At least until he found out that he could have paid some money and made it in. Oopse. This is going to be what I remember, bearing in mind I didn't take any notes and it has been a few days.
Thursday started bright and early in the morning with me getting up at 4:30 for my 7 am flight. The taxis was to show up at quarter to 6. It didn't. Apparently, he had a hard time finding the building and that's why he was 15 minutes late. I had alotted a lot of time to get throught he airport so I didn't mind the 15 minutes too much. (You see for the US
we have to clear customs in Canada. Also the airport was on strike. Fortunately, that really didn't affect me.)
I get in the long line up for customs and see the customs officer.
"Purpose of your visit?"
"Personal"
"How long are you staying?"
"Until Monday"
"Short trip for a vacation"
"The convention only lasts the weekend"
At this point he freaks. "Convention?! You didn't say anything about a convention. You said this was personal."
I then had to explain BotCon and answer several questions about about what I do so he could be assured that really this was a personal trip.
Sigh. With the new rules the US border is getting unfriendly to Canadians. It use to be you could just show your passport and get across. Now.... I suspect there are more politics involved.
I get on the plane and grab my seat. I have a window seat as requested. What's really cool is I have the 3 seats all to myself. Yea. Breakfast was a kiesh creation. (What happened to simple eggs and bacon. Or cereal etc...)
I arrive at LAX and start looking for a shuttle. I read the signs and get in line where the buses are suppose to arrive. After waiting there for about 20 min (I was going to take the Airport shuttle which you don't need a reservation for) I see a Super Shuttle zoom past with an Anaheim sign. Oh what luck! If I move really fast maybe I can bum a ride. Fortunately, they stopped about 20 ft down and there was room for one more passenger.
I get to the Magic Lamp hotel. The driver had remember that the Hotel had come under new management (Something I was unaware of) and was kind enough to wait for me to make sure this was the right office.
I get into the office and attempt to get the room. They have no record of the registration. ARG! They want to know first name, last name of the person who booked it. It was suppose to be booked under Raksha. There was no record of Raksha in the system. I had the reservation number but that was under the old system. They grab the sheet of paper which had the reservation number on it. (plus details on how to find Charlotte, pizza details etc.)
They finally figure out what was going on and give me my hotel room. Way in the back hidden behind everything! Arg! No one is going to see the sign back there. Oh well nothing I can do about it now. I take the room check in and put the sign up. Meanwhile, hoping Raksha doesn't kill me because I had to give the desk clerk her legal name to fulfill the requirements to let her check in. Then I haul out the Unoffical Guide to BotCon which I printed out and the email from Rob telling me where Tut's and Darryn's room was.
I grab the clip board and take off planning to catch Tut on the way around the block as I scope out places to eat. I finally make it to Quality Inn noting the stip mall on the way (but completely missing where the 7-11 was) I spend a couple of hours there talking to Tut and Darryn then I get ancy. What if Raksha is has checked in, has no idea where Tut and Darryn are and is at the hotel all alone? I eventually leave to complete my tour around the block while Tut and Darryn head off to Disney land and Star Tours. They are planning to be back around 8 pm for supper. I didn't know if I could hold off that long but promised to get in contact later.
As part of my tour around the block I hit the pizza hut at the Marriot and find out that you can do pick up but no delivery. I grab a menu just in case assuming that Round Table delivered and that would be better. (Little did I know that they do not deliver but that is an adventure in itself. BTW I just received an ad for Round Table here. I guss they are all over.)
Eventually, I make it back to the hotel to find that no Raksha didn't make it. Knowing that Raksha left about 12 hrs late I wasn't surprised but I still worry. I figured I would read for a bit then go swim. Later I hear a bunch of banging near the taps. Turning them on I find that there is no water! Great! well the must be fixing them. I will wait until they are fixed before I go out to swim. I want to make sure I can rince all the chlorine out of my swim suit before I go.
The water's back! Great now I can swim while keeping an eye out for Raksha and Doug. I foolishly forgot to print out Doug's email about when he was coming and couldn't remember if he was arriving at 3pm or 5pm. The pool was close to the parking lot so I hoped to keep an eye out for them. I was going to enjoy my swim... After all the advertisement said Heated Pool..
HA!!!! what heat? Man was that cold! However, it was refreshing during the heat of the day. I stay in only for a little while then head back to my room. To discover that again I didn't have any water. After calling the front desk and being put on hold for a while I give up. I turn on the tap, hoping that I would be around when the water finally stared flowing so I could turn it off again. After reading a bit more of my book I decided to go out to the front desk and wait for Doug.
