CV4 started out in San Jose California to honor the 30th Anniversary of Chuck E. Cheese. It was the place where it all started and we couldn't have held the celebration anywhere else. Our morning started out with a mini-roadtrip out to the location of the very 1st store on Winchester Blvd. That store no longer exists unfortunately and is now a parking lot / new building (we couldn't really tell for certain because that area has changed so drastically from 30 years ago). However that area now houses Santana Row, an upscale shopping plaza so that is where the festivities kicked off. Our CV group showed up to the plaza to meet up with Mr. Tom Rose (a head tech from the area) from San Jose and were pleasantly surprised to also see Chuck E. Cheese out as well. If getting to meet Chuck out in the public wasn't fun enough, he was soon joined by classic Chuck E. Cheese. Although this created continuity errors so grandiose that some of our CV members have fallen into, never be hear from again – it was quite a sight to see CEC from the past meeting CEC from today. It created quite a stir and many of the shoppers were surprised to learn that they were standing where the original Chuck E. Cheese once stood.

We all got some great group photos with the dual Chuck's and soon it was off again to the San Jose flagship store – for those that don't know, this store is three stories tall and was once home to the Chuck E. Cheese University that trained all GMs. The restaurant portion of the store is two stories and is very, very large. It was once a toy store before being converted to a CEC. The exterior looks like a giant castle, and along the back facing the highway stands a gigantic (no exaggeration) Chuck E. statue that was custom made just for this location. He has been repainted recently and now dons a purple derby and vest and no longer sits atop a wedge of cheese, but is very impressive nonetheless.

Inside our CV group got seated right in front of the stage, and the festivities kicked off. Everyone's "goodie bags" contained a handful of neat offerings including custom made Pizza Time Theatre derbies which we all got to wear. Our party for Chuck was tons of fun, as most of the group got up and performed right along side of him. Also on the table sat a CEC cake with candles that read "30" in honor of his age – a neat little perk that even those in charge were pleasantly surprised with (thanks Tom)! However, before we could eat the cake, a few of us had to do an impromptu cake "skit" in honor of one of the more memorable moments from last years CV3 – with any luck that skit will make the DVD.

Before we departed from San Jose, there was one more bonus that Tom was able to arrange for us – a tour of the upstairs floor of the old CEC University! For many I know this was the best part of visiting the San Jose store. Most of the restaurants interior had been remodeled, some as per request of corporate, so there wasn't much left that was of any historical significance. That stuff was upstairs which we all had the chance to drool over. Old showtapes, old waver flags, old games and signage…. you name it. There was also quite the impressive assortment of game and show parts I've ever seen in a store. Aside from the typical older signage, one of the neatest things that was still held upstairs was custom made stuff like the "Rodent Hall of Fame". This was a series of painted plywood cartoons that once hung on the wall. Along with Chuck E. were other famous mice such as Mighty Mouse, Mickey Mouse, and other characters. As you might have guessed, someone from Disney had a problem with it and it was immediately removed, but luckily it found a home upstairs instead of being destroyed. The artwork was very impressive, and with any luck one day it will be preserved in the home of someone who will take good care of it. ;)

Our day at San Jose was so fun and interesting that we ended up staying later than planned and put us behind schedule. Our long journey south to Anaheim took us on a detour, as Michael (Menutia) had connections in Monterey Bay so we decided to check it out. The CV traveling gang was treated to free Dipin' Dots and cookies and whatever we wanted, free of charge which was very, very awesome for them to hook us up with such a treat. While we ate, we got to see the Pacific ocean which many out-of-towners had never gotten to see before. Again we headed off toward our final destination of Anaheim.

We got there probably about 3 AM since we had altogether fallen about 7 hours behind. It was a VERY short night, as we were up and off again around 9:30 in the morning. Our first stop was to visit the Simi Valley store which still had the now-ancient Rocker stage. That was a neat sight to behold, especially since I had never seen one outside of in photos. Some of the other attendees were surprised to see that they still also had waver flags (that unfortunately no longer worked). It was a cool store and our stay was much too short – I think we had less than half an hour to basically jump out, storm the place with cameras and get as much footage as we could before getting back on the road to our next destination of uWink.

