lazypadawan (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lazypadawan) wrote2010-08-21 03:22 pm
lazypadawan) wrote2010-08-21 03:22 pm
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The lazypadawan Celebration V Report Part Four
Sunday August 15
Having knocked the major stuff out of the way by now, Sunday was Pure Gravy Day. My plans consisted of finishing with the booths in the exhibit hall, deciding on last minute purchases, and taking pictures. Since I've seen Carrie Fisher twice already, I felt no need to see her planned chat session at 11.
We did our usual routine even though we went to bed pretty late. We got back to the hotel room from Disney on Saturday night and felt icky enough from the heat and humidity to take showers before beddybye. So after four or five hours of sleep, we were back up at 5:15 a.m. and went off to Denny's as per usual.
People must have slept in or were heading home already because we were the only people waiting for the bus and it was less than half-full once it showed up. At the convention center, we were very close to the front of the line. The coffee cart was back and eventually, Jay was back on his segue. It was a bittersweet day, as is per usual on the last day of any Celebration. Everyone knew It Was All Over, and unless you were planning an extended vacation after the con, it was like the Soul II Soul song, "Back to life, back to reality." Boo!
About an hour and a half before the opened doors, a convention volunteer went down the line announcing that Fisher's appearance had been cancelled because she needed to take an early flight out of town but they were going to try to see if she could at least sign autographs for a couple of hours. I have no idea if she did or not. But that created some murmurs in the line. I'll get to the whole rumor mill about Fisher's sudden cancellation and early departure in the separate, friends-locked Celebration Gossip Post.
Once we were in at 10, Debbie, Marie, and I went the rounds to the exclusives tables: Hallmark for pins, Cartamundi for the fourth and final exclusive card, etc.. Topps thankfully had plenty of Star Wars Galaxy 6 preview cards, three different kinds, available. At Celebration IV, you had to find the right employee and pester him for one. Dark Horse had posters, preview comics, and a Boba Fett/Jango Fett mask (picked up on Saturday). I managed to get a couple of the ROTS vintage style cardbacks from Hasbro, which I forgot was handing those things out. I got Commander Cody and Anakin. From there I foraged on my own through the various booths, on the hunt for obscure treasure. Some booths were already offering discounts, while others had already packed up! I recall overhearing from one dealer that it cost $5000 to set up a medium-sized booth. Wow! A few dealers had the Jaina Solo action figure but they were going for $20-25 apiece. Ridiculous. Never even saw the Jacen one.
I forgot to mention some purchases I'd made on Friday! I went by the Starbase Atlanta booth, which was at every con I ever attended on the East Coast when I lived there. I was amazed to see they had Celebration IV pins. Those were underordered and sold out very quickly, so I never got one. But here they were, three years later for 10 bucks. So I bought one. And I got a cute Padme patch. Not enough Padme stuff out there.
Okay, back to the program. I swung by the Intergalactic Trading Company's booth, where I picked up a small vintage TESB tin in excellent condition, a (deflated) beach ball from 2008 I'd never seen before, and, amazingly, John Alvin's poster commemorating the 10th anniversary of SW. I'd foolishly passed on it as a college student, then saw it go for over $100 in the 1990s. Now, here it was for only $25. Sold!
I also took some time to watch one session of the Jedi Training Academy show. This is the same show they have at both Disney parks, where two Jedi attempt to train a mess of unruly younglings pulled from the audience. Kids loved it! A swarm of them and their parents showed up as soon as it was time to start the first show of the morning. A young lady I'll call Goth Mom showed up with her two boys, both them dressed in cute homemade Potato Head costumes. The younger one was like 2-3 years old and he was the Artoo Potatoo while his older brother was Darth Tater. Both boys got picked for the show and at first, the little guy starting crying. But as soon as he got a lightsaber, the tears dried. As the kids went through the training routines, Goth Mom was standing near the stage capturing it all on her cell phone video camera, beaming with pride as though her kids were graduating summa cum laude from Harvard. Darth Vader and a pair of stormtroopers showed up to take on the youngling trainees. Yoda's voice, apparently on speakerphone from Dagobah where's hiding, gave a pep talk to the kids. They all fought Vader one by one as the Dark Lord issued threats and invitations to join the Dark Side. Vader was pwned by the pint-sized warriors, so he skulked away in humiliation. One of the grownup Jedi used a mind trick to get rid of the stormtroopers. Ha ha.
