Sunday at SDCC

Sadly our time has come to an end...

The last day is always so bittersweet. You can feel things start to wind down and slowly return to "normal". I spent my last day alone -Brandon was down for the count. I really wanted to catch the Supernatural panel in Hall H, but didn't have it in me to stay the night and wait in a monster line. Luck was once again on my side!

I managed to literally walk right into Hall H and have a seat, just minutes before the panel started. It was great to see "my boys" again and the gag reel never disappoints. I love how witty and fun the actors are, I love the interactions with the audience and I love how they truly appreciate their fans. 

Misha Collins was seen in the early morning handing out coffee to fans who had camped out overnight. He worked with RandomActs.org to brighten up hundreds of fans and thank them for their dedication.

 Article and image from Storify.com 

As soon as the panel was over I got an alert from the Nerd Machine that Zachary Levi would be doing a Smiles for Smiles ( where you can get a picture with him for a $20.00 donation to Operation Smile). I literally RAN over to Nerd HQ to try and get in line before they capped it. I had been trying to attend a Smiles for Smiles session all week, but never made it over before they closed the lines down. I made it there with a few minutes to spare!!!! I was so pumped to be able to meet him and get a great pict as well. When I got up there, they were saying that Zac had lost his voice and couldn't talk with people. That actually spoke volumes about his character though...he never HAD to donate his time and take pictures. So doing this and feeling crappy made me love him even more.  

It's a photo of a photo, but you can see how awesome it is. 

When it was my turn I thanked him for singing for me during his panel. He remembered me and said he was honored :) Then I asked him if I could pinch his face for the picture and he told me to "pinch away".  He was so awesome, humble, kind and amazing. That picture is framed and on my desk at work. It makes me smile every time I look at it.

On my way back to the convention, I stopped to check out some of the exhibits in the lot next to the buses. I had just enough time to catch the Sleepy Hallow ocular rift experience.

my best "decapitated" look

This guy took the hair pulling a bit too far.

 Then I headed into the exhibit hall and worked my last shift at Artists Alley. Said my goodbyes and then it was all over. In the first few min after they announce that the hall is closed, it is strangely quiet. Then it's like they flip a switch and the vendors start packing up as fast as possible. Everything must go! It goes away just as quickly as it appeared and I am left standing there already longing for next year.

Since our flight home wasn't until the following day and Andrew was FINALLY back from deployment ( he arrived that day); we met up with him and hit the beach. We were all exhausted and ready for some time to just sit and relax. We had an early dinner and headed to bed relatively early too.

Next time, I'm spending more time here.

Until next time San Diego! 

Saturday at SDCC

Today was the greatest day in the history of days...

Seriously I must have cashed in on all the good karma in my life because I cannot even begin to believe how lucky I felt this day! 

We started out hitting the exhibit hall floor the second it opened and made a bee line for the Marvel booth. The Avengers cast was going to be doing a signing later that day and I wanted to get a ticket to see them SO BAD! We managed to get a place in line about a 100 deep and had to pull a ticket from a bowl to see if we won a pass to the signing. Brandon went first and ended up with a Thor trading card :( sorry Brandon no signing for you. I went after and pulled a ticket for the Ant Man signing later that day. While I admit I was disappointed that it wasn't the Avengers, I was excited to see the Ant Man cast. I love Paul Rudd and it would be pretty awesome to meet him. SO... score one for the day! 

Next up, we waited in a nice long Starbucks line. This gave us some fuel to hold us over for our second attempt to go on the Gotham zip line. They opened at nine and we got there about 9:15. We were told it would be about a 3 hr wait. Yikes! I still wanted to go on it, so we decided to settle in and enjoy the wait in the awesome San Diego weather. After a bit, Brandon went to go grab a drink and I was holding our spot in line. The girl behind me let out a soft shriek and ran off. This had my attention. When she returned she was telling us how she had just spotted Mark Sheppard and Misha Collins walk by! She was denied a chance to talk to them by the security guard and bummed she missed the chance. After looking at where she went, I saw that they were still there!! SO, buh bye zip line!!! I wanted to see if I could meet them. There was literally NO CROWD around them at all and I wanted to seize the moment. by the time I got there they were into a building for a press thing, but I figured that they would have to leave sometime! I picked a spot on a close bench, ate some lunch and waited....

