Amezri's other journal space

DragonCon 2012: August 30 - September 3, 2012

A lot of this switches tenses, but I'm too lazy to rewrite everything. This year I tried to keep track of things with the iPod using Nebulous, which was much easier than using a notebook. Except I sort of miss the physical notes. Oh well.

Not noted in my trip journal are the handful of times I kept passing Spat and James Hsiao in the hallway (though I was able to chat with James a little). Also saw Will & Kristin Sirota a few times. I never did find Gareth, but I saw a bunch of Xenos that were not Abe.


Thursday, August 30

Woke up at 3 am and, having slept only three hours, that kind of sucked. Showered, got dressed, and even had time to eat breakfast. Mom drove me to the airport and I got checked in without too much hassle. Flight was on time and I actually arrived in BWI early. Freezing though...why the heck is the airport so cold?! Used the free wifi while waiting for my connecting flight. I was sort of worried about the storm but it was all good and my flight was on time. Arrived in ATL at 11:45am and met with athenaktt at baggage claim.

Got on the train to Peachtree and walked on the street to the Marriott - it was kind of weird not being able to just walk into the Peachtree Center. When I checked in, the lady at the desk asked if athenaktt was arysani... I said no, which was the wrong answer. She said there was a charge for 3 people and added $10 per night to my room. Ergh. Frak you Marriott. Whatever. At least we got two doubles! That was kind of up in the air for a bit.

( registration, meeting up with people, first day shenanigans )




Friday, August 31

Oh man what a day! Got up in the morning about 9:30am. Showered and dressed in my Captain America tunic dress. arysani, ainulindale, athenaktt and I went to the food court. I got pancakes from Jack's... and saw John Barrowman & his boyfriend, Scott there. No one bothered them, which was cool. Anyway, that was probably the closest I will get to Barrowman all weekend. Hahah.

Dean and Carlos met up with us there - Dean was dressed as Steve Austin the Six Million Dollar Man. Carlos was in an Atlantis uniform. Dean ran off a few minutes later to do a group costume thing, though. I think we ended up leaving the food court before Carlos? I don't remember.

After food, we went back to the room and when the girls decided to get dressed in costumes. I sort of hemmed and hawed, but I decided put on my arc reactor rig with my Threadless Decay shirt. It was actually pretty fun to wear and ended up getting some attention. Unfortunately I don't have photos of this.

( walk of fame, shopping, hawkeye costume )




Saturday, September 1

Woke up at 8am and sort of slowly got dressed for going to the parade. We didn't leave until after 9am. Oops. ainulindale and I went ahead to find a place to stand and basically ended up at Woodruff Park. arysani & athenaktt met up with us a little before the parade started. It was pretty cool but felt like some of the groups were sort of small this year.

After the parade we went to Peachtree and got lunch from Jack's and went to the Marriott Atrium to eat while waiting for the Vampire Diaries line. I wanted to get some stuff from the room before the line started and when I got up, I realized I had sat in some sticky crap stuck to my pants. Ugh. So while back in the room, I changed my clothes and grabbed my stuff before getting an elevator back down to meet with arysani.

( tvd panel, sga panel, walk of fame )




Sunday, September 2

Woke up at 9am. Showered. Got all geared up in Hawkeye, which took about an hour for some reason. Went to the food court and grabbed some food from Cafe Momo. While looking at the buffet, a guy saw me and got excited that I was in a Hawkeye costume and said he wanted to take a photo but didn't want to bother me as I was trying to do something normal. I didn't have any food yet and the place was sort of empty so I was going to tell him it was okay, but he said maybe he'd get a picture of me later and moved along. I never did see him again.

Decided to hit the Walk of Fame. Said hello to Eddie finally. He picked a Module postcard and asked if I was going to NYCC. I said I wasn't because I was going to see Zoe. He asked about her music then suggested some artists for me to check out. As I was leaving, he said to stop by and see him again.

Nothing else to do, I headed to the dealers room in the pit. Stopped and said hello to Ken. I was sorry I missed his Spike costume - his first con costume! He said it was well-received, though, so that's good. Got myself a B-Mo figure! On the way out, I ran into athenaktt & ainulindale.

