The British are coming!

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I received an email last year from a fellow named AJ who had plans of coming to America with his friend and driving across the country to all 50 states! (I can relate!)
He wrote that he would very much like to see the time machine when they pass through the south, and I politely responded that if we were in town, we'd be happy to meet him -whenever the time came.
Well, Wednesday AJ and his friend Shaun actually showed up! They have been through 15 states so far, and he said seeing the time machine was the best thing yet!
Terry and I had a dinner date, so after some quality time answering questions, posing and taking photos, we wrapped the international encounter up!
They both kindly made donations to the Michael J. Fox Foundation, and we parted ways having made new friends! Safe travels!

Florence Alabama Newspaper!

MegaCon

We arrive at Megacon at the Orange County Convention Center, ready to adapt to what ever might happen. As we pull up to the entrance, the time machine is greeted with oohs and aahhs.
As expected, there’s no room on the floor for the DeLorean, but we join Claudia Wells, (‘Jennifer Parker’ in BTTF) who is such a smiling, welcoming soul! We join her celebrity autographing table and the fund raising begins. The people-watching begins too! We saw our first female 'Doc and Marty!' They were both so fun and made a great team! Our DeLorean is remembered and missed by fans, but the poster is received very well, Oli and Claudia signing, with me in the middle making sure everyone is happy.

During the day, we have the good luck to bump into a wonderful friend who offers to garage the DeLorean for us, and trade vehicles for the weekend! He has a nice luxury garage, and a Lotus Elise that Oli and I really, really, really, like! So our storage and transportation issues are solved, with the added bonus of having our second choice (next best thing to a DeLorean Time Machine) to drive around in! This alone makes the long trip worthwhile!

After the show we have dinner with a creative artistic friend Nate Pratt, and our day ends with great conversation and a good nights sleep. We thank friend and fellow DeLorean owner, Dan and the ‘Dr. Who’ Table for their generous offer of a spare room.

Saturday starts with an early trip to Walmart and then on to the convention center. It’s a mad house, and parking is almost impossible. Finally we are directed to a spot and we make a dash for the hall. Which is packed with attendees in full costume. A war call rings out from the crowd as the doors are open. It’s a crowded busy day. I take a minute to say good morning to Lea Thompson, ‘Lorraine’ in BTTF, and wish her a good show. She says she’s been seeing (and autographing) many of Oli’s anniversary posters.

Back at the Claudia’s table we are swamped. A good steady crowd thru the day. We are visited by friends, Michael, Daniel, Nate and Leonard. How cool to be able to see them all. The show is over and it’s off to dinner with Claudia, Lea, Lea’s sister Coleen and our friends from the Celebration Exotic Car Festival. We talk about the event coming up quickly in April and how much we look forward to it.

It was a pleasure to sit and relax and chat with friends after such a full day, and it was particularly a new thrill to spend time with Lea. She is fun and the dinner conversation was like old friends sharing a meal. Who could imagine that life would have brought us here to enjoy such pleasant company?

Sunday March 14, 2010

Slept until 8am, what a treat. Back to Megacon! An easier day, fewer folks, but that just means we could have more time with them! One fellow donated for a poster, and then, seeing one last dollar remaining in his wallet. He said, “Here, get this to Michael.”

Sometimes there are no words to properly convey the kindness we’re privileged to witness.

Finally home. -But not for long.

We leave Arkansas behind and figure we’ll be able to get most of the way home. It’s an 18+ hour drive, -but we gain an hour! At about 11 am we get a call from our friend Dan who asks if we are coming to Florida for MegaCon, as we did last year. We had shelved the idea of attending because event organizers had not planned enough space for the Time Machine this year, and all of the artist spaces had sold out.

Dan insists that we reconsider, and in a moment of excitement (or delirium) we say 'Okay let’s try!' Oli drives thru the night and by dawn we are home. Puppies are very happy, and we start to work on the repack. We’ve made a list of what we might need, yet still no final word from anyone about what to expect when we get there. It’s necessary to sleep, so we take a nap and then throw caution to the wind and take to the highway. 95 south, Florida here we come. Crazy but Oli did it.

Arkansas Monday March 8^th

We arrive in Arkansas to visit my Mom. She was having lunch and we joined her. and spent the day with her. Then off to the farm to see sister Mary and her husband Eddy. Eddy suggest we fund raise at the fraternity he is chef at on Tuesday. It’s all set and we meet him at 12 in Fayetteville . The car is greeted with collegiate smiles and cell phones. While the car poses for pictures, we enjoy lasagna in the chef's kitchen. Yummy!