Then to my surprise, more people started showing up for their press obligations too! There was a fair amount of security by the door, but the celebs were happy to stop and take pictures, sign autographs with the few people waiting by the door for them. O.M.G I was so excited! I first got to meet the one and only Chris Parnell! The cast of Archer was making it's way out of the building. He stopped, took a picture with me and even made some small talk. SO AWESOME! 

Why yes, this IS Cryil Figgis.

Then more people started streaming in and out and I seriously felt like I had hit the jack pot! I was most excited to meet my Misha and Mark ( who were sincerely kind to everyone there). It was so exciting for me to see who was arriving next. 

I just love this guy.

I would have really liked to re take this picture,
but we ran out of time.

James Spader stopped by, took pictures with every single person there. THEN he waited around and just hung out with people for about a half hour. It was surreal.

Didn't I just see your face on the side of a bus?

I thought my day couldn't get any better, when the cast of ORPHAN BACK showed up ( minus Tatiana Maslany though). I must have died and gone to heaven. I didn't get a picture with each of them, but I am pretty stoked about the two that I did get! 

It was difficult not to pinch him, he's so cute.

Look at that smile! 

I managed to see the cast of Resurrection, the cast of Archer, the cast of Orphan black, and even Mike Tyson before I had to leave to get to the Ant man signing! For someone who loves celeb sightings, my day couldn't have been any better! 

The Marvel booth was packed as always and having trouble directing people to the right place to line up. We had to stand around and wait for the line to get figured out, then we were good to go!

My new BFF, Paul Rudd just waiting patiently to meet me

Once the line started moving, it was my turn in no time. Paul Rudd was super nice and a lot of fun to talk to. Michael Douglas just looked shell shocked ( he said it was his first time to Comic Con) and Corey Stoll liked my shirt. All that and I got to see the first peek at what the helmet will look like as well as a personalized autographed poster - that now hangs in my classroom-. 

Brandon and I were both ready for a rest, so we went out and grabbed some lunch in the Gas Lamp. We had plenty of time to talk about the crazy day we just had, eat some food and let our adrenaline settle for a bit. 

We headed back to the convention center and were able to squeeze into Hall H so see some panels. I LOVED the women who kick ass panel and really enjoyed the conversation as well as the perspectives from the panel. Then the Marvel panel started. Oh Robert Downy Jr, how I love you! He came into the hall throwing roses and dancing for the audience. The whole cast was there and we got to see some exclusive clips. I love how the people that I just met came out to thunderous applause (James Spader will be in the Avengers Age of Ultron and after that session Ant Man came onstage). 

There was a 2hr wait between the Marvel panel ad the DC one. We were done with waiting and like thousands of our Hall H friends decided to head out. Although the DC panel had some great swag for the audience, I wish they had just gone back to back. Most people had been either in line or in that room for over 24hrs at that point. 

We had passes to go to a MGMT concert that was being held on an aircraft carrier that night, but we were too tired to go - my age finally caught up with me- so back to the room and bed time for me! 

WHAT AN AMAZING DAY! I never did get to go on that zip line though...

Friday - Day Three of SDCC

I love this place

Yes I really do! The costumes, the people, the events even the crowds are like nowhere else. 

Friday was a fun one for us. We got up early enough to avoid a rush of people, but late enough to feel rested.

We started the day with out a big agenda and wanted to just see what happened. Brandon and I went to check in with the staff at Artists Alley. It was nice visiting with some familiar faces and talking with the artists.

One of the ladies there had received a ticket ( wrist band) for a Hunger Games signing later that day, but wasn't going to be able to make it because she was working. We came up with a plan that I would go to the signing for her and give her the poster afterwards. This worked out great because I enjoy meeting the celebrities more than the posters anyways and she likes the posters more than meeting the people.

