We are testing our first batch of wine before we make the big commitment of planting a bunch of vines. Brendan bought me a wine making kit for Valentine’s Day… So cute. I came home on V-day and Page rushed out to meet me at the car. “Mom, Mom, hearts, hearts!” Page and Brendan had laid a trail of hearts that led from the car to the downstairs bathroom where a ton of wine making equipment was awaiting. We dove into the science experiment last night and produced our first batch of Pinot Grigio. In a couple months we will find out how well we fared.
What do you like better… Mountain Girl Winery, Shady Vines, Sierra Azul Vineyards…
This year’s pumpkins. Four of them. From the smallest, Siena-sized pumpkin with a happy face to match hers. Then a ghost for Page. Three colours and pixelated. A Mummy-sized ouroboros from Hemlock Grove, a Netflix original horror series. Finally a Dadda-sized crow. Suggested by the Pagie-sized one.
Brendan and I had a rare night away from Page and were whisked away to the Stonebrook Castle for the PAIFF Kick-off Party. We were fortunate enough to have Brendan’s mate from school, Sebastian, visiting us so he was designated Brendan’s wing-man while I schmoozed with the attendees. It was a huge success, over 300 VIP’s in attendance. I felt like Cinderella for the night as I was loaned some gorgeous diamond earrings from our jewelry sponsor.
Me w/ 2 filmmakers, Betsy Franco and Kristin Kueter. Betsy is the mom of actors Dave and James Franco.
What a good looking crew! Sebastian, our recent newlywed friends, Erik and Lindsey Toth. Brendan and Erik met at Netflix, we try to hang out with these 2 as much as possible.
The boys around the Bugatti, this is what a $2 million car looks like. Wow!
Now its all about spending time w/ Grandma Sam and Carson up in San Francisco for the rest of the week and getting ready for a certain someone’s 2nd birthday!!!!
We launched a film series for PAIFF where we will showcase one film a month leading up to the Festival. We chose INDIE GAME: THE MOVIE for our first event, it is a wonderful doc about indie gamers struggling to get to the top of the gaming world. The event was awesome, a sold out, enthusiastic crowd.
Before the film started, a father and his son arrived. The father had only one ticket and approached Brendan to see if he had an extra ticket, luckily Brendan was able to point out there was someone near by who was trying to sell their extra ticket. During the Q&A w/ the filmmakers, the boy got up and asked a question, he was SO excited to be there and to be able to speak with the filmmakers and the subject (hero) of the film. Its moments like that that make me very happy.
I am overjoyed by the recent successes of PAIFF. Everyday has seemed like Xmas with all the support from the Palo Alto and film community. Here are a couple highlights:
– We are in talks with Ford who will be ‘owning’ the Festival. They are opening a research center in Palo Alto, its a perfect fit and will bring us in OVER our fundraising goals. YES!
– We have a very dynamic Talk program where we will host 10 conversations between Hollywood celebrities and Silicon Valley tech professionals. Variety, The New York Times Talks, and Fast Company are all signing on a media partners. HUGE win for us! I can’t wait to share the lineup…
– And the best news of all is that we are blessed to have the support of a company called Palantir, they are a Palo Alto company worth loads of money and help the gov’t fight terrorism (or something like that). They have given us the biggest gift all by converting the Varsity Theater BACK into a theater for us to use!!!!!!!!!!! The Varsity was converted into a Borders bookstore in the early 90’s. It is now being restored into a state of the art theater. We will be able to use all year long for our film series, etc. But it will be ready this summer and will be our main PAIFF venue.
Lots more updates to come and I will keep you posted. But today I get to hang with my sweet little girl, time to head to the library for story time!
My last few months have been consumed with redesigning the Netflix user interface. Many of you will have seen the changes by now. Many of you can’t (or if you can I know nothing…) see Netflix. So here it is:
It has been a worthwhile learning experience. Both with the technology and in dealing with changing something that tens of millions of people feel passionately about.
PAIFF is off and running – we have so much support from the film community and the VC’s of Palo Alto have also taken an interest, which is very good for us. Alf and I filmed this video a month or so ago, it was hard not to laugh! How did 2 kids from Sundance get so lucky? This is the opportunity of a lifetime! Please excuse my ‘serious’ voice, I was trying to control the giggle fits…
