Hi, James here from the good ol' U of K. Today was one of the days I'd been looking forward to the most of the whole trip. Not only were we meeting Laura Ling, a journalist at Current TV, but we were visting the Pixar Studios and interviewing Gary Rydstrom, an animator and Oscar winning sound designer. However, it all began with a panic. Laura Ling unfortunately had to cancel due to sudden illness. Thankfully she kindly recommended someone else we could talk to at Current called Christof Putzel and he turned out to be a really inspiring guy with a fascinating story. It's weird how some of the best interviews we've done have come from last minute planning. Maybe we shouldn't plan so well in future! He was really genuine and engaging. He told us about how he decided to make a documentary in Africa for his thesis for his final year. He went on his own with no money to a country he knew very little about and ended up making a documentary from his experiences that won 16 international fiilm awards! He lived in his car for a whole semester so that he could finish editing it! It was great to talk to someone about my passion of television and documentary making. It turned out many of the fears I had about documentary making were fears that he still had today after all his success. After the interview we had to make a pretty speedy exit because we didn't have long to get to Pixar. However, despite leaving early, we were foiled by our arch nemesis, the Parking Attendant!!!! (Insert dum dum duuuum here.) We lost one of our tickets after having just paid but he refused to give us another one unless we paida colossal $16! The struggle between good (us) and evil (Parking Attendant) went on for an epic 20 minutes when the ticket was found and we could escape his unaccomodating clutches. I shouted a few choice words as we left- he'd made us late for Pixar and I was not a happy bunny! Anyway anyway anyway, we DID arrive at Pixar just in the nick of time for our interview with Gary Rydstrom. It was amazing to meet such a talented and respected filmmaker. His main advice for us was to find a passion and then forget that we have it! The point being that if you think you want to do something, life will get in the way and you'll end up not being good at it. Interpret as you will. It was SO cool to be at Pixar although we didn't have enough time to see more than the main lobby. However, being in the building alone was enough for me. After an evening out on the town exploring more of the city, it's now Saturday morning and time to leave San Francisco and hit the road again. We've got a two day drive up to Seattle ahead of us and we can't wait to see the real America outside of the cities. Bye bye now! James