Wrist band of awesomeness

When our shift was over, we went outside to go try and get on the Gotham Zip line that was near the Hilton. This line took forever and was slow moving. We had been waiting for almost two hours when I had to leave to get to the autograph session in time. -so no zip line for me-

Now Friday was a much busier day than I had given it credit for and the crowds were just huge inside the exhibit hall. We managed to get to the Lion's Gate booth in time for the signing, but I did get separated from Brandon on the way there -note to self, make sure the person you are with isn't holding your phone when you get separated or finding each other will be a little challenging- 

The signing was awesome. I got to meet the new cast members:

Natalie Dormer (Cressida), Elden Henson (Pollux), Mahershala Ali (Boggs), Evan Ross (Messalla) & Wes Chatham (Castor). 

They were all so hurried to sign and get the line moving that I couldn't exactly speak with each cast member, but I did get a chance to talk with Natalie Dormer - who was sort of snarky with me about how far I traveled ( Yes, Natalie I realize that Oregon isn't as far as wherever you got your accent from) - and the boys on the end where so sweet and nice I could have pinched them. Wes Chatham ( who plays Castor) and Mahershala Ali ( who plays Boggs) just held onto my hands and were asking ME questions about my experience and whether or not I was having a good time. 

Seriously THE nicest guy!

They were both just talking and laughing with me far and above what the rest of the cast did. So thank you to both of them for leaving me with a smile on my face after meeting them.

Next we worked our shift then got ready to go over to Nerd HQ for the Maze Runner panel. We got there with enough time to look around HQ and grab a t shirt. The panel was great and I loved hearing about the movie. I had read the books and was excited to learn more about the film.

Great seats and great people!

We hit up the Gas lamp when the panel was over. Enjoyed some good food and drink. Walked around and saw some cool stuff and people. 

SDCC 2014 Day TWO

THURSDAY IS HERE!

I am still amazed at how completely lucky I was to be able to score some tickets to the Zachary Levi Panel at NERD HQ.  Lemme tell ya, it was NOT an easy feat.

 For those not in the know, Nerd HQ is an amazing place full of interactive displays, presentations, places to lounge and cool gear to buy. It's like it's own little off site Comic Con and it's open to anyone ( read no badge required). This is put on by Zachary Levi and any money that they earn from it goes to charity (Operation Smile). In addition to all of that, Zach somehow manages to talk people into coming over to Nerd HQ and doing panels for a limited amount of people. The panels are much more intimate and are mostly Q&A format.  

The Nerd Machine launched an app this year that gave us a heads up for impending sales, schedule changes, and opportunities to meet celebs. I like that they rolled out the panel announcements and sales a few at a time, however that made the competition to snag a ticket even more fierce. I mean imagine that there are almost 300,000 people that are visiting San Diego and these panels hold around 250 people.  

When the tickets to the Zachary Levi panel when on sale, I was camped out in front of the computer with my finger ready to click on the button the SECOND they went live. I clicked and managed to get two tickets. They were sold out within a few seconds of going live. I'm so happy I have a fast internet connection and that luck was on my side for this year. ( I also managed to get tickets to the Maze Runner panel by some pure stroke of luck)

Hey there Zach! 

We had to be up at a decent hour and ready to bus over to PetCo park by 8am. Again we spent more time waiting in line for the event, than we actually did attending it, but it's worth it. When we went in there was a huge screen behind the stage and one lonely chair just a few feet away from us. Zachary comes out and started taking questions, including one from me! He was entertaining, endearing, and enamoring to watch. I am so happy that I got to be a part of the audience and that I had the courage to ask a question -HE EVEN GAVE ME THE FLYNN RYDER SMOLDER!- that makes me one of the luckiest girls around. They even live stream the whole thing for everyone to watch ( here is a link to this one).

Brandon and I had to grab some lunch and head over to our appointment to donate blood. I signed us up for the annual Comic Con blood drive that was sponsored by True Blood. The wait time was reasonable and the people there were very nice. After it was all over, we even got some fun True Blood swag and a free book! 

Then it was time to work our shift at Artists Alley. I love being a part of this team. It is such a fun place to "work" and I get to meet such amazing people. This year we had some red staff vests to wear so people could tell that we were working. Not the most fashionable, but I think i pulled it off. 

