other influences on me, because I would note stars that were actually properties of other studios (hey, you never worked for Universal).
Not much else to mention...the ET ride is ok (the queue IS better than the ride). I rode Jurasic Park one more time, to take photos. This time I got much wetter, and didn't mind as it had gotten warm enough to take off my rugby after it got wet. Larry was insane enough to walk up the hill, while Tim, Dori, and I took the escalators. The "backlot tour" isn't much different then when I took it more than ten years ago. Oh yeah, we went to the "Waterworld" stunt show. Not bad...it's pretty campy and only one stunt is really impressive (and it's an effect, not a stunt).
During our wait, Tim and I walked back through Citywalk and eventually sat down at the cafe across from the UCla Spirit Store. While I was filling out my postcards and drinking coffee, Tim noticed that the UCla Spirit Store's neon sign flashed in time to the "8 clap". Nice touch. I didn't walk in to gloat, but one of employees of the spirit store did give me a dirty look later in the evening.
We then met Dori, Larry, and Daniel and decided to eat at a Mexican restaurant. The food was good, and the margarita wasn't bad either. Our waiter was a little slow, so I managed to finish all of my postcards by the end of the meal. At this point, Tim had to say "good bye" because Saturday was going to be a long and busy for him.
We ended up wandering through many of the shops. Daniel had the most fun at Balzac (which sells baloon balls) and the "science store" (he was intrigued by a collapsible sphere). I wanted to get my postcards into a mailbox (so they would have the Universal City postmark). It turns out that the only mailbox is inside the park. By this time the park was closing. Fortunately, the nice guy at the gate let me go back in (since I had my hand stamped) and drop the cards in the mailbox. After that, I spent some time in the science fiction memorabilia shop. It's a good thing I didn't have money to burn, because there were several items I would have bought. The one thing about the shop that disapointed both Larry and myself was that they had Hercules action figures, but no Xena action figures ;)
By this time it had been a long day. Dori and Larry had managed to get an even better parking spot than they had in the morning...and it didn't cost them extra either. The drive home was uneventful, and I had a good night's sleep.
Cindy had come up to the Bay Area to see the Star Wars exhibit in San Francisco. Our schedules managed to work where we could get together for dinner one night...When I picked her up, she didn't say where she wanted to eat; It was my choice. I thought about it during the drive and eventually said "I'm thinking of Zachary's". She said "you must be reading my mind, because I really miss Zachary's. It's one of those things you just can't in LA."
We followed the Cal yell leaders to go to the court level (As Rally Comm members we did belong to a spirit group, even though we weren't going to perform on the floor.) One of the ushers stopped us before we reached the escalator to the floor level and said that we needed to show some sort of identification. The three of us pulled out or Rally Committee membership cards and showed it to the usher. He said "OK, I just needed to make sure that you were official" and let us go down to the court level. We were surprised that those membership cards would actually did us some good.Despite the great seats, we witnessed a Cal loss. In fact, I'd never seen Cal win in the Sports Arena. I was wondering that since I had broken my Pauley loss streak, maybe I could beat this streak too.
Since my last visit, the Sports Arena has had a few additions... and they're nice. They've added replay screens and player stat boards behind each of the baskets. Our seats weren't bad and our group of Cal fans was kitty corner from another section of Cal fans; This made it very easy to do a "Go!"..."Bears!". The Trojan Pep band actually treated us to more than two songs and sounded fine. For some reason though, U$c has a dance group that performs to taped music during some of the time outs. I don't understand why they can't just dance to their band (but then again, our cheerleaders also dance to taped music; fortunately only during the half).
Unfortunately, my streak of losses at the sports arena contiues. Still, I didn't feel that bad, because I'd seen the Bears beat the Bruins.
Because my flight was that evening, we needed to have an early dinner. We went to a Japanese grill and the food was pretty good. It was kind of fun to watch this teenage couple sit at our grill, and then opt to move to a booth. We didn't really see how things worked out. Daniel provided one more moment of fun. When we had finished eating, our waitress asked if we wanted dessert. Daniel spoke up right away and asked for Green Tea Ice Cream without even being told it was on the menu. He's a bright little munchkin.
The flight back to Oakland was again, uneventful. Actually, since it was the last flight of the day for them, the flight attendants were livelier than usual and treated us to some jokes, songs, and other stuff. I also found out that Southwest Airlines is having an essay contest: Describe in 300 hundred words or less how Southwest's low fares or cenvenient schedules let you go, do, or see something that you wouldn't normally have. I have two stories in mind--my trip to San Diego last year for Carla's graduation or my trip to Disneyland for the last day of Pirates. Right now I'm leaning towards the former.
"It wasn't until recently that I found out NCAA
Championship banners weren't all Blue and Gold"
-- a Cal fan from the LA area @ the UCla game in Pauley Pavillion