Star Wars Celebration I - Denver, 1999!

I was just reminded that yesterday marked the 15th anniversary of Star Wars Celebration I in soggy Denver, Co. We were there!

April 29, 1999: Our names in lights! Sorta!


April 30, 1999: Derek and I and our umbrellas. It was WET and MUDDY EVERYWHERE. Even in the venues.


Here's Derek, holding his "Revised Program Listing", waiting in an unspecified line.


Here I am in the mud on May 1st with thousands of other happy Star Wars fans. Apparently, the organizers didn't realize that if they threw a party called Star Wars Celebration, 30,000 people would show up. Every venue was PACKED, and wet - it was so much fun!!


May 2, 1999: Here's Derek out in the parking lot, with one of the infamous tent venues in the background. Trying to look otherworldly with his "macrobinocs."


5/2/99: It's not a Star Wars event without some hooded guy walking around in the background.


Also from 5/2/99: I used to be very active on the early internet Star Wars sites and forums. Here I am with a NewsDroid reporter! Was so much fun meeting my fellow geeks in person.


Not sure what day this was taken - you can't go wrong with a giant inflatable Mountain Dew behind you. You can also see the Food Tent - catering by KFC!


One more of us on an unspecified day.


Ah, memories. We have our 4-day passes to the next one - Star Wars Celebration VI, I think?? - in Anaheim, April 16, 2015!

May the Force be with you!!

Episode SEVEN Is For Real

LFL/Disney Announcement

UPDATE 6:26 PM 4/29/14: Here's the announcement Derek received via email at Disney.

Jam Sessions - 30 years apart!

Greetings - we have returned to Burbank after a really fun Easter Break trip to Sacramento!

Last night, we were with Derek's family. Various musical instruments tend to find their way out to the living room at these gatherings... here's Derek experimenting with his grandfather's accordion.



Then, Grandma dug up a picture from 1984:


From left to right: On guitar, Aunt Jean (Grandma Darlene's sister); on accordion, Lawrence Alff (Derek's grandfather/Grandpa Wendell's dad); on banjo, George Alff (Derek's great uncle/Lawrence's brother); and on piano, Doris Bell (Grandma Darlene's mother).

We decided to re-create that photo in the same location with the same folding chairs and related band-members:

From left to right: on guitar, the very same Aunt Jean; on accordion, Derek; on banjo, Derek's sister Jana; and on piano, Grandma Darlene.

Grandma had the presence of mind to take a making-of pic - here's me taking the re-staged picture, with expert Lighting Designer/Key Grip Grandpa doing his job in the background.



Good times!! Thank you Grandma and Grandpa for hosting an evening of family fun!

Easter 2014!

Happy belated Easter, everyone!

We were pretty busy on Easter, so we didn't get many pics. The only one we have from church was kindly shared with us by Erin:


The CCB crew did a great job freshening up the Overflow Room upstairs!

Meanwhile, here are the official Alff Kids Easter Pics 0'14:







After church: an egg hunt!











Do we need to have a Caption Contest for this one?? What did I just tell Kathy?


I believe Maren retrieved the most eggs, 24 out of 55.


The kids found an inchworm!




An Easter candy package made a nice temporary home for the inchworm. Maren later released him back into the wild.


Hope everyone had a very blessed day!

St. Paul's Walkathon 2014

The 2014 St. Paul's Walkathon was a huge success, and a lot of fun!

You know how I get excited about good parking spaces? THIS was a treat - somehow, we managed to get our own reserved parking space for the day.


The 'Rents sound check went well...


We welcomed new drummer Fabio!


Performing one song is hard work; good thing the catering truck was nearby.


But enough about The 'Rents! Here's Deacon in his official 6th Grade Walkathon T-Shirt. He won the title contest and logo design!


The back of the T-shirt.


Maren, and the back of her 4th Grade Fireballs T-shirt. She's not sure who thought of the Fireballs team name, but her contribution, the "Go-Getters," placed 3rd.


And... the 6th Graders are off! 15 minutes of running is HARD WORK!


Deacon ran 21 laps.


4th grade's turn. Maren at the starting line...


(Insert Chariots of Fire music here)










23 laps!


Sharing a post-run snow cone with team champ Jacqueline.


Jacqueline ran far and fast: 37 laps!! That might have been the record for the whole school, I'm not sure!


Mrs. Mindock and the girls.


'Rents equipment manager/performer (and St. Paul's Music Director) Mr. Bauer gets ready for the bands to perform.


The Concert Band rhythm section. Yikes.


Beginner Band: Maren readies her trombone!


The horn section!


Back to Concert Band with Deacon on tympani.


We have cell phone pics and regular camera pics, so they're kind of out of order. I could put them in order, but... meh. Here's Maren right before she went out to play trombone.


The finale of the day was the K4 class - a perfect way to end the day! They ran for 15 minutes, too! Here's Molly Bauer running with our friend Seth.


Mr. B takes a group shot...




...while the sky gave a spectacular show: a ring around the sun!


A great day, indeed.

We have many things to catch up on here at the AFB, including Thanksgiving 2013 and Maren's recent field trip to San Juan Capistrano. Will have full coverage ASAP!