The red vest is not quite as noticeable next to this "costume"

Brando and I hit up the exhibit floor, collected our t-shirts and grabbed a ton of the famous Comic Con swag. I ended up putting a lot of it in my treasure box here at school and have made sure the children know what a serious treasure this stuff really is!

My Swag this year, and the only thing I paid for here was one shirt. 

We must have walked 50 miles that day and we were D.O.N.E at a decent hour. We decided to head to the grocery store and stalk up on food. We grabbed things to make lunches and quick snacks to carry with us throughout the day. This was so helpful and really saved us when we were starting to get hungry, and waiting in a never ending line. Not to mention, that I'm sure we saved a ton of money by bringing our own snacks. We only ate dinners out and saved the rest of our time ( and money) for serious geeky goodness! 

SDCC Day ONE

Let's get this party started! 

Aside from having to sleep on my brother's couch the night before and be attacked my his stupid dog all night, we had an event free trip down to San Diego. Since we arrived too early to check into the hotel, we grabbed the rental car and headed down to the Gas Lamp to pick up our badges and scope out downtown. 

 I love love love how the whole city embraces Comic Con. Every thing from the comic wrapped hotels, to the outside events, and endless parties, there is always something to see and do here. 

Where else in the world can you find an
Adventure time booth in front of a hotel advertising
 Sean Bean AND the Simpsons?

We grabbed our badges and took a seek peek inside as they were setting up the convention. ( Sorry no pictures are allowed before it opens) Then we checked into the hotel and took a much needed siesta before returning for preview night.

Preview Night is small by comparison to the rest of the week, and I think this is the best time to walk the exhibit hall, purchase your merchandise, get familiar with where the big booths are, and create a game plan for the rest of the week.

And we didn't have to wait in line
 for over and hour for this photo op

When the crowds get bigger, it can be difficult to navigate the exhibit hall. Knowing where things are ahead of time really helps you get from point A to point B. Plus this is the best time to get photos of the booth displays -sometimes there are just too many people in the way to get a picture of that huge display- I have yet to go and enjoy the TV shows that they premiere here ( I really had hoped to catch the Flash when they showed it), but like everything here you have to pick and choose what you are going to attend.

And I still have people in the frame..

75 years of Batman exhibit was pretty awesome.

There is Smaug looking over the crowd

Then we were off to enjoy the night life. Wow the Gas Lamp is hopping. I was having fun just walking down the street and watching party after party spill out onto the sidewalk. Lucky for us, we got invited to the Deviant Art party. It felt pretty cool to get into an invite only party complete with free food and drink. It was a good time. I got to chat with fellow staff members and meet up with some very talented people. I'm glad I paced myself and we didn't over do it. I certainly didn't want to crash and burn after just one day.  We were back to the hotel and in bed before midnight. We had a long event filled day to look forward to the next day.

SDCC 2014

Better late than never

I was going to stop blogging ( because let's face it, no one really reads this), but I think I like having a place to share my story and so what if it's not read. 

So I want to talk about my trip to SDCC 2014. It was beyond awesome. Every time I think about it, It makes me smile. 

Let's start with my lodging nightmare

OMG It really was a nightmare. My brother lives in San Diego and the plan was to stay with him again this year. He is also in the Navy and had been deployed for the past 8 months or so. He was supposed to be coming back a few weeks before Comic Con. I got a message from him 5 weeks before I was leaving that he would NOT be coming back in time and that he didn't have an apartment yet. Ummmmm HOLY CRAP.

We all know that the hotels are pretty much booked solid - in a matter of minutes- when they release them in April. Here it was JUNE and I had to 1- find a place to stay and 2- figure out how the heck I was going to pay for it. The few rooms that I did find were crazy expensive, I almost got scammed by someone "renting" out a condo (turns out he didn't even have a condo and was just taking people's money), and there were even Craigslist adds renting out couches for $200 a night!  I was just about ready to drop $100 a night to stay in a downtown Hostel, or just sleep in the Hall H line every night. 

Who cares what the panels are the next day,
 I've found an affordable place to sleep! 