That didn't last very long as I realized that waiting around here wasn't that great of an idea since I get bored easily. I left a message for Doug to grab me at my room for supper when he comes in. (By this time my stomach was wrapping itself around my spine as it reminded me that Breakfast was a very long time ago and that I had skipped lunch.) I found out that Ben was coming in tomorrow (Friday) so I didn't have to worry about him.
Returning to my room I decided to watch a little bit of TV but found that the tvs were really really old and didn't get many channels. I had a choice between game shows and Judge Judy. I took the game shows.
So here I am lying on the bed with the curtains wide open trying to watch TV and the parking lot at the same time to see if anyone is coming. Needless to say I'm not very sucessful because Doug comes by without me noticing, taps on the window and scares the living daylights out of me.
Poor Doug didn't have the benefit of a nice shuttle driver who knew the area had been dropped off at the Hyatt and had to walk all the way over to our hotel dragging his luggage.
It has reached 8 pm which was the time Tut gave me for supper. Doug and I attempt to find a pay phone (calls from the room were 75 cents where from a pay phone it was 35) only to find the one in our complex in use. We go to the hotel office to find that that was the only pay phone in the complex but there was one down by Tiffy's where we planned to eat.
We reach the pay phone to find that it isn't accepting any money. Calling the operator to see what we could do didn't help much either. Apparently, the coin slot wasn't the only thing busted on this phone... The speaker didn't work and I am fairly sure the mic didn't work at all because all attempts to reach the operator failed when the operator hung up on us...
Finally, we go into Tiffy's to find that yes there is a pay phone in the restaurant. I grab the phone and call Tut's room only to find that they haven't made it back yet. I leave a message (whoever they have running the front desk at the Quality Inn has to learn how to write faster) return to Doug at which point we grab a table.
I order the BBQ chicken and Ribs which were quite good and tastey. I didn't manage to finish them but we packed them up to put into Doug's fridge with the plan of grabbing them for Breakfast the next morning.
Upon returning to the hotel we discover that Raksha has just arrived and has managed to check in. I insist on clearing out the car (which leaves very little walking space in the room) because I have had too many friends broken into recently.
We discover a weird phone message, my brother has called... or was it Raksha's brother... They are not quite sure and the area code is definately not anywhere near our brothers. We tell the front desk that they definately have the wrong room and perhaps they should look around a bit more.
We settle in for the night after Raksha registers her car at the front desk only to find we have really noisy neighbors. Which was ok... Until they started commenting on Raksha's car Soundwave II. This started getting her really worried (she's afraid someone would slash her tires because they didn't like her) reading off the licence plate was the last straw. Whiping open the door she asks "Is there soemthing wrong with my car?" you can tell she is pissed. They hurredly assure her that no there was nothing wrong and they were Transformers fans. They take off in their brown stationwagon shortly after that.
Finally, with the noise relocated we can get some sleep.
Raksha and I woke up bright and early Friday morning. After a brief debate on who gets the shower first Raksha desides to have a quick cat nap while I shower.
Remember those water problems from yesterday? Well I had forgotten, and this was about to nip me but good. I turn on the shower, thinking good water pressure. I will actually be able to rinse my hair out. Then I look again and notice that the shower head is quite low. I shrug philosophically noting that this was common in California hotels. Then I put my hand under the tap.
ARG! COLD Cold cold cold. I crank the heat WAY up. It doesn't make a difference. Steeling myself I duck under and have a very cold shower. If I wasn't awake before I definately was now. Getting out I warn Raksha then make preparations for breakfast as Raksha suffers with the cold shower.
Walking over to Doug's room I try to collect my leftovers for breakfast.. It didn't quite work that way. It kind of goes like this
Ooookaaay. Maybe I won't have leftovers for breakfast. I collect Raksha and we head for Tiffy's for their breakfast special. We figure $4.29 for two pancakes, two sausage, two bacon and two eggs was pretty good. After ordering our meal Doug joins us. Apparently, he thought I was the cleaning lady and it was only after I had left that my name had registered. Ooopse.
Once we finished a quick breakfast Raksha and I head back to the hotel room to plan the trip to LAX. Charlotte was scheduled to arrive around 12:15 and we wanted plenty of time to get lost on the way to the airport. It took us a while to sort on the directions (going in reverse from the once given to reach the Convention) and the maps. (I can best describe Raksha's map book as well loved.)