For lunch, I considered going to the Pointe, a shopping center/restaurant place just down the road from the convention center. On the bus it looked like a short walk but on foot, it was way too far. Especially in that awful heat. So I went back inside the convention center and went for a Cuban-style sandwich, otherwise known as a media noche. Basically, it's Cuban bread, thin slices of marinated pork, slices of ham, Swiss cheese, mustard, and pickles that is grilled like a panini until the cheese kinda melts. It's virtually impossible to find a 100% authentic one outside of Little Havana or any other Cuban neighborhood but these guys tried the best they could. They didn't have the Cuban bread and went with a baguette-type bread instead and the pork wasn't quiiiite as good, but I thought it was a pretty solid attempt. I saw the same place had a lot of other Cuban goodies like guava and cream cheese pastries. But the sandwich was plenty.
After lunch, I spent some time taking pictures, including of the Artoo-decorated cement posts outside the convention center and a completed Clone Wars chalk drawing in the exhibit hall. The chalk artist told someone that he couldn't draw in Savage Oppress--Darth Maul's brother--until he was revealed at the Clone Wars Season Three panel on Saturday. He had to wait for someone to call him and let him know when to start drawing.
I also went by Tom Hodges's booth, first to buy the trade paperback collection of the Clone Wars webcomic and then to get his freebie poster giveaway at three. While I was parked in line, I saw Nathan Hamill drop by the booth. There was a small flash mob that showed up to sing the Ewok song for an exclusive poster after Hodges put the word out on his Twitter account. (Debbie was a little miffed about that, since she doesn't have a smart phone or a Twitter account.) When I got to speak to Hodges, I said I really enjoyed the prequels panel and he said, "Thanks, we have to stick together!"
There was a fruitless search for those plastic pocket pages for widevision trading cards. Nobody had them, even though I found one guy selling the recent TESB 3D card set for $18. So now I have two widevision card sets and no pages for them. Sigh. Another guy was selling all kinds of sketch cards. I saw a beautiful one of Anakin handing Padmé his lightsaber, from that Clone Wars episode "Hostage Crisis." When I asked about it, I was told those were really expensive, like hundreds of dollars expensive because most of the cards were artists' proofs.
It was a lot cheaper to swing by Katie Cook's booth in the dreadful art show area. It had cleared out by now and you didn't have to pay the Acme guys for the $5 sketches, so I was game. Cook drew for me in about a minute a little sketch of Anakin and Padmé riding a shaak with the caption "Naboo Love" and a little heart floating above them.
I went by the DCSWCC where Debbie was working the booth. She asked me to swing by the Scion booth and get some of the CV posters they were giving away. Since there were three people at the table, I couldn't grab a big stack, just a little one. I brought them back to Debbie, who then asked if I could watch the booth at four if the club couldn't find anyone to take it over once her shift was over. I said, "Sure" and then went off to buy these bouncy egg thingies with Clone Wars art on them. They were on sale...six for $10. I have no idea where I'll put them or store them but that's usually the case with Star Wars collectors, no?
During the con, Debbie and Marie joked that since I live fairly close to the water I should buy a boat and use that to store my collectibles. Instead of Rancho Obi-Wan, I'll have the S.S. Skywalker or something.
I returned to the booth around 3:30 and Debbie told me they found someone to man the booth at 4, so I was off the hook. Which was a good thing, because at this point I was exhausted. I decided my Celebration was over and I took the bus back to the hotel. Since I was the first person back, I took advantage of the quiet to take an hour-long nap. Afterwards, I started packing.
