The last days of our trip was spent in Pasadena, the town where my son Greg lives. On the walk to his house, we found this, near where people's mailboxes were, that was somebody's lending library, just right by their house!
Unlike our San Francisco part, which was city tour, or the Coastal Highway part, which was scenic, the last part of our trip was more family and relaxation.
We did take the time to tour an older home called The Gamble House (from the family in Proctor & Gamble). Alison loves touring these old craftsman style homes, and she was in HGTV heaven. I went with her for the hour plus tour and.....I was happy that she was happy.
I would show pictures from the inside, but they didn't allow that.
Benjamin playing with his second cousin, Myles. Part of our visit was spending time with Alison's cousins, Suzy and Charley, and Suzy's husband, Greg.
Suzy with husband Greg. She is pregnant with Myle's baby brother, and is due in October.
Greg (Suzy's spouse) is an animal trainer at a ranch with animals used in commercials, television and movies. We got to see lions and tigers and bears...oh, my! And one hyena named Banzai, that Greg actually raised in their home as a cub (puppy?). In Hollywood, Banzai is considered the go-to hyena.
Benjamin's totem animal is tiger, and here he is actually getting to feed one!
There were many more experiences there, but we were limited in the pictures we could take, and actually pretty much wrapped up in the whole experience, including feeding marshmallows to Grizzly Bears.
Their animals have been in a large number of productions, including The Happening, which Greg himself was in (getting his arm ripped off as an animal trainer whose big cats go awry), and the tiger in The Hangover. Banzai the hyena was featured in an American Express commercial with Ellen DeGeneres. Currently, some of their animals can be seen in Deliver Us From Evil.
One of the last things we got to do on our trip, and perhaps the most special thing to me, was a visit to where my son Greg worked. Here he is in his ginormous office, seated at multiple panels of the sophisticated instruments he use to perfect the color in the TV shows you may be watching.
It is a huge office, and includes couches and chairs for executives and clients to see episodes of what's being worked on. On the wall opposite Greg is a huge screen, as big as a small theater movie screen, where he gets to see, frame by frame (or whatever they call the digital stuff nowadays), the shows that he is working on. The shows are recorded with the color being kind of flat, and it is up to Greg to bring it out, in a way that makes the scene come alive.
Greg has worked on many. many shows. One of the more recent ones you may be familiar with is Hawaii Five-O. Often, Hawaii does not look like it's postcards. Often, it is overcast and gray. He helped make it look like the Hawaii people are more familiar with. If you watch that show and want to visit Hawaii, my son is partly responsible for that.
While we there, he worked on a couple of shows, the most exciting of which was a new series that premiered just a week ago, and featured a very famous movie star in her first TV series in a very long time, produced by perhaps the most successful Director in movie history.
All in all, this was a very exciting trip for us Straits, and I think you for catching these travelogue slide shows. We are busily saving our travel points again, and looking forward to going back as often as we can!
No comments:
Post a Comment