Top Five of the Week: 2/7 - 2/13/11

I've been wanting to do a regular/weekly type of a post to get me posting on here regularly.  This leads me to bring you the Top Five of the Week.  The items in my top five will come from things I see, read, and do (just like my tag line says).  I thought I would start with last week to get this segment up and running!

1. Disney Family Museum
I took at weekend trip up to Sacramento to visit my parents.  Normally my visits are wasted away shopping (my Dad loves to hunt down a deal) or with other various time wasting activities.  For this trip I suggested we hit up the Disney Family Museum in the Bay Area.  Overall I enjoyed the museum.  Lots of memorabilia from the family.  As someone who worked at Disneyland for over 8 years and taught orientation at the parks and the studios, I'm pretty well versed in the history of the company, so not too much of it was new information.  There was a really cool model of Disneyland near the end.  Since we weren't allowed to take pictures inside the museum you'll have to take my word for it.

The Disney Family Museum

We lucked out because the day we went there was a special event: Designing a Contemporary Classic: The Art and Process of 101 Dalmatians.  It was a panel with Floyd Norman, Andreas Deja, and Don Iwerks.  It was pretty interesting to learn how Ub Iwerks kind of developed the idea of using a Xerox machine for animation and hear stories about working for the company when business was booming.  I wish I had done some research on who was going to be on the panel because Andreas Deja was the supervising animator for Lilo (if you know me you know why I'm sad about my lack of preparation). 

Me with Don Iwerks,  Andreas Deja, and Floyd Norman

2. Used Book Sales
We stopped by a used book sale at a church prior heading up (over?) to the museum.  It kind of set the book buying craziness for the weekend.  On the plus side we didn't spend more than $2 on a book.  I ended up with over 50 books and probably only spent $40+.   


3. Family
It was great to see my parents.  Though, I'm lame and realized that I didn't contact my brother to let him know that I was in town.  What a bad sister I am.  Not that he'll ever read this, but sorry Jason!

4. Vino Volo at the Sacramento Airport
Great wine bar at the airport.  Great end to a great trip!

5. Broadway Nights: A Romp of Life, Love, and Musical Theatre by Seth Rudetsky
I just happened to see it on the shelf in the library and I'm glad I picked it up.  I really enjoyed this fictional story of an aspiring Broadway conductor.  Many times it had me laughing out loud.  I'm going to write up a quick review of this and another book I read over the weekend soon.