US Trip, Day 2 – San Francisco

USS Pampanoni, Ripples Believe it or not, lunch @ Pier 39, trolley car trip, more shopping, Chinese for dinner & Cable Car ride.

Late start today due to being kept up by our son who does NOT travel well, this time it was a 3am vomit call but in hind site it could have been worse!

We are staying at the Fisherman’s Wharf Holiday Inn Express & this is the first time at one of this chains hotels so we were not 100% sure what to expect from the free breakfast, so after one of the fastest & least appetising breakfasts I have ever had we set off for Fisherman’s Wharf, this is indeed “express” in every sense, I was lucky to get a coffee at 9:29 as they close at 9:30 ON THE DOT!

We picked up a Wharf Pass that includes a heap of goodies & discounts. First stop for me & Rory (my son) was the WWII Sub on Wharf 45. USS Pampanito (SS-383) is a World War II Balao class Fleet submarine that served in the Pacific and is very well looked after. After a pretty quick walk through we headed into the Mechanical Museum & had some fun with the 25c machine of yesteryear & of course the obligatory penny pincher for the sub!

My wife Alison & daughter Emily were over at the Ripples Believe it or not. I heard mixed reviews so can’t comment on that.

On our way over to lunch we went over to see the Seals at Pier 39 only to discover the real attraction we – hunting sea gulls, these abnormally LARGE gulls were swooping in and grabbing the tops of corn dogs from unsuspecting tourists, ourselves included, sans corn dog, although Rory is contemplating coming back with a corn dog to give it a go. Oh, for those that have no idea what acorn dog is! Think Pluto Pup or Dagwood Dog & your on the right track.

After a quick bowl of yummy Clam Chowder we jumped on the trolley and set off for Union Square, we ended up getting side tracked with shopping in the downtown area win the lour of the Apple store, Macy’s & Sketchers proving too much for us!

We took advantage if the great $ rate and bought both the kids an iPod touch each for respective birthdays and this turned out a winner for the next day.

Quick dinner at the closest Chinese restaurant we could find then we headed off to the world famous Cable Car for the trip back down to the Wharf, we ended up on quite a long one which worked out nicely with the exception of the rain.

On the way home we past an Irish pub that was pushing Irish Nachos (see pic), not something I could see myself chowing down on!

Tomorrow we are off to Yosemite National Park for the day which we are looking forward to.

Fanboys – a Star Wars fan movie

Being a big Star Wars fan I was glad to finally see the release of Fanboys, a movie about four friends who go on a road trip to San Francisco to steal a pre release copy of Episode I: The Phantom Menace.

There was a huge amount of controversy concerning the filming of this movie as the production company really messed with the original script idea, originally the film plot was based around four guys, one of whom had cancer and wanted to see the new film from the second trilogy. Apparently the whole cancer idea did not sit well with the Weinstein Group so they re-shot a lot of the film with a new plot.

This caused quite a lot of angst in the Star Wars fan community as the sneak peak that was shown to a large audience at Star Was Celebration a few years back had the original plot, so they felt betrayed by the film company.

Anyway, that seems to have cleared itself up as it is being released with the original plot.

I am not sure when the film will be released here in Australia but I will make sure I see it when I go the San Francisco later next week, lucky me, US cities listed here.

Preview below

Summer is here – or is it?

Today is the first official day of Summer in Australia (well NSW anyway) and I am wondering how long it will last.

I want for my normal walk to Red Hill today, the cicadas were singing, the temp was bout 22C at 8:15, so it really felt like summer. However, a quick glance at the Weather Channel on Foxtel tells us its OK for the next day or two & then back to rain!

I cant remember the name of the Weather man who two weeks ago, but I’ll bet he is feeling like a goose for saying “Put away your umbrellas and winter woollies, its going to be a long hot summer”.

We can only hope.

Welcome Summer, lets hope you are a long & hot one.

I just hope that I get a two nice warm days for SMX Sydney on April 2nd & 3rd and a fine evening for SMX Under the Bridge on the 3rd.