Many of us, myself included, had high hopes of meeting up with Nolan Bushnell at the uWink Bistro, as he had expressed interest in meeting up with our group. But unfortunately that fell short (which we didn't learn until we had arrived at the restaurant). That was pretty disappointing, but trying to look on the bright side, uWink is most likely somewhere we would have been including on our voyage anyway. The restaurant was neat – computerized ordering at every table, interactive games that tables could play alone or against other tables, and very good food. The prices were a little on the high end, but reasonable for the type of establishment and atmosphere that uWink provided. The tech part of it was unique, but not unique enough to maintain a steady interest. After several minutes browsing the assortment of games and features of the console, it really seemed to become quite mundane. Granted, this technology is probably in it's infancy and features are not fully implemented, but even for those of us who were actively engaged in all uWink had to offer because of our interest in Mr. Bushnell, the interest in the restaurant really kinda fell flat. But regardless of uWink's limitations and an absent Bushnell, we did pick up a few more CV guests which was really cool.

At this point we got off schedule even further. Our original plan was to venture out to Indio to check out Rock-afire Pizza. However factors at play forced a change in plans. We had received reports about the condition of the Rock-afire show, which sometimes isn't even turned on, many people expressed interest in going back and spending more time at Simi Valley, and several of us were feeling the effects of sleep deprivation and another 4 hours on the road was sounding less and less appealing. So the call was made to go back to Simi which is what we did. Got to see some more of the show, and got to play a few games and then we were off again. We decided to more back toward Anaheim on somewhat of a "Chuck E. Crawl" which seems to be a CV staple anymore. Our top priority was to check out the Bell store, which consistently is the top grossing store in all of CEC's US market. When we got there it was booming. It was quite large – not as big as San Jose but definitely bigger than most CEC stores. It had a few larger rides that I had never seen before in any store also. The show was still a 2-stage and was in pretty good working order. It was here that we had planned to have our big finale dinner since Rock-afire Pizza was off the agenda, but a few of us were dragging pretty hard by this point, and screaming kids wasn't what we wanted to spend the night surrounded by. We had a full day at Disney on the horizon and thought that a full night sleep sounded a little better than continuing on the Chuck E. crawl.

So we broke off and winded our way back toward Anaheim checking out the cities along the way (we got off the highways since our navigational unit seemed to be taking us in circles). Quite some rough neighborhoods I must say. We saw a cool store called "CEC mens and womans clothing" but we didn't turn around to get a photo because it was in Compton. A dinner at IHOP and that ended our night. The rest of the group however was burning the midnight oil, continuing on the CEC crawl. We'll now go to their journey already in progress.

The other half of the CV group left Bell after having dinner and then visited a few more stores on the way back to Anaheim. Apparently one stop was at the Fullerton store that was expected to be a 3-stage (now a Studio C) which lasted about 5 minutes. When the group was walking around filming and asking a few questions about the remodel, they were told to leave by the manager. Now since I wasn't there I can't say too much but from the vibe I got it was pretty uncalled for and unprofessional by the Fullerton staff. Some of this harassment was probably caught on tape so if that's the case it will make a great bonus feature on a DVD. Honestly I was a bit sick to hear that this happened to our CV group as this is the first time we've ever been received that way by a store. The next store however was Placentia where things went much better. Matt (the Franchize) actually got to perform as Chuck E. here which is really awesome.

From here CV officially came to an end and many people headed back home after a fun filled weekend in sunny California. Several of us stayed a few extra days to take in Disneyland resort which was a blast – another HUGE thanks to Menutia for again totally hooking us up. Being a Disney employee definitely has some perks let me tell you! We were treated to an excellent meal at the Blue Bayou Restaurant by Danny and his mom, got to do a character breakfast at Goofy's Kitchen, and got to check out both parks.

And there you have it! Another CheeseVention is in the books and if we missed you this year, hopefully we'll see you next time.

-VegaNova