Halb Mensch. Halb Ding.
A couple of years ago two guys from Io went to visit Skywalker Ranch as guests of Matthew Wood. I convinced them to let me post this video of theirs, from the visit:
Which of course goes hand in hand with our visit last year.
Update: As fate would have it, Philip Bloom just posted a new video from the countryside around the ranch:
We visited the Ranch during our three-week US roadtrip a few months ago, and I’ve been longing to go back ever since. Nestled in the hills a 40-minute drive north of San Francisco, hidden from view of the road and comprising all the land around it, as far as you can see, and about ten times more, Skywalker Ranch is without a doubt the geek haven.
Spent the last few evenings glued to the screen, bouncing from hotel to hotel, trying to find the right fit between price and location for our stays in LA, SF and Vegas. Maybe I’m picky, but that stuff is draining. I don’t know what I’d do without Trip Advisor to be honest.
Originally we had planned to stay wherever, but as our plans started crystalizing, we decided for peace of mind, to book places while in the cities, rather than trying to find something in the stress of it all.
I know, I know, it’s starting to look more and more as if Binary Bonsai was reborn as a Star Wars and Droidmaker-reblog site after its hiatus, but if I merely updated the older entries with this information, it wouldn’t propagate, and dammit, when I have something to take credit for I’ll damn well use every excuse in the book to take it!
Then there happened to be an unusual series of events at the end of June, 2009, when a couple interesting Lucas stories were emerging. An old home movie from ILM in 1977. An older interview with young George Lucas from the BBC in 1972. My book gives some context to these items.
On June 30 I got a wild hare and generated a PDF of the entire book. I posted it on my blog and I made two public-ish announcements: I posted it on my Facebook page, and I emailed a note about it to a blogger in Europe who had just written something nice about Droidmaker a few days earlier. So I emailed “Binary Bonsai” – he posted it. And that was it.
The word spread globally in a few moments, and in 24 hours there were around 2,000 downloads of the book. A few weeks later there was another spike of interst, bringing the total downloads to about 13,000. In 14 days, more people have read my book than in the prior 4 years. And I finally feel like my work with this is done. #
Exciting for me, as I’ve been a fan of Droidmaker since it came out. I plowed through it in a few days, which is honestly rather rare for me. I hope to have the chance to meet Michael when we’re in California; a fitting encounter on a trip which is already taking us to see Pixar, Skywalker Ranch and a John Williams concert.
I honestly don’t know how all of this could get much better…
View Westcoast Roadtrip ’09 in a larger map
The whole company was sent packing for their annual summer vacation today (as per tradition, a thunderstorm over Copenhagen is welcoming them). I’ll be working throughout most of the next three weeks, with the exception of a short stint to England, for a friend’s wedding, as Rikke and I have finally manned up and gone ahead with our plan for a roadtrip through California (and parts of Arizona).
What’s a geek to do, given geek’s tools? That’s right, pay homage. I’ve got a few more places I want to throw up here as well, just for the heck of it.
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