After having a great time at Further Confusion, we flew to Seattle with Kilmo and Maple! It was the first time we ever met irl, and we would spend the next days in their house, furry hospitality is the best!
Today we went to grab some breakfast at Fresh Flours Phinney Ridge, then we headed to the Space Needle! Sadly I had a pretty bad headache, but some pseudoephedrine took care of that! We went up the Space Needle and spent quite some time up there. Despite living in Seattle for a while, Kilmo never was up there! The view was amazing and the glass floor was really neat!
After a while we went down to the gift shop. The ultimate gift shop in fact. With every Space Needle product you can imagine. We got some merch, put it in the car and went to get some pasta for lunch. Since the battery of my SX-70 film pack was empty, we went to a nearby camera store to pick up new film. They also had a cool SX-70 pin which I could not resist buying. After that we went to check out KEXP, a local radio station which also housed a little record shop featuring a nice selection of Japanese City Pop. I left a Chillhop sticker on the toilet there.
After taking a break, we took the monorail downtown.
Of course we had to visit the Starbucks reserve roastery, it's a really cool place! We had some fancy lattes and I spent some time doing my favorite thing - having coffee with friends while drawing! By pure coincidence Hans Faffing, a friend of Kilmo dropped by.
For dinner we went to a dumpling place that was pretty tasty! On the way back to the car we walked past Pike Place, home of the very first Starbucks!
We got some nice photos, went back to the car and drove back at 22:00.
Henrieke, Kilmo and I went to grab lunch at a Hawaiian fusion place, very tasty! Then we went to visit WickedSairah. Balaa was there as well. We spent quite a while looking at her house, which was more like a museum. The walls were plastered with original animation art, and she had many stacks of originals. Henrieke enjoyed it a lot!
Then we went to the Vulpine Taproom to meet with even more people at 15:30. Kilmo, Rain, Dingbat, Jay and Hermux were there already. WickedSairah and her husband BlueRoo as well as VinVertigo joined later. Lots of art trades, sketching and chatting ensued and we had a great time there. Kilmo and Rain left earlier, also VinVertigo and Jay. Eventually the pub quiz night started and we felt to awkward to leave then, so we joined the quiz. We didn't to terribly, thanks to us coming up with an original Pokémon and me knowing about Google Knol.
We stayed until 22:00, then Dingbat gave us a ride back to Kilmo's place.
Kilmo and I went to get some breakfast at a nearby bakery, also some eggs, since I wanted to bake him some Vanillekipferl, an Austrian christmas cookie. We had breakfast back at the house, then Kilmo took us to an absolutely amazing movie and record shop I found on Google. They had a GIANT wall of Laserdiscs and we only had 20 minutes until we had to leave.
I picked up 3 Laserdiscs, then Henrieke and I took an Uber to Duke's Seafood, where we met John Lustig and his wife. Henrieke and John talked about comics a while, and John even brought some Barks originals, wow! They also talked a while about William van Horn. We had some huge amazing dessert, and John was nice enough to invite us.
Sadly we had to dash off again, as we booked a slot at the Seattle Underground Tour! We made it just in time! The tour was great, and the tourguide managed to squeeze about 10 toilet jokes into every sentence. We also got some actual 60s Space Needle postcards in the gift store, neat! After that we went to Pike Place and walked past the first Starbucks. It was extremely busy, so I was happy we actually saw it when it was closed with no one around earlier.
Then we took the monorail and met up with Angela, one of Henrieke's friends from way back. We got some coffee at a Starbucks there and did sketchtrades.
Angela's partner also showed up, and after a while we said our good-byes and took the train up north, then an Uber back to Kilmo's place, where I forced everyone to watch Casiopea vs. The Square.
Today was going to be an extremely busy but cool day! We got up at 5:00 and took an Uber to the Seattle Airport. Things went fast at security, so we had plenty of time to still check out a really cute store that sold airplane-themed stuff. Then we took the train to our gate and had a short flight with a breathtaking view over San Francisco!
DavidGA was already at the airport, picking us up and giving us a ride to the Internet Archive. Sadly there was no easy parking available, so he took off again. Since we were quite early we sat in the sun a bit, until someone let us into the place. We met Brewster Kahle who told us to take a look around. Things were busy in preparation for the public domain day celebration later that day. We went upstairs and I was excited to finally see this former church in person. There were servers standing around, lots of small figurines, and 2 art exhibits! I also have to give thanks to Jason Scott who made it possible for me to be there!