Finally, we are on the road and hit the construction in the area head on. Yuck! That took quite a bit to navigate around. Not fun. Eventually we make it to Ball Road which connects to I5 the first highway on our trip back to LAX. Normally you can get onto I5 from Harbour Road which is right by the convention center.
That was the easy part. While driving back to LAX we discovered quite a few of the roads were under construction/maintenance which made the drive very entertaining indeed. One particularly interesting aspect was the connection onto #91. It was really well marked. There were signs everywhere telling us that #91 exit was on the left etc. Considering the signs up until that point were anything but spetacular we should have wondered why this particular route was so well marked. Instead we just commented that it was well marked.
Until we hit a blind turn that was. Then just as we came out of the blind turn we found the #91 exit. Ouch a take off from the left lane with no merging lane leaving at about a 60 degree angle from the highway. There was no time to make a decision. Fortunately, we were prepared and caught the exit. However, I can see many people missing that turn off. Even when you know it is there it comes up unexpectedly.
The rest of the trip was fairly uneventful until we reached the airport.
Traffic around LAX was insane. We reached the airport with 45 min to spare. (This was before we found out the flight was delayed) We get in line for the parkade. Then realize that the line we are in is for the Terminal 1 parkade not the Terminal 2 parkade. So we go around the block.
Remember this block is the size of 1 parkade. It took us 40 minutes to go around this block. I could walk it faster than that. As it was we were very glad the flight was delayed.
Given a choice between meeting Charl's flight at the gate and at the baggage claim we choose the gate. That is until we discovered that the passengers were not coming through the gate. We could see them coming out of the door then turning left and dissappearing through a walk way. It took me a while to clue in that Charlotte would have to go through US customs at LAX (where as I passed it in Vancouver). That lead me and Raksha on a mad scramble to find out where customs was in LAX. We finally found in on the baggage claim level.
There we waited for her to show. Given the description of Blond waist length hair gold rim glasses and about 5 ft 5. (After I translated the metric measurements to imperial)
So we wait. And we watch the flight crew go through. At which point those not familiar with customs start getting nervous because logically the flight crew should be last. (However there generally is a special lane for the flight crew when going through customs) Nice uniforms by the way. I liked the shoulder scarf. It was nice and colorful and really set the uniform off.
Waiting was made more complicated by the fact that 3 planes landed at once so passing through customs was a complete mess. Finally, Charlotte spots us. Introductions are made and we attempt to make it out of LAX.
Which was much easier than finding a parking spot at LAX. We make it back to the hotel to collapse a bit before setting up the art display and dealer's table.
Just before it is time to leave for BotCon I take a trip by the front desk to find out if Ben has check in. If he hasn't I was going to leave a message. Fortunately, he check in 5 minutes before I visited the front desk. I collect him, show him where everyone is staying and drag him up to our room so he can see the map I printed out from the Unofficial Guide to BotCon.
At the hotel room Raksha is madly scrambling to set things up for the contest and Charlotte is completely out of it. (Jet lag will do that to a person.) Finally, when it is about half an hour past the time the Art stuff should have started setting up Raksha is ready to begin. We load up the car through Raksha and Charlotte in the front seat then Ben and I proceed to walk to the convention center.
Along the way we bump into Doug who wasn't in his room the first go around. He too is on the way to the convention center carrying two heavy boxes of books on a trolly cart. (Which then proceeds to dump the boxes everywhere but that is another story.) Along the way... Who should we see leaving the convention center but Lizard, Hex and Xiphos. (At first given that the sun was coming from behind them I thought it was MSipher but I later realize it was Xiphos. man do those two look alike.) (Was Tengu in that crowd as well? I can't remember.)
After a long talk and attempts to break it off three or four times we finally get our little group going... Only to find that Raksha had just arrived. (I figured for sure she would be in there setting up by then. Maybe we hadn't talked as long as I thought.)
Raksha is dragged to and fro so I'm left to set up the art. I'm ok with this because I've done it numerous times before. However, being left defacto in charge because Raksha has completely dissappeared (when to grab more stuff from her room, then Tut's room then I don't know where.) was a little disconcerting. Especially, since Jon and Karl asked us to keep eveyrone out who wasn't a dealer.
