The Kid: “I gave you two presents, a fart and a fart!”
Daddy: “Oh, a double-double.”
The Kid: “Protein-Style!”
— The kid makes a joke (plays better if you’re familiar with the menu at In-N-Out)

One thing about maintaining a blog: it really makes you aware how fast a year can go by! I made a post about our visit to Friday Movie Night in Los Altos last year around this time. You can view the post here. Honestly, I feel like I wrote that post a few months ago. Just to make sure, I checked out last year’s video. Yep, the kid is noticeably younger and shorter. I guess it has been a year!

Anyway, we went again earlier tonight. The kid had lots of fun sliding and jumping around, running back and forth between the slide and bouncy houses.

After getting her fill of jumping around like a lunatic, she ordered up a nice pink octopus balloon animal…

Yep, this kid knows how to start off the weekend!

For more info on various events in Los Altos, click here.

“Share it with someone you love, Daddy!”
— Lucy, spoon in hand, approaches her ice cream-eating Daddy

Last night I went to Skywalker Ranch in Nicasio, CA. to see a showing of the new 3-D movie, Tron: Legacy. Though I can’t say the movie will go down as a personal favorite, I was glad I went. I mean, it’s not very often that I receive an invitation to Skywalker Ranch.

I drove straight from work and traffic was brutal. It took about two hours to get to to Lucas Valley Road.

After eight miles of the winding road, I came upon a closed gate.

“Now what?” I thought as I drove up. However, in an instant the electric gate started to swing open. “Cool. I’m in!”

Though I couldn’t see much beyond my headlights, the grounds seemed very picturesque. I slowed down to watch a deer make its rounds.

Soon I found myself in a line of about twenty of cars, our speed at a virtual standstill as we dutifully waited to be noted and checked off of a guest list at a check-in point.

After getting checked off, I drove over a piece of road designed to look like a wooden bridge. I was off to the theater. Skywalker Ranch seemed pretty vast. I drove by different parts of the compound before I found a man w/ a flashlight who motioned me to park in a dirt lot next to the theater.

Once parked, I went to the theater lobby and was again checked off a list. Before the movie started, I grabbed a water at the open bar, chowed down on some hors d’oeuvres, and chatted with co-workers.

It wasn’t long before we were ushered into the theater. Everyone grabbed a pair of 3D glasses as they entered the room. My group was ushered over to a block of seats that’d been taped off for us. They were great seats, dead center, 8-12 rows from a screen that was flanked on either side by statues of what I thought looked like Sith warlords.

Here’s more info on the theater.

After the movie, the director came out for a round of Q/A. During his interview he remarked that “he wished every Tron: Legacy viewer could view the movie in this theater” because of its state of the art structure, sound and audio.

On my way home, my terrible sense of direction along with a GPS unit that kept mentioning it’d “lost signal…reacquiring” whenever I needed it, led to a longer than usual trip home. Before I finally made it back home, I’d found myself traveling over the Golden Gate bridge ($6 toll!) and through San Francisco. Luckily, I also stumbled across an In-N-Out Burger, so all was not lost.

Lucy: (yelling) “Aaaaaaaah, YOGURT!”
Mom: “You’re screaming at your yogurt cup?”
Lucy: (calmly) “Yes, it won’t open.”
— another conversation overheard at the dinner table

2010.08 Friday Night Movies from Mike C on Vimeo.

Last night we went to Los Altos for a movie night. It was pretty neat. The city shut down a section of Main Street, set up a screen, and propped up a movie projector. In addition to this, they also brought in a jumpy house, a couple of slides, balloons, etc.. Needless to say, Lucy gave all of this a very hearty approval.

The kid had a blast, running from slide to jumpy house to slide again. She also got a balloon (in the shape of a pink bunny of course) and some body art. I managed to shoot some video. Hopefully,  Jill will be posting some pics too.

February hasn’t been the best of months. A good friend had a bit of a rough month health-wise. Fortunately, though things were looking a little hairy for a while, he’s doing a lot better now.

Stuff I’ve watched/read this month:

movies & books

• The Invention of Lying
• The Family Man
• The Hunger Games
• Catching Fire

tv

• Pawn Stars
• Sons of Anarchy

Misc. February Events

• 2010 Winter Olympics
• Valentine’s Day
• Family Get-Together
• UFC 110: Big Nog losing (bummer); Wandy winning (cool!)