We went downstairs again, I gave a christmas card to Brewster, and we had lunch together. This was a good chance to tell Brewster about the project that I and other volunteers poured in 100s of hours already, the Computer Chronicles Metadata Project! Brewster was very interested, and I was super excited to be able to show this in person! I got the chance to hand out some more with Brewster later and we chatted about ways to make contributions like metadata easier on the Internet Archive.
Eventually we left and had the bright idea to walk all the way to Amoeba music to meet up with Croc. San Francisco turned out to be bigger than expected and Croc had to wait until we arrived after an hour of walking. On the bright side, Golden Gate park was very pretty! We put our luggage into Croc's car and went to Amoeba music, one of our favorite spots in SF! We spent quite a while there, sadly the Laserdisc section was a letdown this time. Absolutely nothing I'd want there.
After a while, Aur joined. She's an artist I found on Twitter, and after failing to meet up at FC, she mentioned that she lived close to Amoeba. We decided to grab a coffee while Henrieke and Croc browsed music and went to a nearby Café. We did a quick art trade, then checked out Mendels for a few minutes. They didn't have any good fur though, so we went back to Amoeba. Henrieke and Croc were almost done, and after chatting a little bit with the guy at checkout, we left and went to the car, which luckily was neither stolen nor damaged. Aur left at that point and I convinced everyone to go to JapanTown, likely my favorite spot in San Francisco. We went to have dinner there and I invited Croc and Henrieke for some tasty Japanese food. Since we didn't have much time, I ran through the mall for a few minutes and went to Kinokuniya. When I came back I was just in time andI had Tempura Donburi, which was really good! We went to the other side of the mall for some ice cream in a Takoyaki cone. We also had to stop at Daiso of course for some snacks and other things.
Croc gave us a ride to his place. We did a quick load of laundry and chatted with Croc, then went to bed at 1:00.
We slept until 11:00, then we went to have some late breakfast with Croc, Bacon and Yippee at Bill's Cafe. I got some hash browns, bacon and super tasty pancakes.
After that Croc, Henrieke and I went to Rasputin. I got a Star Trek Voyager DVD, Star Trek CDs and Henrieke got a stack of vinyls.
I begged Croc to take us to the Computer History Museum to see the PDP-1 demo at 15:15, and he did! We met up with Dade and all watched the demo, and it turned out to be amazing! There was a music demo, some graphics demos and of course spacewar! One of the people presenting was also a developer of some of the earliest PDP-1 programs! Everyone had a chance to play spacewar, it was thrilling! I was really amazed by how fun the game was as well!
We still had some time left, so we did a quick round in the museum. I told the others that the Connection Machine was actually designed by Brewster Kahle, whom I met yesterday! I also explained to Croc why the Xerox Alto was the coolest machine in the entire museum. They also had some neat new PDAs there!
We stayed all the way until closing time at 17:00. We said bye to Dade on the parking lot, then went back to the house. We ordered some tasty chicken salads and watched some Angie Tribeca, which was pretty funny! We spent the rest of the evening watchinv Casiopea videos and the entirety of Gazorra's TNG edits, good times!
Went to bed at 3:00.
We slept in today, sadly I woke up with a headache. some Ibuprofen helped, and at 13:15 we headed out to the redwoods with Croc, Bacon, Yippee and Kyrian. We stopped at Jersey Mike's for some lunch and then continued to the state park. Right at the entrance we saw some deer, which was really cool!
We had a nice hike, went over a train bridge and saw a banana slug. I bought some stickers at the gift shop and we headed back when it got dark.
On the way back we stopped at a Dutch-Indonesian import shop. They had all the important things, like liquiroce, hagelslag, stroopwafels and more.
After buying some liquorice for Wilbert, we headed across the street for a coffee at Dunkin Donuts, then we went back home. We ordered some Mexican food and watched Samsara, I edited some photos in the meantime.
We slept in today, finally! Henrieke worked on the Vincent and Rembrandt book and I edited photos and set up an old scanner we borrowed from Croc. I took an Uber to a game store in the evening, it was a really nice store and I'm glad I took the time to check it out!
