What I Did On My Holidays

I got back from two weeks in California last week. I didn't really intend for it to happen but I had quite a few Star Wars moments while I was there.

Firstly, while I was in Los Angeles I found the piece of concrete outside Grauman's Chinese Theatre where R2-D2 and C-3PO had left their footprints. Or should that be wheel prints in R2's case? Spielberg and Lucas were also immortalised nearby and I found that my hands are exactly the same size as George's. Spooky.

I spent most of the holiday in San Francisco and I couldn't resist stopping by the new Lucasfilm buildings at the Presidio. I quickly found the Yoda statue at the fountain and took a few snaps. While I was there I noticed people coming in and out of a door nearby so I thought I'd see if I could go in too and take a few more photos. As I walked in I was immediately gobsmacked by a giant Lucasfilm logo in gold on the wall and the ILM moniker just below. No sooner had I seen that than I noticed the life size statue of Darth Vader on the other side of the room. All my plans to sweet-talk my way inside went out the window and I just stared around the place with my mouth open. I was in the main reception area by the looks of it but not for long as the security guards came over and quickly showed me back out. So much for that little adventure!

I was still able to wander around the grounds though and saw plenty of Star Wars stuff through the windows. In one room, a full size Darth Maul statue, in the next some ROTS standees. A lot of windowsills were adorned with action figures and models too. Eventually I came to the small coffee shop in the grounds and I think I caught a glimpse of Pablo Hidalgo taking a break. Couldn't be sure though.

All in all it certainly looked like a nice place to work. Not very friendly to wandering obsessives though.

My final bit of excitement was on the way home: Rick McCallum was on my flight back to London. He was in first class while I was sardined into the economy section so I didn't get a chance to speak to him. By the time we landed he looked pretty shattered and I thought it was a bit unfair to hassle him then but it was cool to see him nonetheless. I just hope he saw the ROTS t-shirt I was wearing.

So a holiday of what-might-have-beens. This close to infiltrating the Lucasfilm building and then almost chatting to Rick McCallum. Hehe.

[image=http://www.jazzatola.com/images/me_and_yoda.jpg]

 

Nice one.

 

Sounds cool, I would have talked to Rick tho, even if he was tired I'm sure another 'Man Star wars is awesome, can I have your autograph please?' wouldnt have done any harm.

 

I definately would've at least said Hi, and talked to him a bit, and tried for an auto. Sounds like you had a good time!

 

After 10 hours in the air I don't know whether I was up to speaking to him, let alone him replying!

I wonder why he's over here anyway. Something to do with the TV series maybe?

 

You could have said something like: "Dude, I saw you at Celebration Day in London back in May, and I have to agree with you, it was ******* AWESOME!!!"

I'm sure he would have liked that!