Fortunately, Darryn was there! Yea! He also didn't mind being put to work. I had him man the table by the door intercepting all the artists getting them to fill out the various forms and attaching tags to their art. (BTW a thought for whomever is doing the art contest next year. Get a marker and make a colored dot on the tag of all items up for auction. It makes things easier to located. Little circular stickers work too)
Burt (Skyflight) Ward was also around. After he finished setting up his table he started setting up Raksha's as well. (Their tables being beside each other) He then helped with the art contest. This was great I really needed the help.
Eventually, we were kicked out of the room and that ended the art contest set up for Friday. Fortunately, before we were kicked out someone had the foresight to grab Karl and confirm that the "party" had been put off until 9 pm. A change of about 2 hours.
This left us time to find supper. Darryn and Tut volunteered to host so long and we brought our own food and drinks. Raksha and I ran back to the hotel grabbed my left overs and MSipher and headed to the 7-11 for some drinks. Lizard, Doug and Robert went for Maylasian food and Charlotte decided to clean up before heading to Tut's room.
We found the 7-11 where I bought a bag or Doritos and two huge bottles of soda. (The large 2L pop bottles for those Canadians reading this). Leaving the 7-11 we find Tut's room in the Quality Inn. Tut's room has a microwave (nice!) I heat up my supper (making everyone in the room envious because it smells so good. ) and everyone digs in.
Tut and Darryn try to give mari-gras beads to everyone and offers cups to those who don't have any. We generally hang around and goof off. Charlotte arrives and starts admiring MSipher's art work. (Especially when she realizes that the stuff on that page was only drawn that day) This leads to a general exibition of artwork. Later Tut treats us to a reading of various transformers related news stories she dug up in the library archives. Some of them are quite funny.
Eventually the rest of the gang shows up and we have fun until it is time to leave for the party. Lizard sulks that he can't go until he realizes that the 3rd season of Reboot is sitting in the hotel room. (Lizard and Xiphos brought a TV and a VCR so we could rehearse the MST3K) Facing 6 hours of reboot completely cured him of the sulks. At least until he found out that he could have paid some money and made it in. Oopse.
I will skip most of the party except to say that towards the end Raksha and Doug Parker were talking about him joining a MUSH and that was how he ended up in Tut's room. You see as the party brook up we invited him to join us and wonders of wonders he accepted.
I sent everyone else on ahead then followed Doug as he told the other voice actors where he was going. Once those duties were done I grabbed Doug and we caught up to the rest of the gang going to Tut's room, finding that the group had expanded into the Starscream party.
Once there I learn that Raksha had not made it back. So after grabbing Doug a coke and some ice I set out in hunt for Raksha. Who fortunately, had not left the convention center. (I had this fear of her going back to the hotel and discovering that Nope we weren't there.) Upon finding her I manage to disentangle her from the current conversation and dragged her back to the hotel room where we hung out with Doug until about midnight. (Tut again treated us to readings from the news paper. A good one was the equating of COBRA to Nazis)
Once the party breaks up we head back to the room. I go straight to the room while Raksha, Doug and Charlotte go to the office to pick up any messages that may be there. When Raksha and Charlotte return I find that we are moving. Apparently, they weren't going to get hot water back in the suite any time soon. I pack up my stuff walk over to the new suite and send Charlotte back to pack her stuff and to help Raksha with her things. While that was going on I called Doug to let him know that we were in a new room. A nice feature of the new room was a microwave and a fridge.
The room was smelling musty so I attempted to clear out the room by turning the fan on in the air conditioner. bad mistake. That just made the stink worse. I quickly turned it off. When Charlotte and Raksha arrived I told them about the room stink problem. Fortunately, Charlotte had a solution.... A bottle of perfume. We found spraying perfume in the air and breathing that far perferable to the musty stink of the air conditioner. Eventually, everything settled down and we were able to get to sleep.
Saturday started with Raksha's alarm clock going off. She got up and had a shower. I rolled over and grabbed a bit more sleep. Not much because Raksha was out the door by 7am (The set up time for dealers and the art contest) this got me out the door by 7:30 am.
Before I left I determined what type of pizza we were going to have for Dinner. I wanted to preorder the pizza for our group and avoid the disaster that occured last year where we had 30 people in the room and no food.
If you've noticed that there is no breakfast mentioned thats right. We didn't have breakfast.
I make it to the convention center and started madly setting up art contest entries. I don't remember much of the next two hours except that people came up and talked to me but I was in so much of a panic that I didn't give very sensible answers. (I suspect Helgi was put off a bit by my responces, Sorry)
Sometime along the way Gryph, Birgit (different one) and Jenn show up. I hear the name Birgit and quickly run up and introduce myself (thinking I was talking to Gryph. Completely forgetting there were two of them.) she says hi and looks at me like the name means nothing to her. Oh well back to setting up the art contest.