When Debbie and Marie returned around five, they started packing and sorting through their things too. We took a break at six to head to the Olive Garden for dinner. (Whenever Marie or other friends would come to town to visit, Debbie and I would usually end up at the Olive Garden.) While we were waiting, I ran into a guy who recognized me from the Magic of Myth museum exhibit at the Smithsonian back in '97-'99. Amazing! We had a really chatty waiter and very er, relaxed service. I had cappellini pomodoro and minestrone soup along with a giant glass of iced tea. It was good, but I never realized how salty everything is! I must have gotten up three times that night for nocturnal potty breaks. For dessert, we split one of those small dessert shots of white chocolate strawberry cheesecake.
Back at the hotel, I finished packing as much as I could before conking out around 10.
Monday August 16
My flight was at 9 a.m. and Debbie and Marie were kind enough to drive me to the airport. Would it be an easy morning? No, of course not! We got up at the same time and once we were dressed, headed over to Denny's for my last trip there. Unfortunately, their morning cook and a couple of other people were late, so they were short-handed. Uh oh. Usually they were really fast but even though I only ordered an English muffin, Marie only ordered a bagel, Debbie got her usual, and the only extra thing we ordered was these "pancake pups" (sort of like doughnut holes), it took a while. I started looking at my watch nervously. I wanted to be at the airport at 7, or at least get on the road by 7, but it was 6:40 and our food hadn't been brought out yet. Debbie tried to reassure me that it'll be fine, most people have flown out already, etc. but she doesn't fly all of that often and I know there are many pitfalls that can make the difference between getting on a flight and missing it.
We were on our way shortly past 7 and unfortunately, Debbie couldn't find her glasses, so she had to wing it. She could see well enough to drive, though, which is good! We got to the airport without much traffic but we were in for a shocker when we saw that Terminal B was closed (I found out later it was because of a broken water main), and all of the traffic was being herded into Terminal A, where I had to catch my flight. Aaaagh! We crept and crawled through the traffic. Again, I looked at my watch nervously. Who knows how long it will take to check my suitcase and get my boarding passes, or to get through Thousands Standing Around's security checkpoint? We decided that I would get dropped off at the first curb, which so happened to be right next to Continental. Whew! I literally ran while pushing my suitcase and carryon.
Inside the terminal, there were only six people in line ahead of me, but the process was still too slow for my liking. Finally I was all checked in by ten 'til eight. I couldn't upgrade to first class because my flight out of Orlando was overbooked and the leg to San Diego was almost $200. No thanks.
Security was a cluster@$#%. Seriously. It was a big mob of people moving oh so slowly. They kept running out of those bins used to put bags and shoes through the x-ray machine and they wouldn't let anyone through until more were placed out. This had to have been managed by the same people who put on that art show at the convention. I stared at a clock on a money exchange booth nervously, since my watch was now inside my purse. Boarding was supposed to start at 8:15 and it was now just after 8.
I finally got through security with 5 minutes to spare before boarding. I sprinted down toward what was supposed to be my gate only to see I had to take a freakin' tram to get there! D'OH! The tram showed up about a minute later and I got to my gate right at 8:15.
But I then noticed the flight was delayed until 9:10 a.m.. There was a huge standby list and Continental, in its infinite wisdom, decided to change to a smaller 757 overnight, which is why the flight was overbooked. Official Pix must have been running things that day. To make matters worse, TSA decided to do random checks on carry-on bags right at the gate. Huh?
Fortunately they didn't have to boot anyone off involuntarily and despite the delays, I still had plenty of time in Houston. There I got a hamburger, a bottle of water, and a magazine to pass the time.
The flight to San Diego included the adventuresome bonus of dodging around desert thunderstorm clouds. Forgot it was "monsoon season" in the Southwest. I watched Dr. Phil, Pawn Stars, and American Pickers to pass the flight. But I made it to San Diego in one piece and got my suitcase. It was finally sunny and warm here. After I got home, I called Debbie and let her know I made it safely.