The fraternity's house mother, who is also a photographer, introduces herself and suggests we drive the car to a nearby cemetery for a photo shoot. Sounds like a lot of fun! We finish our gourmet meal and provide compliments to the chef and his assistant, Sally, and then drive off to the Creepy location. We leave her our card with hopes she'll share the results with us. (She still shoots with film.) Can’t wait to see the pics.

Another quick visit with Mom and then we meet up with the gang for a viewing of Alice in Wonderland. I liked it! Oliver not so much.

Wednesday finds us packing our bags, bidding good bye to family and barn. Everyone should be so lucky to have a red barn to call their own. To home we go. This has been a long stretch of time traveling!

Final day at Film Festival

3.6.10 Saturday

Saturday morning and we are up and ready to do more film festival events. We pick up our new pal Cian who is from Ireland, for a 3-in-a-2-seater car ride! We decided we're going to call this a 'Jeffrey Sqweezman', in honor of our friend who first helped us prove that three people COULD fit in a DeLorean. It was Cian’s birthday, and he kept repeating ‘Best Birthday Ever!’ Nice crowd waiting to see Claudia and James. We sent several more fans away with the Anniversary poster, then we were off for our appearance at the Zodiac. More nice people; a young blind man who was fascinated by the car. Oli directed his hands to the buttons inside the time machine that cause sound effects to activate. Lunch at Rosie’s was a welcome pause for calm and peace. A Margarita assisted in this state.

A nap and then off to the awards ceremony. Another car photo opportunity with the Flogo guys doing their magic soap bubbles. The awards ceremony was very nice, we have been so lucky to be part of such a wonderful celebration of film. The after party at Cypress Moon studios was jamming, with live music in the sound studio portion. It was also very crowded, and quite the ‘place to be’ that night! and then back to the hotel where our little D has her own photo shoot with Tom. Some really amazing images came from that, and Tom made the car look prettier than ever!

Day Two, George Lindsey UNA Film Festival

3.5.10 Friday

Friday morning, getting ready for films and talks. Our next appearance is at the Shoals Theater tonight.

We met Stephen at the Shoals to help set up his BTTF merchandise store for the evenings event. We had the car parked on the street about a ½ block away. There was a lot of setting up going on because ‘First Fridays’, a downtown street festival was happening. Crafts, music, and street fun happening that night. The Shoal’s theater is a classic 1950’s movie house. It played all the big hits in the day, closed for a period of time when the movie multiplex opened across town and now it’s a very active playhouse. Wonderfully restored with a mauve and teal color scheme. The staff there was very helpful with tables and extension cords, etc. Oli got to climb on top of the marquee to drop down power for the DeLorean’s display charging system!

There was a separate box office at the base of a back staircase leading to the balcony. This is a now rarely seen architectural feature that existed as an old reminder of segregation. Ironically, a few of the locals noted that the balcony had some of the best seats in the house!

At 10 am we were off for Bernd Kruyt’s documentary on the flying taxi from BTTF part 2 and Michael Sheffee’s talk about that build and his career as an artist in film. Both were fascinating. Oli and I were lucky enough to see the Taxi up close and in person at the 2002 FX toy show. We had an immediate appreciation for the Citron DS that the taxi is built on.

And now to be able to say we know the man who made it happen is great.

After that talk we went to lunch, the gang is growing. George Lindsey, the namesake of the festival, (as well as ‘Goober’ from the Andy Griffith Show!) joined us for the meal and we all had a great time. Tonya Holly and daughter Lily of the Cypress Moon Studios (a local film and recording studio) also joined us. Oliver and I became bookends of the long table, and took turns making faces at each other from across the room. Then it was off to Bob Gale’s talk on writing. We were driven over by campus security and escorted up the back way to be able to sneak in a side entrance. Bob was very good with his analysis of how he works, how he works with others, such as Bob Z and how it’s important to study. -We are at a University, you know.

Then back to the Shoal’s where Oli and I prep a poster station and then take the car to the President’s reception. Now this is a big deal, because there are a lot of State House politicians present. We make a fine impression and hope the University receives the much deserved funding it is seeking. They arrived in a special transport vehicle and took turns posing with the car. I kept the engine running to provide power for all the lights, as there was no electrical outlet on the front lawn of the beautiful grand multi-columned building. Suddenly, there was a pop and smoky coolant came shooting out of the overflow tube, to the delight of onlookers. 'How does it do that?' they clapped excitedly. 'Movie magic!,' Oli lied, with a nervous smile. He turned on the heater and cooled off the engine. No damage, but the car did not like idling for such a long time. Oliver would like to take this moment to apologize to the lawns keeper of the university, for the little dead spot of former grass he unintentionally killed with boiling coolant.