Later I hear Gryph's name, realize I made a mistake and introduce myself to the right one. Ok I've got a face to go along with a name I can find her later. Back to work. Shortly there after Jon & Karl announce that the convention goers will be coming in about 5 - 10 minutes.
PANIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We weren't done yet.. We weren't even close to done yet. ARG! Must work faster.
Fortunately, we managed to get done about 5 minutes after everyone flooded the room. PHEW!!! Time to breath.
I locate Gryph and company (They were at David K's booth ordering some pictures) and we start talking about various fanfic. Specifically, her latest ones with Daemon and Fang. I then mention the teaser to the third KnightRider fanfic mentioning it wasn't fair. At which point Jenn asks me if I want to read the first chapter.
DO I?
Oh good! They have a printout back at their room ready for corrections. They will bring it by sometime. That leads me and Jenn to talk about fanfic and characters in general. Apparently, some interesting things will be happening to Fang. Which brings up snakes (Fang transformers into a rather large venemous snake) which brings up Avatar. Whom Jenn has never heard of.
Poor thing. Well we have to correct this at once. I drag Jenn over to Raksha's table give a quick introduction and grab Avatar from the carrying case. Avatar meet Jenn, Jenn meet Avatar. They like each other good. Actually, Jenn loves snakes but her parents won't let her have one. Oh well.
We wander back to David K's table (set up right across from the art auction) where Gryph is ordering a picture. Avatar quite happily wanders from person to person nearly throttling Jenn in the process. The tip of Avatar's tail is prehensil and when she wasn't throttling Jenn she had the tip of her tail wrapped in a complicated knot around Jenn's backpack.
So we wandered around the convention center together for a bit. Looking at all the interesting displays and introducing Avatar everywhere.
"This is Avatar. No she doesn't belong to us she belongs to Raksha. She is an albino Burmese Python and she is around 6ft 7in"
(Actually, we measured Avatar Sunday night. I stretched out on the bed and we stretched Avatar out beside me then took an educated guess based on that.)
Basically, we had fun until we hit Raksha's table again and Raksha wanted Avatar back. This gave me an opportunity to grab a concert video and to wander outside to where the table was set up. I grabbed a map of the convention center and a pamphlet which listed the voice actors. Later on after I talked to Doug Dlin I realize that on the back of the map was the schedule for all the panels. D'OH! I didn't even look at the back and here I am asking everyone when the panels are on.
Then I do the quick tour of the area getting $5 from everyone for the pizza supper. (It ended up being $7 with tonnes of pizza left over but that is still pretty good for a meal.)
Eventually, I make it to the panels find out where the rest of the gang is sitting and join them. Most of the morning panels were a blurr but I remember Rob, Jade and Lizard inviting me and the rest out for Chineese. Unfortunately, we had to leave at 11:30 in order to make it back for the afternoon panels the first of which was the Hasbro one. I passed on that one since I wanted to listen to the rest of the panel plus I had a Plummed Serpent to feed. Chinese takeout would be a bit difficult.
The panel ran overtime and ended around 12:30 giving barely half and hour before the next one started. I left the convention center and headed to the strip mall. Wonder what would make a decent lunch yet be transportable enough that I could feed Raksha. (Knowing that if I didn't feed her she would skip lunch as well as Breakfast. The same thing happens every convention.) Lo and behold there is a Subway at the strip mall. Perfect. I can get something small and transportable which would get me back in time for the panel (not quite but close enough. I only missed some of the commercials shown on the tape) plus I could feed Raksha.
I make it to Subway and who would I see in line in front of me but Charlotte. The one person I hadn't found yet for pizza money. After getting some money from her I found that she was not only getting food for herself but she was feeding Burt Skyfire Ward. Humm I smell a trend happening. Fortunately, Burt takes better care of himself than Raksha does. He kindly supplied drinks to anyone who needed them for which I am most thankful. (On Sunday when we were taking down the art contest and loading up Raksha car and I was seriously stressing out Burt showed up with a Lemonaid. I said thanks then but I will say it again. Thanks Burt I really really appreciated that lemonade) We grab our food and hot foot it back to the convention. Along the way who should we bump into but MSipher also on a search for food and drink. We chat long enough for the light to change and MSipher asks us to save him a seat.
