Grand Slam Convention Report Part One
I will start with my arrival at LAX (Los Angeles International Airport) at about 11am, because up until then, everything was hunky dory. I came off the plane and sat in the gate area to gather myself (my stuff and my thoughts). I pulled out my driver’s license and put it in my jeans pocket with my iPhone, so I would have both ready when I got to the Alamo Car Rental office (via shuttle from LAX). Apparently, I pulled my iPhone out at some point, maybe to check the time, and must have dropped my license, because when I arrived at Alamo, I had no driver’s license. Thus began the nightmare we shall call my Alamo Experience (AE).
First I went through my entire pack and all my jeans pockets - no luck.
Second, I tried to call the Airport for lost and found. Lost and found only makes collections ONE time per DAY, and that’s at 8:30am! AND, they close at 2pm!
I ended up referred to the Airport Police, who had nothing turned in - duh, it had only been 30 minutes max.
I went to Customer Disservice and waited. And waited. When finally I was helped, they said they would drive me to DMV to get a print-out…OOPS! Governator closed DMV offices first Friday of every month.
I checked every shuttle bus Alamo (four or five total) had on the premises - no license.
Finally, I decided to go to the hotel and check in and see what I could do. Alamo at least drove me there. I checked in, dropped my suitcase in the room and went back to go through registration for the con. Another line. Got registered, wrist-banded, VIP ticketed, etc. Checked the schedule.
The programming in the auditorium/ballroom was due to begin at 2pm with a music video followed by a panel with Nicki Clyne (Callie Henderson) and Michael Trucco (Samuel Anders) from Battlestar Galactica. (It was kind of a BSG day.) I went backstage with my VIP backstage pass (VIP-BSP) and sat at the table; they had fruit and veggie sticks, cookies and chips, sodas and water - for us and the guests - and Nicki Clyne was there visiting. (I honestly didn’t realize it was one of the guests for a while. *rolls eyes at self* That was the only decent food I had that day, really. Michael Trucco came back there just before their stage time and didn’t visit; I don’t whether he came backstage after their talk because I didn’t. After they had been introduced and applauded, I went out to my seat, which was on the far stage right, row L and listened to the panel/took photos.
As is par for the course on Fridays at the 3-days conventions, there were a LOT of empty seats in the room. Folks can’t always get the Friday off, and if the programming isn’t their especial favorite, they might not even try too hard, I guess.
I have to admit that - between lost license, not getting rental car, exhaustion, etc. - I can’t remember much about this panel. I do know they sat in high director chairs. I haven’t kept up with BSG the last couple of seasons, so I didn’t really know a lot about the goings on. But I’ll sort through the photos to see if there are any decent ones.
After their panel, they went straight to photo ops; at $40 each, I didn’t buy solo photos of them. Next on stage was Peter Mayhew, and I missed his panel and backstage time entirely. I think I went up to my room and called the airport/police some more. At about 3:30pm, though, it was time for a trio photo op with Nicki, Michael and Michelle Forbes (BSG’s Admiral Cain and ST:TNG’s Ensign Ro Laren), which I did buy. (They added Michael Trucco to the guest list at the last minute, so he was included in the photo op for no additional charge. I think that’s why he was added to Nicki’s panel, too. And it probably wasn’t a bad idea, adding topics for Q&A.)
Michelle Forbes took the stage for her solo panel and answered Q&A, which lapsed here and there, partly due to the smaller audience. None of the actors whose panels weren’t well attended could figure out why people were sitting waaaaaay back. The one question I know I can remember is mine: If you were given the chance to play either Ensign Ro and Admiral Cain for ten years, which would you choose. She said she wouldn’t want to play ANY character for ten years! I do remember, too, that she commented on the discomfort of the costuming. (She didn’t mention any issue with the make-up, just the uniform.)
I haven’t really followed Michelle’s career like some other actors (the Stargate peeps, for example), but I guess she has been on several things - Prison Break, Durham County, True Blood, Wonderland and In Treatment - since her BSG and ST:TNG appearances. I guess True Blood is sci-fi, as it was mentioned a bit, and none of the others were. (Funny, she played Pen Verrity in one show and Lyla Garrity in another…okay, *I* thought it was amusing.) She even has been on a couple “Waking the Dead” episodes (British version of “Cold Case”).
I found Michelle very personable backstage and the photo op and autographs. When I said it was a pleasure to meet her, she reciprocated. I don’t think the photos showed her to best advantage - SO SERIOUS! (when she really has a wicked sense of humor, I think). I didn’t look good in it either. But even up until the autographs late in the day, Michelle kept asking whether I had found my license or resolved my car rental issue - very nice, if you ask me.