( more shopping, eat all the shawarma, sopio! )




Monday, September 3

arysani and ainulindale left at 8am. Booo! Wish we got to hang out longer. athenaktt and I got up about 9am and started getting ready to go. By 10am, we were ready to roll out, but it took half an hour to get an elevators down. An employee took pity on us and let us use the service elevator. Checked out and put our luggage in storage so we could walk around some more.

Went to the dealer's room and found that BPAL was there. Ahhh! Bought two bottles! Hee. I wanted to smell all the things! They'll be at NYCC which I'm not going to. Boo. athenaktt had to go once we were done shopping there, so I said goodbye.

( more shopping, getting home )

Additional links and media:

+ all my photos are here
+ daily tweets: day 1, day 2, day 3, day 4, day 5a, day 5b
+ Richard Dean Anderson
+ John Barrowman & Kai Owen on Friday (5 parts)
+ Saturday Vampire Diaries Panel (not awesome quality) part 1, part 2, part 3
+ Saturday Vampire Diaries panel (better quality) - part 1, part 2
+ John Barrowman & Scott Gill Saturday Panel (5 parts)


And that is the end of DragonCon 2012! I believe people are already planning for next year as some hotels opened reservations already. I bought my pass, so I've got that at least!

New England Fan Experience: Boston, MA: Nov 13-15, 2009.

Seriously? Weirdest con EVAR. Weird people. Weird venue. Just. Weird.

Friday, Nov 13

Got up at 7am and got the rest of my stuff together for con. grabbed cereal for breakfast and headed to Maria's. We left a little after 9.

It was a pretty uneventful drive. Until we got to Boston. We got a little lost at the exits and killed 20 minutes getting to the Boston Common lot. Saw some kids in Boston Common playing Quidditch. Headed to a food court to get some food. Met up with Julian and Karyn. Liz was still a ways off. After a bit of a wander through Chinatown (which is small and filled with food places & not much else), we grabbed our luggage out of the car and dragged it to the hotel. Had some more time to kill so we headed to the Rock Bottom brewery so they could get a drink.

( friday arrival, corin, gareth )

Saturday, Nov 14

Woke up at 7am but didn't really get up and moving until 8am. Once everyone was up, we went to the food court in City Place for Dunkin. I got a bagel and a pumpkin donut. Yum!

Once back in the room, Maria and I got in to Evil Alice & Evil Red Riding Hood costumes. Headed down with Karyn to the Corin Nemec Q&A. He was a little late, but once started, he was funny and charming and most of the questions were good. He was telling us that SS Doomtrooper was originally called the Citadel and the story was great and the concept drawings were awesome...then the movie got finished. Someone asked why he did Mansquito and he sort of hung his head. He did say he wanted to do it because it was like the old scifi monster cult films. There was one genius who asked who the main villain of Stargate:Universe would be, as if Corin had some inside information about a show that's two removed from the series he was in.

( con wandering )



Sunday, Nov 15

Was freeeezing last night. Apparently someone turned the AC on and never turned it off. Probably the boys when they were using the room as a manhunt base. Got up and showered and went to get breakfast at Dunkin's with Maria.

Finished packing after we got back and woke everyone up. Once everyone was awake, they headed for breakfast and Maria and I checked our bags and then wandered into the dealer's room. Chatted with Rachael about True Blood and LKH/Anita Blake, the latest book is apparently better? Might give it a glance.

( time to run away? )



Another con weekend comes to an end. Overall, I think I had a good time.

Additional media:
all photos here
Twitter posts: friday | saturday | sunday

I had a really awesome time at DragonCon this year even though I didn't go to any of the panels I wanted or see any actors I was hoping to. Instead, I hung out with some really awesome friends I only see a few times a year and got to know some people I only see once a year at DCon a bit better. It was also great to make some new friends. Seriously, right now I am having difficulty letting go. Is it time for the next DragonCon yet?

DragonCon 2009: Sept 3-7, 2009

This year, I once again stayed in one of a block of rooms Joel reserved. We were in the Marriott, which is the new Hyatt? Everything was happening there and it was pretty convenient to just roll out and head to panels or photo ops or what have you. Really great.