We make it back to the dealer room and Charlotte give Burt his foot long sub. I give Raksha half of my foot long Sub. (Cutting the paper with Raksha's pocket knife. That was fun... ) Figuring six inches of sub should do both of us. She promises to eat it. (I later learn that she got about half to three quarters of it down. Sigh. This happened last year as well.)
We race in grab a spot and start scarfing down our sandwiches. They were quite good. About 5 minutes later MSipher walks in and joins us carrying one of those 7-11 big gulps and a Subway sandwich? He looks at us with a grin and says it looked like a good idea.
Eventually, everyone else shows up and the question period starts. Hex asks a question of the panel then Lizard asks him a question. Hex leans over to answer just in time to get spotted and berated for not listening to the answer to the question he asked. Bad Lizard you got Hex in trouble.
At the end of the toy panel everyone gets up to leave. Meanwhile I'm thinking what are you nuts? The voice actor's panel is about to start. This one ran overtime. Oh well... This gives me plenty of opportunity to steal their better seats.
Meanwhile, Gryph, Jenn and Birgit move in. YEA!!!! They have the printout of chapter one. I promise to read it and get it back to them the next day.. Apparently, this is the only printout. (BTW it is very good. If you have read her previous two KnightRider stories and liked them you will also like this one.) Eventually, our gang figures out what is going on and grab seats again. However, they weren't as good as before because a whole CROWD have moved in for the voice panels.
The voice panel was neat and interesting the highlights were of course the Dinobot Rigid grill structure line, Dr. Wiley's laugh and for me getting Waspinator to say he didn't know Why people called him the universe's chew toy.
Once the Voice actor's panel was done we head back to the dealer's room where the autograph signing would take place. I grab Tut and find out when she would be heading back to her room because I want to order the pizza from there. (Our hotel was charging 75 cents per local call. Ouch!) Tut meanwhile is running back to her room to grab the Starscream cake so the voice actors could see it. (BTW this is a Beautiful cake with a picture of Starscream done on the icing. Apparently, Rosestar (I think that is her name) order the cake a month in advance)
That was fine, I wasn't up to moving around anyway. I told her that I would grab the chairs at the back and she could find me there. Preferable by 5:30. That way I could relax and read Fanfic. I am a sucker for a good fanfic. (Though my guilty concious reminds me that I am yet again over 2 months behind in getting stories up on TranFicBase.) Meanwhile, Jon ReTrax comes by and asks me to keep an eye on his stuff. That's fine by me. So long as it doesn't require me putting down the fanfic I'm happy.
Eventually, the cake thing is settled and Tut and I head back to order the pizza. Only to find out that Round Table doesn't deliver. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!
Ok that means either doing the local Pizza Hut which also doesn't deliver but we could at least walk to or find someone with a car. I know of three people with cars, Robert Jung, Raksha and Xiphos. Raksha was out. She didn't know the local area and likes the California traffic about as much as I do. (Meaning not at all) However, Xiphos and Robert are both Californians. Maybe I can sucker one of them into driving.
I grab Xiphos and Rob together and explain the problem. Xiphos doens't know where it is. Robert knows where the pizza is but is scheduled to handle something else. Robert draws a little map for us and Xiphos and I leave to order the pizza. (XL of pepperoni, Mushroom, Hawaiian, Meatlovers and BBQ Chicken.) We order it to be ready for 6:30. Then I run around and make sure Raksha and everyone else I could get a hold of know to go to Tut's room.
Then Xiphos and I take Rob's little sketch and go out to get pizza. Bearing in mind that Rob said it was "Close by". So we drive. And we drive. And we drive some more. Meanwhile I'm thinking 'Close by? Remind me to talk to Rob about his definition of close by' Eventually, I mention this to Xiphos who responds that Mr. Chompy said he lived close by as well. (Xiphos originally was rooming with Mr. Chompy) Xiphos explained to me that an LAites definition of close by included about 45 min of driving time and did not correspond to anyone else's definition of close by.
Eventually, we come across something called Brookhurst Heights. (Brookhurst being the name of the road we were looking for) So taking hope we drive a bit more. We still don't see the road. Eventually, we run out of road completely. Fortunately, Xiphos spots a mall. We go into the Fred Meyer and grab a map.
Brookhurst street is in completely in the opposite direction of the way we were traveling.
ARG!
We look at Rob's map again. Oopse. Now we figure out what D in a circle means.
