Travel Blog - July/August - Comic-Con and Back
Day 5 and 6 - Comic-Con
I saw a number of interesting panels at Comic-Con. Stan Lee, Neil Gaiman, Kevin Smith, Scott Kurtz (PvP), 30 years of Star Wars, stupid cartoons, clips of kung fu films, Blade Runner, etc. So the panels were good. The convention floor was crazy, as was to be expected. There were over 120,000 people there that weekend. The street crossing between the convention center and the trolley stop was insane. San Diego needs to pony up for some foot bridges (or tunnels) over that street. Also, the folding chairs at all the panels, while they looked nice and padded, were UNcomfortable. My butt was aching really bad by the end of the day each day.
While going to the motel next door, looking for the Con Suite, I ran across someone else I knew, my old coworker Ben. His friend who had put out a comic with TokyoPop had apparently gotten a job with Vertigo. Good for her.
Day 7
We had the day off from the convention because of them being sold out. We knew Sony Online had a block party that day, having found out about it at the party we attended at Celebration IV. But that wasn't until the evening. We knew Dad was at Nona's now, so we headed up there to take showers. We then went with Dad to visit Uncle Nick. We had a nice visit and came back.
The party was nice with a pretty good band. The food was pretty good, but I ate too much at Nick's, and not enough time had passed, so I wasn't able to eat much. They had previews of various games, but I wasn't patient enough to wait in lines, and they had people there to talk about the games that reminded me a bit too much of salesmen. The area that SOE's building was at was in a pretty nice area, so we just slept where we parked across the street.
Day 8
We went back to Comic-Con, but what was there on Sunday wasn't as interesting as other days. We ended up leaving around four, though things were still going on. We stopped by and visited Nona again to say goodbye. I was feeling a little bit sick, so I didn't get to close or stay for more than a few minutes.
We then hit the road. There were two and a half weeks until Gen Con, so we were going to go up to Alaska, but then Aaron remembered he had to get tags for the blazer, so he headed back to Colorado. Aaron drove pretty hard, and the blazer once again got very hot in the Mojave. When we pulled over for gas in Baker, the giant thermometer read 107 degrees, though the sun had already gone down. We just kept driving through Nevada and Arizona, and as we passed by St. George, we blew a fan belt, so pulled over in the parking lot behind a gas station.
Day 9
Aaron went off in the morning to find a place to buy a new fan belt and put it on himself when he came back. He didn't put back on the air conditioning belt, which after he did it, thought it might have increased the truck's performance. Before we left St. George, we lost another belt, but were able to pull in at a auto parts store and Aaron swiftly changed that one as well, though he was sweating like crazy by the time he was done.
In addition to getting the plates taken care of, Aaron wanted to get some issues with the truck looked at while we were back in Denver. For one, the floor between the seats got extremely hot, and the 4-wheel drive shifter had hot air blowing out from around it. Going over the passes, we couldn't get up to a speed that Aaron was happy with, although we weren't smoking this time. At the top of the climb to the Johnson Tunnel, we were down to 30 mph.
So now I'm back at Bill's while Aaron has stuff looked at in the blazer. He had this one guy recommended to him who had some special kind of rack to put the truck on, but that wasn't available until the next Monday (Day 9 was the previous Monday). Today is now a day later, Tues Aug 7, and I don't know if Aaron got it on that rack or what, if anything, was found out. If the blazer isn't ready for Gen Con, or if Aaron wants to get more done again after Gen Con, I'm going to look into alternate plans.
I saw a number of interesting panels at Comic-Con. Stan Lee, Neil Gaiman, Kevin Smith, Scott Kurtz (PvP), 30 years of Star Wars, stupid cartoons, clips of kung fu films, Blade Runner, etc. So the panels were good. The convention floor was crazy, as was to be expected. There were over 120,000 people there that weekend. The street crossing between the convention center and the trolley stop was insane. San Diego needs to pony up for some foot bridges (or tunnels) over that street. Also, the folding chairs at all the panels, while they looked nice and padded, were UNcomfortable. My butt was aching really bad by the end of the day each day.
While going to the motel next door, looking for the Con Suite, I ran across someone else I knew, my old coworker Ben. His friend who had put out a comic with TokyoPop had apparently gotten a job with Vertigo. Good for her.
Day 7
We had the day off from the convention because of them being sold out. We knew Sony Online had a block party that day, having found out about it at the party we attended at Celebration IV. But that wasn't until the evening. We knew Dad was at Nona's now, so we headed up there to take showers. We then went with Dad to visit Uncle Nick. We had a nice visit and came back.
The party was nice with a pretty good band. The food was pretty good, but I ate too much at Nick's, and not enough time had passed, so I wasn't able to eat much. They had previews of various games, but I wasn't patient enough to wait in lines, and they had people there to talk about the games that reminded me a bit too much of salesmen. The area that SOE's building was at was in a pretty nice area, so we just slept where we parked across the street.
Day 8
We went back to Comic-Con, but what was there on Sunday wasn't as interesting as other days. We ended up leaving around four, though things were still going on. We stopped by and visited Nona again to say goodbye. I was feeling a little bit sick, so I didn't get to close or stay for more than a few minutes.
We then hit the road. There were two and a half weeks until Gen Con, so we were going to go up to Alaska, but then Aaron remembered he had to get tags for the blazer, so he headed back to Colorado. Aaron drove pretty hard, and the blazer once again got very hot in the Mojave. When we pulled over for gas in Baker, the giant thermometer read 107 degrees, though the sun had already gone down. We just kept driving through Nevada and Arizona, and as we passed by St. George, we blew a fan belt, so pulled over in the parking lot behind a gas station.
Day 9
Aaron went off in the morning to find a place to buy a new fan belt and put it on himself when he came back. He didn't put back on the air conditioning belt, which after he did it, thought it might have increased the truck's performance. Before we left St. George, we lost another belt, but were able to pull in at a auto parts store and Aaron swiftly changed that one as well, though he was sweating like crazy by the time he was done.
In addition to getting the plates taken care of, Aaron wanted to get some issues with the truck looked at while we were back in Denver. For one, the floor between the seats got extremely hot, and the 4-wheel drive shifter had hot air blowing out from around it. Going over the passes, we couldn't get up to a speed that Aaron was happy with, although we weren't smoking this time. At the top of the climb to the Johnson Tunnel, we were down to 30 mph.
So now I'm back at Bill's while Aaron has stuff looked at in the blazer. He had this one guy recommended to him who had some special kind of rack to put the truck on, but that wasn't available until the next Monday (Day 9 was the previous Monday). Today is now a day later, Tues Aug 7, and I don't know if Aaron got it on that rack or what, if anything, was found out. If the blazer isn't ready for Gen Con, or if Aaron wants to get more done again after Gen Con, I'm going to look into alternate plans.