Believe it or not, my report isn't done! Stay tuned for the epilogue! And I still haven't loaded pictures...
Having knocked the major stuff out of the way by now, Sunday was Pure Gravy Day. My plans consisted of finishing with the booths in the exhibit hall, deciding on last minute purchases, and taking pictures. Since I've seen Carrie Fisher twice already, I felt no need to see her planned chat session at 11.
We did our usual routine even though we went to bed pretty late. We got back to the hotel room from Disney on Saturday night and felt icky enough from the heat and humidity to take showers before beddybye. So after four or five hours of sleep, we were back up at 5:15 a.m. and went off to Denny's as per usual.
People must have slept in or were heading home already because we were the only people waiting for the bus and it was less than half-full once it showed up. At the convention center, we were very close to the front of the line. The coffee cart was back and eventually, Jay was back on his segue. It was a bittersweet day, as is per usual on the last day of any Celebration. Everyone knew It Was All Over, and unless you were planning an extended vacation after the con, it was like the Soul II Soul song, "Back to life, back to reality." Boo!
About an hour and a half before the opened doors, a convention volunteer went down the line announcing that Fisher's appearance had been cancelled because she needed to take an early flight out of town but they were going to try to see if she could at least sign autographs for a couple of hours. I have no idea if she did or not. But that created some murmurs in the line. I'll get to the whole rumor mill about Fisher's sudden cancellation and early departure in the separate, friends-locked Celebration Gossip Post.
Once we were in at 10, Debbie, Marie, and I went the rounds to the exclusives tables: Hallmark for pins, Cartamundi for the fourth and final exclusive card, etc.. Topps thankfully had plenty of Star Wars Galaxy 6 preview cards, three different kinds, available. At Celebration IV, you had to find the right employee and pester him for one. Dark Horse had posters, preview comics, and a Boba Fett/Jango Fett mask (picked up on Saturday). I managed to get a couple of the ROTS vintage style cardbacks from Hasbro, which I forgot was handing those things out. I got Commander Cody and Anakin. From there I foraged on my own through the various booths, on the hunt for obscure treasure. Some booths were already offering discounts, while others had already packed up! I recall overhearing from one dealer that it cost $5000 to set up a medium-sized booth. Wow! A few dealers had the Jaina Solo action figure but they were going for $20-25 apiece. Ridiculous. Never even saw the Jacen one.
I forgot to mention some purchases I'd made on Friday! I went by the Starbase Atlanta booth, which was at every con I ever attended on the East Coast when I lived there. I was amazed to see they had Celebration IV pins. Those were underordered and sold out very quickly, so I never got one. But here they were, three years later for 10 bucks. So I bought one. And I got a cute Padme patch. Not enough Padme stuff out there.
Okay, back to the program. I swung by the Intergalactic Trading Company's booth, where I picked up a small vintage TESB tin in excellent condition, a (deflated) beach ball from 2008 I'd never seen before, and, amazingly, John Alvin's poster commemorating the 10th anniversary of SW. I'd foolishly passed on it as a college student, then saw it go for over $100 in the 1990s. Now, here it was for only $25. Sold!
I also took some time to watch one session of the Jedi Training Academy show. This is the same show they have at both Disney parks, where two Jedi attempt to train a mess of unruly younglings pulled from the audience. Kids loved it! A swarm of them and their parents showed up as soon as it was time to start the first show of the morning. A young lady I'll call Goth Mom showed up with her two boys, both them dressed in cute homemade Potato Head costumes. The younger one was like 2-3 years old and he was the Artoo Potatoo while his older brother was Darth Tater. Both boys got picked for the show and at first, the little guy starting crying. But as soon as he got a lightsaber, the tears dried. As the kids went through the training routines, Goth Mom was standing near the stage capturing it all on her cell phone video camera, beaming with pride as though her kids were graduating summa cum laude from Harvard. Darth Vader and a pair of stormtroopers showed up to take on the youngling trainees. Yoda's voice, apparently on speakerphone from Dagobah where's hiding, gave a pep talk to the kids. They all fought Vader one by one as the Dark Lord issued threats and invitations to join the Dark Side. Vader was pwned by the pint-sized warriors, so he skulked away in humiliation. One of the grownup Jedi used a mind trick to get rid of the stormtroopers. Ha ha.
