Spacebabie writes...

Con Journal...first half

Friday: June 22

We both had everything prepared the night before, because we had to get up at 4:30 in the morning. We got dressed packed up everything and went to Revel's mother's place where we left Hyena and she drove us to the airport…basically to save cash by not parking at the airport.

Lines were long at the airport, it was early in the morning and the lines were still long, line to check the bag and the line for the scan, made longer since there was only one scanner, but then they opened up a second one. Weeee. Took the monorail to Terminal B… and boarded the express jet.

Flight did not seem long at all. I dozed through most of it, except for take off, landing in Nashville and when they gave out muffins and beverages, ah precious coffee, come to mama.

On the way to the rental car the strap to my laptop case broke. Jack turned out to be fine. Yeah, different laptop, got it a few months prior since Pippin's backlight went out. I named it after the monkey.

Not long after we got on the road we got a real breakfast at McDonalds where I had another yogurt parfait, and an orange juice. I dozed again until we were a few miles outside of Knoxville. Revel decided to try to take a shortcut, but that took us through downtown Knoxville and through a lot of stops.

After we left the city and suburbs and ended up in the sticks we were getting confused, about where we were going. After several minutes of confusion we came through and into Pigeon Forge, after that it was downhill from there. Saw a lot of go-carts, mini golf courses, pancake houses…and a Wonderworks? (The upside down building) Holy cow, somebody cloned International Drive (Street where the 2000 motel was located), and placed it in Tennessee. We Called GregX for final directions and we called him again when we reached the parking lot.

The first person we run into once again is Greg Weisman, and then we came across GregX and were introduced to the elevators and the stairs. After we got a parking pass and were able to put our stuff into the room Revel and I got our con packets and Revel set up his art and we got caught up with our friends until Revel and Emambu went to the try out for the radio show.

I needed actual cash and Mandi showed me where the nearest ATM was, after I came across some paper I returned to the dealers and bought a Serenity shirt, and then I plopped down and did some drawing until they returned. I pointed out the Serenity shirts to Revel and he bought one.

After a group formed, Hudson took us outside where he could smoke and told us a story. We stayed out until Opening ceremonies.

At opening ceremonies we came across the small problem involving the large screen. Greg W decided to do away with the chairs and we sat down on the floor. Nikki welcomed us to the 2007 Gathering, introduced the staff and handed the focus to Jen who gave the fan of the year award to Karine. The focus went over to Susan Leonard who was speaking for Ellen for the 2008 Gathering in Chicago.

Then Greg W took the spotlight. He explained the sales of the DVD's, comics, mentioned Bad Guys and Pendragon. He asked for the Newbies and to see how many Gatherings people have attended. Poor Aaron had lost count of how many he had attended. Greg explained the history of the series, starting with the original comedy pitch and brought in the goodies, the pitches for Gargoyles, for the spin offs, and The Last. Greg W also broke the podium.

After opening ceremonies a group of us went to find food. GregX, Revel, Winterwolf, Legacy, Fan, Gside and I went to Huck Finn; a restaurant that advertised all you can eat catfish. It also had a store similar to Cracker-barrel. They served drinks in mason jars and every table got complimentary vittals; hush puppies, pickles, onions, and beans. I had the grilled trout.

After dinner we returned to the hotel room where we chatted until we were ready to sleep.

Saturday June 23
We woke up and after a shower we sought out breakfast and went to the Red Rooster Pancake house. Oh sweet lord what they did with pancakes, I had the berrylicious pancakes, so many berries, blackberries, raspberries, blueberries, and strawberries on top of a triple stack with whip cream on top and coffee to drink. I am a zombie without my coffee in the morning.

I came back in time for the figure drawing panel and watched as the models sit and stand in positions while we sketched them.

After the panel I was thirsty, real thirsty. Revel and I went to a soda machine and I tried a vault for the first time, one of those cool bottles lasted for a while. We hung out in the dealers room and I got to meet Silver's fiancé, Jordan…and Holy sweet frip, can the dude draw! He was doing amazing shading details to big warrior brute, not sure if it was an orc, or a troll, or an ogre.

I went to the World Building panel, being that is a writing panel for fantasy and sci-fi writers. There were a lot of details, such as creating different alien races and how they would communicate, read, eat, etc. How their society would be set up, family units, politics, and religion. We also covered the different ways to use magic for fantasy.

Then came the othercon art discussion: Hooray pron, and Hooray Mara showing us how to draw naughty bits, making men and women realistic and how that would transfer over to gargoyles and the Fae, and while the discussion was going on, I was drawing something innocent…yes I solemnly swear I was drawing characters with their clothes still on.

Then it was time for the Radio Play, and just like in 2004 it was a pretty large cast. It was a performance of issues 3, 4 and 5 of the Gargoyles comic. Yeah that is right issue 5 and yes I know what happens, and you have to wait for it to come out in July. All I can say is that Emambu was amazing.

After the play it was time to eat. Another group of us trekked across busy traffic for pizza at Papa Johns. Revel and I split a pepperoni and olive pizza and I claimed the jalapeno. After pizza we played round of mini golf, and there were times when we the golf ball left the green and bounced on the sidewalk.

We had an hour to kill after the game and hung out in our room until it was time for Blue Mug, and it was pretty blue, lots of nice dirty questions, to keep us mulled over. The Blue Mug lasted until about 1:30 when Thom left, and when Thom leaves then everybody leaves.