Colin Cunningham was to go on stage next, and he stopped by the VIP table to say hello. I got a big hug. He asked us if we were coming to the Cabaret, because he was going to do some magic. Then he broke the rules and told us all to pull our cameras out. He took photos with each of us. (He held the camera, so they are CLOSE-ups, while the Creation VIP shepherd looked the other way.)
I had a solo photo op with Michelle, so I scooted over to that while Colin talked. By the time I got back, he’d been showing Centigrade, so I really missed his whole talk. I didn’t get a photo op with him because I had an idea about my license.
I suddenly realized that, before I went to Europe, I made copies of my credit cards, driver’s license and passport, and put them in my desk drawer at work. So I called my co-worker and asked her to fax the license part of the copy, which she did.
AE - part deux
Armed with that evidence of my driver’s license, I took a cab back to Alamo Rental Car. The rental clerk said that I would need the manager’s approval, so I went to Customer Disservice again and waited. And waited.
I finally told the peon behind the counter I was going to sit down but needed to see the manager. This person promptly left the counter area, so when the manager finally did reappear, he helped others first. So I went and stood at the counter.
When finally I was helped, he said he would not rent to me to “protect his liability and mine, should anything happen and I didn’t have a license with me”. I said something about I usually use National because I’m an Emerald Card holder, and he had the gall to ask me why I didn’t use them this time! I basically told him he had lost any future business from me for Alamo and that I didn’t appreciate that I was out the rental car money which I’d already prepaid to Priceline. He said that if I didn’t rent from them, I would get my money back from Priceline. I don’t know about that.
So back to the hotel I went. Once in my room I called the airport and the police again. An incredibly kind and compassionate Officer Block at the police spent a LOT of time with me. He sent an officer to walk the path I’d taken to see if he/she could find my license. He even called Alamo and tried to convince them I had a valid license. The manager FINALLY agreed that if Officer Block would fax him a print-out showing a valid license, he would rent to me.
AE - redux squared
SOoooooooooooo, back to Alamo I went at about 8pm. This time I wasn’t going to waste another $20 on cab fare if they didn’t give it me, so I took the hotel shuttle to the airport and the Alamo shuttle to Alamo. I FINALLY got my car, drove through Carl’s Junior and got back to the hotel around 9pm. I ate quickly and decided to go ahead down to the cabaret. (It wasn’t included in my Preferred pass, so I paid $10 for general admission. I asked if the VIP backstage pass worked for this, and I was told no. So I sat in my Preferred seat anyway, since no one else was. [It was $20 to get your ‘reserved’ seat.])
Nicki Clyne was on when I got there, and she was showing behind the scenes slides. When they reached what Creation thought was the last of her slides, she just started talking about how she got to be an actress or something. They eventually figured out how to get at the rest of the slides, but her time was up by then.
Colin Cunningham did magic and mentalist tricks. I was trying to Twitter as it happened, but I had changed a setting, and none of it went through. He did a thing with a big (4” anyway) nail/spike hidden under a Styrofoam cup. He set out several cups, and this volunteer-from-the-audience gal moved them around. Then he waved his hand over the cups to “sense” the one with the nail. One at a time eliminated them - by smashing down on them with his bare hand - as not being the one with the nail. When he got to the last two, he took her hand and added it to his and then SMASH, they’re okay, and the spike’s under the other cup.
Another trick involved a volunteer who had, earlier in the day, drawn a picture. He didn’t tell her what to draw or how to draw it. She folded it up, wrapped it in foil and put that into an envelope. I think she even kept it until then. He then asked her to picture what she had drawn, and he drew on a white board or pad. Then the gal opened her drawing, he showed his, and they were both of a house, a tree and a cloud!
After Colin’s act, Dean Haglund (of X-Files) came out and did a spastic-zany thing kind of like “Starhole 1.5” (not about Stargate but improvisational) with the audience providing lines. He had passed out slips of paper and asked people to write random things on the slips. He gathered them, and brought an audience participant up. They acted out the interaction between a human (him) meeting an alien (her) bent on taking over the earth, using random sentences from the bowl plus some other things. Definitely amusing at some points.
After that, I had to go back up and finish my preparation for my Bible Study leaders meeting at 6:55am Saturday (the whole reason I needed the rental car) and then crashed. Slept. Not crashed the rental car!