For lunch, I considered going to the Pointe, a shopping center/restaurant place just down the road from the convention center. On the bus it looked like a short walk but on foot, it was way too far. Especially in that awful heat. So I went back inside the convention center and went for a Cuban-style sandwich, otherwise known as a media noche. Basically, it's Cuban bread, thin slices of marinated pork, slices of ham, Swiss cheese, mustard, and pickles that is grilled like a panini until the cheese kinda melts. It's virtually impossible to find a 100% authentic one outside of Little Havana or any other Cuban neighborhood but these guys tried the best they could. They didn't have the Cuban bread and went with a baguette-type bread instead and the pork wasn't quiiiite as good, but I thought it was a pretty solid attempt. I saw the same place had a lot of other Cuban goodies like guava and cream cheese pastries. But the sandwich was plenty.
After lunch, I spent some time taking pictures, including of the Artoo-decorated cement posts outside the convention center and a completed Clone Wars chalk drawing in the exhibit hall. The chalk artist told someone that he couldn't draw in Savage Oppress--Darth Maul's brother--until he was revealed at the Clone Wars Season Three panel on Saturday. He had to wait for someone to call him and let him know when to start drawing.
I also went by Tom Hodges's booth, first to buy the trade paperback collection of the Clone Wars webcomic and then to get his freebie poster giveaway at three. While I was parked in line, I saw Nathan Hamill drop by the booth. There was a small flash mob that showed up to sing the Ewok song for an exclusive poster after Hodges put the word out on his Twitter account. (Debbie was a little miffed about that, since she doesn't have a smart phone or a Twitter account.) When I got to speak to Hodges, I said I really enjoyed the prequels panel and he said, "Thanks, we have to stick together!"
There was a fruitless search for those plastic pocket pages for widevision trading cards. Nobody had them, even though I found one guy selling the recent TESB 3D card set for $18. So now I have two widevision card sets and no pages for them. Sigh. Another guy was selling all kinds of sketch cards. I saw a beautiful one of Anakin handing Padmé his lightsaber, from that Clone Wars episode "Hostage Crisis." When I asked about it, I was told those were really expensive, like hundreds of dollars expensive because most of the cards were artists' proofs.
It was a lot cheaper to swing by Katie Cook's booth in the dreadful art show area. It had cleared out by now and you didn't have to pay the Acme guys for the $5 sketches, so I was game. Cook drew for me in about a minute a little sketch of Anakin and Padmé riding a shaak with the caption "Naboo Love" and a little heart floating above them.
I went by the DCSWCC where Debbie was working the booth. She asked me to swing by the Scion booth and get some of the CV posters they were giving away. Since there were three people at the table, I couldn't grab a big stack, just a little one. I brought them back to Debbie, who then asked if I could watch the booth at four if the club couldn't find anyone to take it over once her shift was over. I said, "Sure" and then went off to buy these bouncy egg thingies with Clone Wars art on them. They were on sale...six for $10. I have no idea where I'll put them or store them but that's usually the case with Star Wars collectors, no?
During the con, Debbie and Marie joked that since I live fairly close to the water I should buy a boat and use that to store my collectibles. Instead of Rancho Obi-Wan, I'll have the S.S. Skywalker or something.
I returned to the booth around 3:30 and Debbie told me they found someone to man the booth at 4, so I was off the hook. Which was a good thing, because at this point I was exhausted. I decided my Celebration was over and I took the bus back to the hotel. Since I was the first person back, I took advantage of the quiet to take an hour-long nap. Afterwards, I started packing.