Campus police saw the situation and radioed for some antifreeze. Just a minute passed, and I was filling up the tank again, and everything was perfect! Just in time!

George Lindsey arrived as we were parking and Oli took him for a spin, which turned out to be a personal tour of George’s school. Mr. Lindsey is a great patron to his school.

He has given the school his script library, from his episodes on the Andy Griffith show to Twilight Zone, and helped develop and loan his name to the film festival.

Now dashing back to the Shoal’s for the Q&A with the BTTF cast. Hosted by alum Danny Wilson who has a fine body of work and was recently seen in the movie ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.’ It was a fine session with Bob Gale, Claudia Wells, James Tolkan and Michael Sheffe. Lea Thompson wasn’t able to attend but taped a greeting and some answers to the panel questions. It was entertaining and we learned some new facts!

I’ve waited to the end of this portion of the blog to write for our little D. She was quite the star. Sparkled and shined. She enjoyed the cobble stone runway up to the theater, and the photos taken have brought countless smiles. Being outside of the Shoal’s under the marquee was a wonderful position to bring attention to the event. Folks that saw her in the daytime were quite impressed when the sun set and she lit up like the star car she is. All through the night I was helping kind and generous donation makers in and out of the car. It was a funny frenzy! No line, just ‘who’s next?’ from me, and the crowd jumping for their turn. That was fun, but what was amazing was watching Oli sign his posters. Michael Scheffe gave Oli a kind compliment when he equated the poster to Drew Struzan’s style. Oli was floating on air after that. Me too! The evening ended with a good night from Mr. Lindsey and dinner with the gang at the local Italian restaurant. And then a late night screening of “Lightning Salad Moving Picture” at the Zodiac. The movie included Bob Zemeckis requesting two unlikely candidate film students to start working on Back to the Future Part IV”. Funny, interesting, and glad we got to see it.

Day One: George Lindsey UNA Film Festival

3.4.10 Thursday

Our old friend Stephen greeted us with hugs the next morning, and we all sat and enjoyed breakfast with a new friend, Michael Scheffe, who was the construction coordinator of the DeLorean Time Machine in the movie ‘Back to the Future.’ His reputation for being a really nice guy is an understatement, and his smile is contagious. Later, we’re joined by Bernd Kruyt, a Dutch television director, producer and filmmaker whose work we’ll see tomorrow; showcasing the flying taxicab from BTTF, part 2. (I know –a lot of Back to the Future talk here, but after all. . . ‘that’s how we roll hover.’)

Our first appearance was at the Kilby School, where the car actually enjoyed receiving hundreds of tiny fingerprints! It was fun to watch class after class file out of the school and circle around the car. They had been prepared by their teachers for our arrival, and many had little clear sandwich bags filled with coins to place into Mr. Compassion. I quickly saw a height issue, and grabbed a wooden step stool from inside. One by one they would climb up and drop their pennies into the slot, and react to the resulting recording. A row of teachers, coaches, principals, and staff formed, all taking pictures and enjoying the sight. A science instructor from a nearby technical came to be a part of it, in his own unique version of ‘Doc Brown’ character. He riddled the kids, and posed for photos. Further adding to the circus was an ingenious device presented by a local special effects company. The device, called ‘Flogos’ creates dense soap bubble foam, filled with helium rather than oxygen. The foam is extruded through a large template to form shapes, then released into the air to float away!

After Kilby school we had a nice lunch at a ‘Crocodile’ restaurant with our breakfast bunch plus Cynthia Burkhead with the film festival and a fellah who makes parts for Knight Rider cars. (He was a fan of Scheffe, and wanted to spend some time with him!) Stories were shared about building cars and travels along the highways. Since Oli has a fear of gators, he ordered gator bites, which were good.

Tom Silknitter, from PA is here to enjoy the 25^th Anniversary and to take photos. In fact, many of the photos illustrating this portion of the blog are credited to Tom and his professional, skillful talents! (Thank you, Tom!)

Tom is also a BTTF encyclopedia. We spent hours pouring over his photo album and then visited the Library to see the BTTF display Stephen set up, very cool, but what was more fun was watching Oli, Stephen and Tom discuss which movie moment each piece was from. A call sheet with Eric Stoltz’s name listed was a subtle treasure. We are such geeks! A tour of the lion habitat (the schools mascots) and then off to the Zodiac Theatre for another appearance.