Thankfully I was able to get something through Priceline, it was WAY over priced, but at least it was a legit place to stay. I ended up in a small Hotel near Qualcom Stadium. I rented a car and we decided it would be fastest to drive to spot near Mission Valley, Hotel Circle. Thank NBC for hooking us all up with round the clock buses. It was about a 5 min drive to the bus stop and about a half hr by bus to get there. 

A nice comfy ride at that

I didn't get this all settled and arranged until 2 weeks before I was leaving. I was so relieved to not have that stress anymore! Since Andrew wasn't going to be able to make it this year, I also had to find a new friend to go with. I would have gone solo, but it is much more fun with a buddy. So I decided to bring Brandon, another brother, to fill in for Andrew. Brandon is mellow and just wanted to go to take pictures. Perfect! Someone to follow me around, and document the trip. 

Just landed in San Diego, one of the few together picts we got.

Looking Back to Make it Better

So here I am trying to come up with a game plan for SDCC

I love to have a plan, and we all know that you will need a plan - and a back up plan -and then yet another plan, when everything goes out the window the first day. There is so much to do and see during Comic Con that there is just no way to get to do everything you want. That means I better have my MUST HAVE list up and ready to go.

But first I need to consider what I wish I had done differently last year. As a first timer, I think I did a good job of seeing and doing a large part of what the con has to offer. However, there is always room to improve and I think I definitely learned somethings from my first visit.

1. Only wait in a line that means something to you. 

No I'm not talking about the bathroom or even the Starbucks lines ( those are just a must have sort of thing); I'm talking about waiting in a line for over an hour to get a button for a movie that I will not even want to see. I'm talking about waiting in a line at 5 in the morning to see a panel that is going on at 4 in the afternoon. I really feel like I wasted my entire day away just holding a spot to see a panel that I sort of liked.

So close, yet so far away from Orphan Black cast

Now don't get me wrong, there are things at Comic Con that are WORTH the wait. I don't regret waiting in line to meet the cast of Orphan Black, even though they had to leave before I got to meet them. I met some great people waiting in that line and I managed to get a small look at the cast while I waited. It was a gamble that I would be able to get in and the fact I got so close was pretty cool. *lesson learned to line up well before the hour before the scheduled time.
Believe it or not, I also really enjoyed the overnight wait to get into Hall H on Sunday. It was an experience that I think is a big part of Comic Con. It was so neat to be in the trenches with thousands of other fanatics and there was nothing cooler than talking Doctor Who to other people that loved it as much as I do.

2. Get your shirts as soon as possible.

We thought we could just swing by and pick up the shirts whenever during the Con. The first day we went to go pick them up and were scared off by the long line. We kept checking back to see when the line would be a little less intimidating and didn't end up getting them until Friday. By the time we got there they had sold out of my size in my shirt of choice. I am glad we pre-ordered a few shirts that they had saved for us, but I foolishly thought I'd be able to pick up more when we got there. So I am going to either pre-order all the shirts or make sure I get there early enough to get them while they are still in stock.

3. Experience more outside of the Convention.

You and I have a date this year Gas Lamp District

I loved being a part of the convention and the exhibit hall alone has enough to keep me entertained for days, but I don't feel like I got to experience much outside of that bubble. I never went to any of the parties ( just too tired!) I never went to see Nerd HQ, I wish I would have been able to participate in some of the fan events as well. It's so hard to juggle everything, but I would like to free up more of my time to actually participate in events, rather than waiting around all day for one thing.

4. Bring more money

Or maybe I should say, spend my money wiser. I wasted SO MUCH money on random crap that I no longer need or use. I mean I really didn't NEED to buy the Comic Con exclusive Transformer toy for my son - who uses them as bath toys now- He can't appreciate the exclusivity or the time invested in picking them up for him. I could have saved the money and purchased something for him at Toys R Us and he would have been just as happy. I think I will be investing more in buying tickets to events during my stay this year. This will no doubt cost more, but I think it will be totally worth every penny spent.  so basically less STUFF and more EXPERIENCE. ~please remind me of this when I'm standing in line to buy that Jedi bathrobe and matching Wookie slippers for well over $100~

Although, let face it, this robe would be pretty awesome to own.