So we head back. Eventually we make it to Round Table Pizza. (Xiphos knows what the signs look like which gives us a bit of warning.) They were freaking out because we were about an hour late. Ooopse. Fortunately, they kept the pizza in the oven for us.
We make it back to Quality Hotel where Xiphos parks his car and we rush up to Tut's room. To find that only about half the people who said they were going to be there actually turned up. Meanwhile I'm freaking because I've paid about $91 for pizza and not everyone one is here to eat it.
Fortunately, Burt was there to help spead the cost and the rest of the gang showed up later. PHEW!!!!
Still we had about the equilivalent of 2 XL pizzas left over. That solved Breakfast, lunch and supper for Sunday as well as Breakfast for Monday.
Everyone was fed and happy. Mission accomplished. Though someone else can be the pizza ordering person next year.
After the Pizza party we headed down to the script reading session. Again we had a nice long line but it wasn't too bad. The script session was fun especially the "Oh No Raksha" part and shooting Ben Yee.
Unfortunately, Raksha wasn't there but we had our revenge 
Xiphos does a mean Waspinator and Megatron. Lizard handled RatTrap and I did Antangony. She had a nice script reading all to herself. Several times as we each went over our favorite parts. I think we eventually made it through the script from end to end in order. Though I suspect she may have a word with Mr. Forward later about the tourcher her roommates put her through
Unfortunately, we didn't get any pictures because no one had a camera but the look on her face was somewhere between disgusted and pleased grin. Eventually we wore her down enought that she saw the funny side of it.
After that everyone went to bed.
Sunday morning arrived bright and early again. This time we had breakfast. Left over Pizza. It wasn't too bad. In order to heat it up in the microwave and contain the mess we used my left over resumes as paper plates.
Knew there was a use for those things.
We talk for a bit after which Raksha leaves and I drag my lazy bones to the shower. I arrive at the convention center in time to see Rob setting up the video camera in the hall. After assuring him that I will operate the VCR I hunt down Gryph and Jenn to return the story.
I return to Rob to learn that Lizard didn't know when in the script to shout lights. I quickly start scribbling down cues on a piece of paper as the others try to get other things organized. Everyone but Rob dissappears to I don't know where so there is no time to teach Lizard the cues. I end up shouting lights.
We get to the video room to learn that I'm not allowed to touch the equipment. Instead I have to sit by the equipment and tell the guy operating it when to pause etc. This can be a bit of a pain. The really bad thing was someone didn't rewind the movie tape so we were a little late getting started with our first light cue.
Sigh.
All in all the performance seemed to go quite well and I will let others comment on it. I will only mention that the lack of mics made the sound a bit of a nightmare.
After the show I returned to the hotel to have some of the pizza for lunch. MSipher, Charlotte, Burt Ward and someone else joined me there. (I cant' quite remember everyone who was there) MSipher had cold Pizza the rest of us prefered it warmed.
Burt then took some of the pizza to the convention center to feed Raksha.
After lunch I attempted to attend a few panels but the G1 cartoon panel was just so dull in the begining that I couldn't handle it. I left to wander around the dealer's room.
I met up with Gryph and Jenn at David K's table where they were attempting to order a few more drawings. What they were suceeding at was driving David K absolutely nuts. If you go to Gryph's page and see the photo of someone talking to a stuffed animal that is actually David talking to Gryph's stuffed gryphon complaining about how no one understands him. It was quite funny. We had to divert his attention in order to get the Gryphon back.
Jenn ordered about three pictures, one of Fang, one of Tiran (sp?) and one of Ashtar. I wasn't there when she ordered the Fang one but if it went anything like the other two I can understand why David was talking to stuffed animals. By the time they got to Ashtar's picture I was alternatly heckeling them and helping. After correctly interpreting some of Jenn's comments/descriptions I ended up as official translator. David would ask a question, Jenn would answer, I would rephrase the question Jenn would answer again and I would give a translation to David who then wrote it down. This went on for quite a bit. I would love to see the pictures when they are done. David is quite talented.
Eventually, it came to BotCon closing time. Unfortunately, the Q&A panel was not done when they decided to close the dealer's room. This was not good. Raksha was in the Q&A panel which I forgot. However, most of the artists and bidders for the art contest/auction were in the dealer's room. When the closing of the room was announce a mad rush to grab artwork was created.