When Debbie and Marie returned around five, they started packing and sorting through their things too. We took a break at six to head to the Olive Garden for dinner. (Whenever Marie or other friends would come to town to visit, Debbie and I would usually end up at the Olive Garden.) While we were waiting, I ran into a guy who recognized me from the Magic of Myth museum exhibit at the Smithsonian back in '97-'99. Amazing! We had a really chatty waiter and very er, relaxed service. I had cappellini pomodoro and minestrone soup along with a giant glass of iced tea. It was good, but I never realized how salty everything is! I must have gotten up three times that night for nocturnal potty breaks. For dessert, we split one of those small dessert shots of white chocolate strawberry cheesecake.
Back at the hotel, I finished packing as much as I could before conking out around 10.
Monday August 16
My flight was at 9 a.m. and Debbie and Marie were kind enough to drive me to the airport. Would it be an easy morning? No, of course not! We got up at the same time and once we were dressed, headed over to Denny's for my last trip there. Unfortunately, their morning cook and a couple of other people were late, so they were short-handed. Uh oh. Usually they were really fast but even though I only ordered an English muffin, Marie only ordered a bagel, Debbie got her usual, and the only extra thing we ordered was these "pancake pups" (sort of like doughnut holes), it took a while. I started looking at my watch nervously. I wanted to be at the airport at 7, or at least get on the road by 7, but it was 6:40 and our food hadn't been brought out yet. Debbie tried to reassure me that it'll be fine, most people have flown out already, etc. but she doesn't fly all of that often and I know there are many pitfalls that can make the difference between getting on a flight and missing it.
We were on our way shortly past 7 and unfortunately, Debbie couldn't find her glasses, so she had to wing it. She could see well enough to drive, though, which is good! We got to the airport without much traffic but we were in for a shocker when we saw that Terminal B was closed (I found out later it was because of a broken water main), and all of the traffic was being herded into Terminal A, where I had to catch my flight. Aaaagh! We crept and crawled through the traffic. Again, I looked at my watch nervously. Who knows how long it will take to check my suitcase and get my boarding passes, or to get through Thousands Standing Around's security checkpoint? We decided that I would get dropped off at the first curb, which so happened to be right next to Continental. Whew! I literally ran while pushing my suitcase and carryon.
Inside the terminal, there were only six people in line ahead of me, but the process was still too slow for my liking. Finally I was all checked in by ten 'til eight. I couldn't upgrade to first class because my flight out of Orlando was overbooked and the leg to San Diego was almost $200. No thanks.
Security was a cluster@$#%. Seriously. It was a big mob of people moving oh so slowly. They kept running out of those bins used to put bags and shoes through the x-ray machine and they wouldn't let anyone through until more were placed out. This had to have been managed by the same people who put on that art show at the convention. I stared at a clock on a money exchange booth nervously, since my watch was now inside my purse. Boarding was supposed to start at 8:15 and it was now just after 8.
I finally got through security with 5 minutes to spare before boarding. I sprinted down toward what was supposed to be my gate only to see I had to take a freakin' tram to get there! D'OH! The tram showed up about a minute later and I got to my gate right at 8:15.
But I then noticed the flight was delayed until 9:10 a.m.. There was a huge standby list and Continental, in its infinite wisdom, decided to change to a smaller 757 overnight, which is why the flight was overbooked. Official Pix must have been running things that day. To make matters worse, TSA decided to do random checks on carry-on bags right at the gate. Huh?
Fortunately they didn't have to boot anyone off involuntarily and despite the delays, I still had plenty of time in Houston. There I got a hamburger, a bottle of water, and a magazine to pass the time.
The flight to San Diego included the adventuresome bonus of dodging around desert thunderstorm clouds. Forgot it was "monsoon season" in the Southwest. I watched Dr. Phil, Pawn Stars, and American Pickers to pass the flight. But I made it to San Diego in one piece and got my suitcase. It was finally sunny and warm here. After I got home, I called Debbie and let her know I made it safely.
Believe it or not, my report isn't done! Stay tuned for the epilogue! And I still haven't loaded pictures...