Croc, Yippee and Henrieke picked me up with the car later and we drove to Streetlight Records, sadly didn't find anything good there. After that we went to Japantown to meet with Latte. We went to get some tasty Sushi and delicious matcha ice cream! Sadly Dax couldn't join as he was on a business trip to Seattle of all places!
After dinner we went to Latte's place, Miles was still there, sadly not doing as well when we were there. We played some Blather Round, Trivia Murder Party and Fibbage Enough About You and chatted. It's always fun to hang out with Latte!
After petting Miles some more, we left and got back to Croc's place at midnight after a quick stop at Safeway to get pasta ingredients.
We had a slow morning. I walked to Eastridge mall and sent out some of our late christmas cards at USPS and picked up stamps. Then I went to Round1 to play some Dance Rush, my favorite game!
I got some Froyo and hung out a bit, then went back after getting some cash from the bank and took a well needed shower. Later we took some photos with Baseball, Twilight and Croc!
Bacon came home from work and we watched some Kantaro on Netflix. Later Lucky and Furahi dropped by and we played some Jackbox and I drew something for Croc.
We picked up some late night froyo later, and back at Croc's house we watched the entire Eurofurence 15 video, a nostalgia blast!
We got up at 9:00, packed our last things and headed out at 10:00 after saying bye to Yippee and Croc. Bacon was nice enough to give us a ride to the airport! Our flight was delayed, so we had some nice tempura donburi at San Jose Airport while we waited. I splurged and got us some fancy first class seats, they were really cheap and had extra luggage allowance, which we needed anyway. Henrieke edited her drawings in Lightroom and I enjoyed the view on the very short flight to LA.
Once landed, the real trouble began. Getting to the rental place was complicated, and there was a massive line. Since we were delayed and getting the car took forever, we got right into rush hour and it took forever to get to Burbank. Eventually we made it and met with Mike. We went to Arica's amd Yoav's place. Mara also dropped by. We watched YouTube videos and I got introduced to Double King. We had some pizza and Arica showed us the Chuck-E-Cheese animatronic she was restoring.
We went to Mike's place at around 22:00 and chatted a bit. We also unpacked the whole pile of packages Mike was nice enough to keep safe for us. I could finally give Henrieke the big golden book of Mr. Toad that I ordered something like 2 years earlier. We passed out at 1:00
We had lunch at Smoke House today with Andrew, Alex Kirwan, Ashley, Bob McKnight and Mike.
After that we went back to Mike's and left to meet up with Lance at 15:00. Hanging out with Lance is always a treat! He gave us a ride to see his costume storage, which was a seemingly endless room full of intricate costumes, really cool to see! We also picked up a whole load of packages he kept for us for a while. We spent quite a while petting Lance's adorable dogs!
Henrieke stayed behind while Lance and I got some really tasty Chinese food, then we watched some ancient animation demo reels while eating. It was a great evening!
Eventually we said good-bye to Lance and drove to downtown Burbank to meet with Sharpy, Richard Gaines, Fable and Mike at Round1. It was too loud to talk there, so we sat down on some couches in the mall and artjammed there. I picked up some froyo outside. Eventually the mall closed, so we moved out artjam outside to the town center.
I did a nice trade with Richard Gaines. Mike went back early, we stuck around a bit longer there.
Today we had lunch in downtown Burbank with Bob McKnight and Robert Griggs! It was really nice chatting with them. It also turned out Zoë Moss was in the same restaurant, so she came over to say hi! There was a comic con going on nearby so we saw a whole bunch of cosplayers walking around.
After lunch we went to Wilbert Plijnaar's place. Wilbert's passion was gardening and theming and he showed us his amazing backyard that could be right out of a theme park. It was also great looking at all his art on the walls, and he even showed us some animations he did on an Amiga! He also showed us some original art by Daan Jippes and Mary Blair. We stuck around for quite a while, looking through Bill Peet books.
Eventually we left and grabbed some dinner at Panda Express at the Burbank mall. I could eat orange chicken every day! We got some boba and froyo, then went back to Mike's place and did some art trades. We went to bed at 1:30 after watching Donoccio.
Today Mike, Henrieke and I went to Atomic Records, one of my favorite Record shops!
We picked up some cool stuff, then continued to Van Eaton gallery where we spent a while looking at expensive animation originals.