Thursday, September 3

Got up at 7:30a and ended up poking around the internet for awhile; emails and such. Showered and got dressed before getting the last of my stuff packed. Still feel like I'm missing something. Nevertheless, all set to go at about 9:30a so I figured I had time for breakfast... except there wasn't anything. Meh.

( travel, registration, and day 1 bar shenanigans )

Friday, September 4

Didn't sleep really well. Got up at 8am and showered and dressed in chick SGA costume. Went to the fan table and saw Gareth on the way. Joked that I was following him because we kept running into each other. Dan was still setting up the table. Jason and I went to buy breakfast for the people at the table. Helped with the rest of table setup - they were hanging a Stargate backdrop for people to take photos with.

( SG panels, Julie Benz, Lani Tupu, Zombie prom, more bar shenanigans )

Saturday, September 5

Woke up at 7:45 am and got ready for the parade. Got breakfast and snagged husher315 something since he texted me on the way. It's entirely possible I got to the SFH table and threw his breakfast at him. I was tired and hungry and the fruit cup I got was possibly the smallest I'd ever seen.

Our group gathered at SFH table before heading out. We had several SG-1 people, a few Atlantis people, and a group with the new Stargate: Universe uniforms. Liz was wearing her new Hak'tyl costume, which looked awesome. I was wearing my SG-2 chick variant. Eventually, we made our way to parade start. It threatened to rain, but thankfully it didn't. The BSG group was definitely larger this year! Parade was fun and the weather was great. Spotted speakerwiggin in the crowd toward the end.

( parade, Ben Browder, Michael Trucco, Charlaine Harris, TCF party fail )

Sunday, September 6

Got up at ungodly hour and got dressed in SGA gear. Grabbed some breakfast at the cafe in the Hyatt. Went down to the Flanigan photo op with husher315. It went really quickly and Joe was pretty nice. While in line waiting, Paul walked by and his handler pointed me out again and Paul stopped to say hello. :D [Also, I really need to stop doing these photo ops because I always look like a goon.]

( flanigan, scifihero dinner, late night walking )

Monday, September 7

Weird day. Up at 10am. Dressed. Got food. Talked to Jeffrey, who just joined TCF. I told him to check out scifiHero.net. Met up with Jason who had to check out of his room. He needed to drop off his armor tub in my room for a while before he moved it to Dan's room. We got the rest of his stuff to Dan's room at the Hyatt before going to the food court so Jason could get lunch. I went to walk of fame for awhile. No one was there really, but bought art from Lani Tupu who was just about to leave. Had a quick chat with him and told him that I've been wanting one of his pieces for a long time.

( dealer's room, con winding down :( )

Tuesday, September 8

Awake after 8 hours of sleep. That was definitely the longest sleep I had the whole weekend, but I felt wiped. Got dressed and had breakfast at the Corner Bakery with the rest of the St. Pete crew, Carlos, and Ben. So tasty! Why was I not having breakfast here every morning? Went back to the hotel to finish packing and check my bag at the desk. Said goodbye to the gang driving back to Florida before dashing over to the Hyatt to say goodbye to Dan and Jason. Wandered around the Marriott and sat in the Pulse Loft for a while with Ben.

( the LONG journey home )


Additional links and media:

+ all my DragonCon photos are here
+ daily tweets (with pics): thurs, fri, sat, sun, mon, tues
+ Phil's photos
+ Blackhawk's photos: parade, con
+ Tim Fritz's photos
+ Michael Hogan attacking a cake at the SFH dinner
+ Abe the Alien at a Thriller dance practice
+ Paul McGillion panel on Friday
+ DragonCon parade: part 1, part 2, part 3 (ScifiHero is at 2:33 in Part 3)
+ Shatner & Nimoy panel (7 parts)
+ Stargate SG-1/Atlantis Panel (7 parts)
+ Stargate Multiverse Panel (7 parts)
+ crapload of other youtube vids

And that concludes my awesome DragonCon trip for this year. I can't wait til next year when, hopefully, smashedrecords will be coming with me as I know she will have an awesome time.