We were greeted by a crowd waiting to see our car. Peyton, a young man with autism made his donation and sat, or as I kept saying, ‘set’ in the car. My southern good ol’ gal was in high gear. Peyton was fascinated with the car, all the buttons and lights. Peyton’s father was just as fascinated watching his son enjoy the DeLorean Time Machine. The night was filled with great fun. We were at the Zodiac for two hours, took lots of pictures and enjoyed wonderful conversation with students, film buffs and folks who just stopped to see the DeLorean. As the sun set, the car really started to sparkle and our time finished with a flurry of, ‘Oh wait please one more picture!!!’

Then we blasted off for dinner with Bob Gale, James Tolken and his engaging wife Parmelee, and the whole gang from breakfast and lunch. Claudia Wells and her sister Jennifer joined us later.

Great food and even better company! Thank you UNA and Florence Chamber of Commerce.

Final Day at the Health Conference

Our last day at the convention and we have had a great time. The long hours can be a bit tedious, and eventually some silliness will occur. . .

Couldn’t ask for a nicer group to work with than RelWare. The photo opp was a great success. Folks from over a mile away in hall C walked hall B to find the DeLorean. We took almost 500 pictures. More stories from attendees about family members with PD. It seemed to make them feel better to hear us say Thank you for helping find a cure. Some people apologized for only giving a dollar. Every dollar counts. Every dollar means a lot!! At the end of the show, our Grand total came to. . .

$353.00!

And that is just from providing great folks a way to donate!

The 5:30 ending bell rang, and we were unplugged, packed up and ready to roll! We said our goodbyes to the crew, and a convention center professional was there to lead us out to the loading dock before the cases and forklifts swamped the aisles. It was a swift, smooth exit, and we programmed the time circuits to our next stop:

Off to Florence, Alabama for the GLUNA Film Festival. We are looking forward to seeing our old friends and meeting new ones. (Especially at the grade school appearance, where the organizers have developed at great way for kids to donate, Pocket Change! We’ll need a step stool for the little ones to reach Mr. Compassion but they want to help and we will make it work!

Day 2, Atlanta World Congress Center

There’s one more day here in Atlanta at the Healthcare Information & Management Systems Society.
The RelWare crew has been pleased with the response from the time machine. The Georgia World Congress Center is HUGE! It is one of the largest multi-purpose sports and entertainment complexes in the United States and this conference uses all three halls. The nicest compliments have come from attendees who heard about the vehicle two buildings over, and came looking for our booth! Hopefully this will be the most successful show for our hosting company, since they've been so nice and as equally supportive of our goals as their own! I couldn't count how many times Dan encouraged people to donate something!

Arrival in Florence, Alabama

3.3.10 Wednesday

Arrived in Florence earlier than expected, after traveling backwards in time one hour. So we have an extra hour to sleep tonight which will come in handy if we can prevent our internal alarm clocks from waking us prematurely in the morning!

To Atlanta

Departed for Atlanta at 5:30 with one fly back. The drive to Atlanta began in the wee hours of the morning with full moon lighting the sky! The drive was uneventful, nice and easy 6 and ½ hours and we were loading into the convention center. Well, first Oli went to the hotel to pick up our client to give him a ride in the time machine.

We are representing RelWare, a medical software firm whose slogan for this show is Road Map to the Future. The show opens March 1^st and runs through March 3^rd.

The RelWare booth is a popular stop. (If you're a fan of Back to the Future, you'll notice the number of the aisle we're on, and it's significance!) This number keeps popping up, almost everywhere we go, from hotel room numbers, fast food receipts, etc. We have taken a lot of photos of attendees and exhibitors with the car. Being a medical show we have met some very interesting people, one gentleman from London stopped to tell us about his company’s experimental work with strobeing eyeglasses, that help PD patience walk easier.

RelWare has been kind enough to let us fund raise at the show. Dan asked if we had a LARGER sign to place on the car during the show, and we said 'Why yes we do!' It is touching when someone sees the car from across the isle and then reads the signs and then donates. One fellow shared with us that his father is suffering from PD and that he really appreciated what tothefuture.org was doing. I told him that he just helped to find a cure!

He’ll help even more: for his 40^th birthday he plans to run the NY Marathon. He’s not a runner, but he’ll train and run with MJFF to show his support. Happy Birthday!!