Musee Mechanique and more Adventures...

I'm now home from San Francisco recovering from another excursion of animation instruction and exploration. Despite puppets that kept wanting to fall apart on me, I'm happy with how the demos went and wish I could post my animation here, but it's all part of my course for AAU, so sorry.

I made really good time in wrapping up my shoots time-wise each day, which afforded me a good amount of time for relaxing, eating and exploring. I ate at my beloved American Graffiti-shrine Mel's Drive-Inn again, this time accompanied by local fellow- Hollywood Jesus writer Elisabeth Leitch...we had a great chat and it was nice to have some company.

Friday after all my shooting was done, I think I lost half my body weight walking around Fisherman's Wharf and elsewhere (but then I probably gained it all back at dinner.) A really cool destination point this time around was the Musee Mechanique, a museum of classic early 1900s arcade attractions, slot machines, nickelodeons, carnival attractions and creepy animatronic treasures! I love stuff like this so I took lots of videos, and many pictures viewable on FaceBook.



I decided to walk around to find Coit Tower for a nice scenic view, but wasn't aware it would involve climbing up a steep never-ending labyrinth of stairs just to get to the base of it. It was very tiring...not sure if it was really worth the trek by the time I got to the top or not. The view was nice though.





There was also a living monster shrub attacking people on the wharf.




Another highlight ended up being my final decision of where to treat myself to a really nice dinner. After perusing a few menus I stumbled upon The Franciscan, est. 1957 and really had that beautiful classic '50s style that I love.




And the food...holy crap...



A cup of clam chowder, glass of Franciscan private label Merlot, crab, garlic mashed potatoes and boneless short rib. They probably serve food like this in Heaven.

Top it off with a sunset like this and life is good. The only thing missing was my family being there to share it with me, but someday we'll come back with the kids in tow. Fisherman's Wharf and Pier 39 is a fantastic place to take lil' folks, so I look forward to that day.



Speaking of which, I finally felt Xander kick for the first time yesterday! Active little guy. Now it's back to the work week...I found out while I was away that Pixar is opening up a studio in Vancouver, which could be really good for the local industry and for the school. The adventure continues...