Today was rainy and cold and it made me sleepy. I’d like to propose an employee nap time at the day job, but I’m pretty sure that’ll get tossed out the window. Still, I can dream, right?
I was feeling well enough to go to work today. Things weren’t too crazy, so I kept a handle on the to-do list. One of my friends, a field bee, knows of my geekiness and brought me a gift from a con she was recently at.
Admittedly, this reminds me that I really need to catch up on Doctor Who. Now that we have ChromeCast, I don’t think I have an excuse not to. I’m not ready to say goodbye to Matt Smith, so maybe that’s why I’m procrastinating. As long as I don’t see his regeneration, he’s still my Doctor, right?!
Remember that post where I talked about the Twitter chat that lit a blogging fire under my butt (last night)? What I failed to mention was that these chats often come with giveaways, and the giveaway for last night was the book Everything But the Posts by Becca Ludlum, who also took part in the chat.
I won! I was one of 5 winners, and I sent FitFluential my mailing address. Whenever I win something, I pretty much tell the whole world. I’ll be doing a review on the book as soon as I read it, so stay tuned.
It was Jon’s turn to feel under the weather, so it was an early night at home. We ended up watching Zack and Miri again, and I caught up on some internet things. It’ll be another early night and then…
I always call the Wednesday of Gen Con week Day 0, because there are still things going on, but the convention doesn’t technically start until Thursday. Day 0 is the day we use to pick up our badges, have our annual lunch at The Ram, and get our rest in before the walk-a-thon that the next few days brings. At least that’s how it’s been in the past. This year was a bit different in that we didn’t use it as our day of rest. Instead, we kicked the walk-a-thon off early and then hoped that it didn’t haunt us the rest of the weekend.
The night before we decided that if we got up earlier we’d try to find a couple of local geocaches. I was awake an hour before the alarm, and I woke Jon up too (poor guy). We grabbed breakfast, an event which showcased my first time ever using a waffle iron at a continental breakfast. It was kind of cool and tasted okay. Unfortunately, it fell short of protein, but it was also early and my stomach wasn’t up for a big meal.
Over the next hour, we found five geocaches. They were all park and grabs, but it was fun finding them! We were able to give our trackable a new home, and we found the tiniest cache yet on our adventures.
So tiny…only a small slip of paper fit in there.
Writing on the tiny paper in there was a challenge, but I did it!
After the fifth one, we decided to head to the convention center. One-way streets in downtown Indy make me nervous, but we finally found parking. The walk from the parking garage to the convention center seemed much shorter this year, probably due to the distinct lack of rest stops I had to take. We hung out and met up with Terry and Erica (our trip mates who gave me permission to use their names in the blog…the mystery is solved). We got in line a little before 11 for will call with the hope that it might open early. It did, but only by about 10 minutes. The line was fast though. I think we only waited for about 15 minutes from the time the line opened to the time we got our badges.
From there, we walked to The Ram for our annual lunch. We were seated right away, and service was super fast. As we were sitting down, Jon said, “Hey, turn around and look at the booth behind you.” I figured he was showing me a cool decoration or someone in costume. Turns out, Wil Wheaton was sitting in one of the booths behind us. I managed to keep the fan-girling to a minimum. The guy was eating lunch and I don’t want to be one of those people who hound and bother cool, well-known people in the wrong setting. So I just basked in the excitement of being near a celebrity and did nothing more than send a casual Tweet about it.
The food was delicious. Sticking with my goals of keeping it healthy this week, I got a side salad and a cup of fruit to go with my burger.
The vinaigrette on that salad was so good. I didn’t feel like I was forcing myself to eat the healthy stuff either. I was actually craving a salad and I always love fruit, so this wasn’t a hardship at all.
Jon and I got some down time while Terry and Erica were in the VIG orientation, so we people-watched and found a good 3G spot to check the internet on our phone. Once they were done, we headed toward their hotel room. The original plan at that point was to head to the Indianapolis Museum of Art. After talking about it though, we decided it would be a pain to pay parking and then pay again to come back to the area for some evening stuff. We talked about taking a cab, but by the time we got there, we would have only had a couple hours to walk through the museum.
Instead, we opted to stay in the area and walk to the Indiana State Museum which was close to their hotel. We dropped some stuff at their room and headed over. Jon and I got to make use of our Flint Hills Discovery Center membership perks. We talked about doing the Star Wars exhibit but decided against the 20 dollar per person cost. Instead, we walked around the regular exhibits and took a ton of pictures. I will note that it was about this time that I started losing steam. However, this was about 3 in the afternoon. That was a long period of sustained steam.
Erica got a game in her VIG swag bag, so we decided to go back to their hotel and play. We ended up sitting in the lounge area of the JW Marriott for a few hours. We met another con-goer who we invited to play. Since the game was only for four players, I sat out and just enjoyed the ambience of the area. The staff was super friendly, I got to people-watch and check the internet again, and later I had some really tasty coffee while sitting in a chair that was more like a comfy throne.
Jon and I eventually headed out to find some food and hit a MtG party at one of the local bars. We were going to check out some food trucks but ended up getting Steak and Shake. It was cheap, we didn’t have to wait long, and I love their food. Not so healthy this time…I had the fries and enjoyed every minute of them. Still managed to avoid soda, though I was craving a coke. I might have had one too, but I didn’t feel like dealing with the side effects.