After that we went to Amoeba Records in Hollywood. I picked up even more Laserdiscs and VHSes, and managed to find the reissue of Ryo Fukui's Scenery album, awesome!
We went back to Mike's place after a quick stop at Ralph's to pick up snacks, rested up a bit and then drove to Arica's house to artjam! Arica, Yoav, Sharpy, Mike, Gloria and others were there. We did lots of art trades and I was happy to nerd out about Casiopea with Yoav, who showed me the amazing bass solo in Domino Line. We had pizza again and it was loads of fun!
We had breakfast with Gadworks and his partner at Coral Cafe, then we still went to his house to finish art trades.
Their dog and cat were both precious! Then we found out that C_Eagle was already at Stuart Ng's, while we still needed at least 45 minutes to get there. We drove there as fast as legally allowed and spent a while browsing for books there. Henrieke chatted to Stuart about publishing a sketchbook and having it sold there too.
After that we went to the Prancing Skiltaire, since Sysable and Rod O'Riley invited us. It was like a time machine back to the 80s and we had a lot of fun browsing through ancient fanzines and books! I drew some art in a sketchbook there, and C_Eagle, Henrieke and I chatted for a while with Sysable about Donald Duck, Bommel and other things. Then we went for dinner at Mae's across the street. Sysable and Rod O'Riley, also Henrieke's friend Angela joined. We had a burger there and I doodled something for C_Eagle.
After that we went to Target to buy another suitcase, as we bought so much stuff during the trip that it would've been impossible to fit all of it into 2 suitcases.
We arrived back at Mike's at 22:30 and went to bed at 1:15.
Mike, Henrieke and I got up at 6:00 (ouch!), picked up Arica and drove towards Disneyland! It wasn't very busy luckily! We met up with Andrew there and had breakfast at Carnation Café. I got some Mickey Waffles, which were very tasty! It was fairly chilly that day, luckily we sat under a heater.
After that we went to Star Tours. We flew to the Wookie Planet, but got a message from Princess Leia on the way, telling us to divert our course to coordinates she supplied. Those coordinates apparently directly sent us to the DEATH STAR?!? Great job Leia! Luckily we escaped.
Then we went to Toontown to see Mickey's Runaway Railroad, which was a fantastic ride (and waiting line)! We saluted to potato Lincoln of course. Also we wished the Powerlimes candy would be a real thing.
We had lunch behind the Tiki Room, some Dole Whip and bao. Then we went to the Tiki Room. The pre-show was in a pretty sorry state, luckily the regular show was as good as ever.
Henrieke got some silhouettes made of Dauwe, her brother, at the silhouette shop. I also got a fancy Latte at the Starbucks.
Then we finally went to see Rise of the Resistance, which we tried and failed to do 3 years ago. Everything about the ride was great, the effects.. wow! Of course I wouldn't mind if it was Rise of the Rebellion, but I'll take it!
We also went on the Pinocchio ride. It started raining pretty hard, so we sheltered in a pin store. Andrew left, and the rest of us went to Big Thunder Mountain.
Then we took the Disneyland train for a bit, then we went to Pirates of the Caribbean. Arica and Mike went shopping on main street for a bit, Henrieke and I went to Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln. We also spent some time at Black Spire Outpost, where we had dinner and got some drinks.
We left the park at 20:15, drove back to Mike's house, packed, and went to bed at 23:30.
We got up 8:00, packed our last things and said bye to Mike after showing him some Balloonshop videos. We drove out, luckily there wasn't any bad traffic. We returned the car well on time and headed to the airport. We still shuffled our luggage around a bit so that all of our bags weighed exactly 23kg. Of course our hand luggage was too heavy, but luckily no one checked that. Since there was a Panda Express at the airport, I had another opportunity to get some Orange Chicken, which I did not let pass. We got some tasty Starbucks coffee after, and Henrieke worked on a drawing job for David Gerstein.
Eventually we found out that our flight was 3 hours later than we thought. It turned out that the flight schedule changed many months ago, but due to some error I never got notified. That also meant we could've stayed longer at Disneyland yesterday, dang! The flight itself was fine, and thanks to tailwind we arrived quite a bit earlier than planned, around noon. With a huge jetlag of course.
What a trip! We didn't really get to rest much, but I think it's fair to say we made the most of it! It was great seeing so many great friends again. Special thanks to Tachi, Croc, Jimmy, Bacon and Mike.