It was insane. I hope to never to live though that again. Artists were grabbing their art from the wall. The security guard had dissappeared over an hour before. (The guards seemed to come and go at will. That part of the convention was poorly organized)
I had one artist in particular grab all of her work. Accuse someone of stealing one of the prints because she didn't find it. After she went through the pile again she found it and took off. Saying if the bidder ever showed up they could grab her and they would do the trade then. As she took off she left behind another piece of her art work. (In the middle of all of this was a rant about being gyped by art types before. )
Meanwhile I was trying to organize the bids and keep track of the various pieces of art as the mad rush continued. About half an hour later Raksha shows up wonders what I'm doing. Fortunately, she can obvious see that I am very stressed. She had been told that there would be time to handle the art auction after the Q&A panel. Unfortunately, no one told the guy who announced the closing of the room that.
Eventually, after Raksha, Charlotte and Burt showed up things got straightened out reasonably well. However, my nerves are pretty much shot by this point (In addition to being tired after being on a severe high most of the convention. I am not use to operating on such a high) so I start reacting badly to just about everything that goes on around me.
After the art stuff is packed up we start loading up Raksha's table. It is decided that Raksha will go back to the hotel to get the car while the rest of us shuttle all the stuff out to the curb. Burt, Charlotte and I make a trip out the curb then I remain behind to guard the stuff while the others continue shuttling things around. This also gave me the opportunity to have a quite cry as the fact BotCon was over and the stress finally got to me. Fortunately, I was pretty much done/had it under control by the time the others made a return trip. (Unlike BotCon '97 where I made the entire room miserable as I burst out crying in the hotel room Sunday morning.)
Eventually, Raksha showed up with the car and we started loading. After we were done she ran in to check on things in dealer's room and Burt was kind enough to go to the Hyatt to grab Charlotte and me a drink. I was grateful for that lemonade because it gave me something else to concentrate on. Shortly there after Tut and Darryn showed up. They wanted to know what we were doing for dinner. Meanwhile other chaotic things were happening as Raksha darted back and forth trying to find Doug amoung other things. After several minutes of sitting around and not doing anything I finally had enough I thanked Burt for the drink then told everyone that I was heading back to the hotel room they could come grab me if they wanted me.
Back at the hotel was better. It was dark and I didn't have to think. I could try to sort out my head. Later Raksha showed up and said that the other's wanted to go to Tiffy's for supper. (Envy from my nice smelling BBQ Chicken and Ribs from the previous night.) At this point I was NOT up to handling crowds even if it was a crowd of my own friends let alone a restaurant situation. I responded that she could go but I really didn't feel like it besides whe still had an entire extra large Pizza around. She either had enough of crowds herself or felt sorry for me and elected to have pizza as well.
So when Charlotte, Tut, Darryn, Doug and Burt showed up we told them that we weren't going and they went on a head to Tiffy's and Raksha and I had Pizza. Specifically, there were two types left a little bit of pepperoni and the BBQ chicken special. (Actually, 3/4 of an XL was the chicken one.)
We heated up a couple of slices of each type. Then sat down to eat. At which point we found out exactly WHY the chicken was left over. It wasn't that it was bad per se but it just didn't fit into my idea of pizza. It just didn't taste "right". I'm still not sure what it was... wether it had too many peppers, onions or something else it just wasn't "right" We ended up picking the chicken off eating that and tossing the rest of the slick. The next time we order pizza we get a medium of this particular flavor (Doug likes it).
After supper we talked about various things mainly about the possibility of having a joint vacation in Florida at a great cat refuge. This is a place where you are trained in the handling of the great cats (yes we are talking lions, tigers, cougers, pumas etc.) and at the end of the training you can stay in a cabin over night with the great cat of your choice. It is an interesting concept but I have to find out more about it before I do anything. Specifically price will be a BIG factor.
Eventually, 9 pm rolls around and we decide that given how tired we are we should go to bed. So we get ready, I managed to grab the bath room first and get dressed. Just as I was about to get into bed (and I mean just.. I was reaching to pull down the covers) Charlotte and the gang show up and start pounding on the door. ARG!
Oh well. I quickly throw on some street clothes and let them in. Everyone crowds into our small hotel room and start talking. Loudly. They are still high from BotCon while I'm ready to drop. Eventually, Doug and Burt decide it is a bit late and leave. That leaves Tut and Darryn in the room who are still going strong. Around 11pm I've had enough. I stretch out on the bed close my eyes and try to drift off to sleep. About half an hour later Tut and Darryn run out of steam and make their good byes. After that everyone turns in.