We didn’t stay at the bar party long. We were both tired and bars aren’t really my thing. I did have a little bit of social anxiety, but I think it was due to the claustrophobia. There were a lot of people, and at one point, I didn’t have a way out. However, we both got hand drawn tokens from Eric Klug.
From there, it was back to the parking garage and back to the hotel room.
So much walking, but so much fun, and that was all before the convention even started…a successful kick-off.
Saturday was free comic book day, so J. Felbs and I each loaded up. He’s read some of his, I haven’t read any of mine, but I will…just trying to get through this week and our impending move. Then I can kick my feet up and enjoy. Did anyone else get their comic geek on this past weekend?
Today was the day J. Felbs and I got our nerd on and went to Planet Comicon in Overland Park, KS.
We got there early and found good parking and didn’t have to wait in line long at all, which was partially due to pre-ordering our tickets. We spent some early morning time just chilling near the entrance where we were able to get some pictures of Star Wars cosplayers and check out some of the other costumes coming in. I’ll be honest, I didn’t get a whole lot of pictures (admittedly, I was getting in some knitting-in-public time on the Trekkie hat). I did get this one of a couple younger cosplayers:
Then there was this guy, aptly named My Little Stormtrooper:
We sat in the atrium of the convention center for a bit, and at first it was relatively quiet. Then we were invaded.
We chilled for awhile longer and waited for the line into the exhibitor’s hall to go down. I’m not one of those people who need to be the first in the door, so I was more than happy to just wait until we could walk right in. We got in there before things got really nuts, which was nice. I picked up a discounted Dark Tower graphic novel right off the bat (couldn’t resist) then browsed the artists that were there.
One of the big highlights of my day was getting to meet Randy Milholland, the artist and creator of Something Positive, one of the webcomics I enjoy. I bought a print and a ChooChoo Bear plushie, and Mr. M was nice enough to do three quick sketches for us, one for each of us of our favorite character and a third that he offered to do for a friend who couldn’t make it.
We also met the creator of Chew and got a signed print from him and the creator of The Oblongs who signed and did a sketch of Milo in the book I bought. We picked up some other things that looked interesting too, so look for some future posts once I get acquainted with some new graphic novels.
We decided not to get autographs or pictures with the celebrity guests, partially because of budgeting and partially because of lines, but we did get to see a couple people from The Guild and Edward James Olmos from afar (EJO looked very stoic, I noted). We’d talked about staying for some panels but ended up leaving a little before 1 to find some lunch, cruise around town, and eventually come back to our hotel room.
The trip was definitely worth it. I had a blast at the con and we got some great prints I can’t wait to hang on the wall in our new apartment. I’d also like to note that I was able to walk the con for a full hour straight before sitting down, then another 45 minutes to an hour after we took a load of goodies to the car. I’m definitely feeling good and if this was practice for GenCon, I’m so ready.
I tend to be kind of a random person, but there’s actually a backstory to this post. Speak Out With Your Geek Out is a week long showing of pride for all the geeks, nerds, gamers, etc. out there. It was in response to an article that put down the premise of geekery and one geek in particular, but it’s also a shout out from geeks all over the world to express why we’re proud to be part of this group.
I’ve been a geek all my life. I started reading at an early age and have a compulsion to have 5 or 6 books with me if I’m going on a trip to make sure I don’t run out of reading material (the e-reader has been the best thing ever since I no longer have to carry actual books with me). I also started writing when I was young, and throughout grade school I was the “smart girl.”
I took a little time away from my geeky roots during high school and college. Even though I still read and wrote, I gave up good grades for a social life. Was it the right thing to do? Maybe, maybe not. That’s probably a topic for another time. After that phase, I settled down and got into knitting. Knitting itself might not be considered nerdy, but I’ve known quite a few people who’ve lumped it together with general geekery. I also started online role playing, where I met my husband. He was the one that brought me into full blown nerdism.
Besides the above mentioned activities, over the past few years I’ve upped my geek cred in the following ways:
1. Started playing Dungeons and Dragons and eventually ran my own game. This led to collecting dice, getting excited over mini figs, and getting emotional over a Bag of Holding from ThinkGeek.com.
2. Played other tabletop RPGs, like Scion, Gamma World, and some other systems that I dabbled in.
3. Got back into videogames after a long hiatus after the days of the original Tetris and Super Mario Bros. My current favorites are anything from the horror genre, the Fable games, and Lego games. I’m not a first person shooter type of person, but if I can explore and break stuff, I’m diggin’ it.
5. Started playing a bit of Magic: The Gathering with Felberoni. I usually lose, and I’m not ready to join up with any drafts, but it’s fun when we play at home.
7. Whenever I watch or listen to the soundtrack to Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog, I totally sing along.
Some would argue that enjoying some of these things wouldn’t necessarily make one a “geek,” but I think the combination is enough to qualify. Some might even make it sound like a bad thing, but I embrace my geekiness with pride. It’s fun! I’ve met some great people through these interests and I’ve had a lot of good experiences. I see no shame in waving the geek flag proudly.
Being a geek isn’t for everyone, but if I’m going to subscribe to a label, I’ll proudly wear this one.
The Romance Factor 