Dragon Con 2017 - Sunday!

Alton Brown!

This is the last post in my Dragon Con 2017 recap! To start from the beginning, click here!

Sunday is generally my favorite day at Dragon Con. It's a bit less crowded but still there is a full day's worth of stuff going on. We got down to the con and went to the dealer's room. I hung out at the BPAL booth for a while, just chatting with friends. I got to meet my friend Jodi in person for the first time - it was awesome!

After getting some food in the con suite, I went to wait for the Alton Brown panel. I got there over an hour beforehand and the disability area was full to the brim. I did get a seat to wait and Todd opted to skip the panel and head off somewhere more quiet.

The panel was awesome, especially since it was announced that Good Eats was coming back. I love that show and I'm excited to see new episodes. I did slip out of the panel early because I wanted to do the panel right after which was a Doctor Who panel. The disability area was jam packed again and this time I didn't get a seat to wait.

After the Alton Brown panel let out, we were funneled into the room. I got a seat on the end of a row. The panel was the Pond Family Reunion - sadly the actor who played Rory had to leave the con early so it was just Karen Gilliam and Alex Kingston. They were highly entertaining though and it was a great panel.

From there, we headed back to my aunt and uncle's house. We hung out with them and my dad. The next morning, my dad took us out to iHop before we got on the road. The trip home was uneventful and we were happy to be home. Dragon Con was a great time for us as usual and we are looking forward to going again this year!

Dragon Con 2007 - Part One

I realized that this year was going to be my 10th Dragon Con. So I'm a little nostalgic on how it all started. We moved to North Carolina in 2005, but after Dragon Con had already happened. In 2006, I didn't go because of going to Michigan for my wedding. But finally 2007 I got to go for the first time.

I stayed with friends and Todd didn't go because he didn't have the time off because that was the year we took our honeymoon. I wrote about the experience in my LJ. Here are some of the highlights!

The drive was fairly uneventful, and we arrived about 5-ish to the Marriott. We tried to check in, but had to wait for my friend Kathleen to arrive. We filled up the time by hanging out with another friend, Nicole and her husband - they were fun to hang out with. We also grabbed dinner, and got our badges. Oddly enough, the line didn't seem that bad to me.

After we got our badges, Kathleen had arrived, and we were able to get into the room. It was a fairly standard hotel room with two double beds (which I think we were lucky to get, because we had been told earlier that only king rooms were left), and it had enough room for me to set up my blow up bed (I brought this because I'm an odd sleeper and that way Kathleen and I could each have our own bed.)

We were on the 41st floor which was very cool, though the elevator rides did make me dizzy almost every time.

Friday dawned very, very early - mostly because the alarm went off at 7:30. I was awake quickly, mostly because I'm used to getting up this early, and I quickly got into my costume, which was my Hogwarts costume.

It was a very hot costume, and I didn't wear it all day. Everyone else got ready and we went downstairs to find out where open gaming was since friends I was staying with were running a one-shot sword and socery Hero game set in Via, which is a world we play in every other Sunday.

Apparently open gaming was not available at that time, so we just took over a table in one of the gaming rooms, expecting to be kicked out. We must have been truly early birds because we weren't bothered at all.

After the game, we headed over to see the stars of Buffy (which included James Marsters, Juliet Landau, Elisabeth Rohm and some random guy who played a demon on the show).

Before the panel though, my friend Alic walked with me to the Hilton to try and find Trader Vic's, where the Bpal meet & sniff was going to be later that night. I thought I had a fairly good grip on how to find it, but alas I was wrong. More on that later

I parted ways with everyone, and went to the Andromeda panel that had Kevin Sorbo and Gordon Michael Woolvett. Gordon Michael Woolvett had a prop from the show and he passed it around. It was neat and I got a fairly good picture of that.

Next up was the Firefly panel - I got in line, waited and managed to get a very good seat because I was alone. Though as the room filled up, I noticed my friend Carmen looking for a seat, and I happened to have one next to me, so we got to sit next to each other.

Unfortunately, Ron Glass was late, so the panel was just Mark Sheppard. It was still a very good panel, and the closest I was for any panel all weekend.

After that, Carmen and I went on the search for Trader Vic's. We got some conflicting directions, and the fact that it was just confusing to find didn't help. We did manage to find it.

We also stopped at both our hotel rooms. I was dying because my costume was so warm, and I had planned on changing before the meet & sniff anyway. So I was very glad to get out of that costume.

Directly before the meet & sniff, Carmen and I went to a Harry Potter panel called "Mourning Potter". It was about the characters who had died and the end of the series in general. It was a very interesting panel.

We then went to the meet & sniff, which was fun - though I have no clue who any of the people were except a couple.

Now, I had had a donut in the room before we left for the game, and we had stopped in the con suite right after the Buffy panel, but I hadn't eaten anything else all day, and everything I had eaten was not good food. I had planned on getting something from Trader Vic's but nothing on their menu looked good, and it was expensive. Carmen got a chicken caeser salad that was very small for what they charged. And she had to get it to go, since the service was slow, and we had wanted to go to the Buffy Horror Picture Show at 10 pm. I had planned on stopping at the con suite after the Buffy show.

We left the Hilton at a little before 10, but managed to make it to the Hyatt just after 10 when we came across a huge line. We asked what it was for, and we were told it was for the 11:30 pm show of Buffy. The line was already really long, so we joined.

This was the longest time I stood in line all weekend - since we had an hour and a half before the show started. It was okay, we talked to some of the people in line. The strangest thing was two cups, at different times, came soaring out of the sky. Luckily they didn't hit anything but the ground.

Finally the line started moving, and we did get in. Though tons of people were turned away from what I heard.

The show itself was great - the audience, including me, sang along with the songs, and a good time was had by nearly all. The only annoying thing was the guys behind us kept talking, and one of the guys behind us was very drunk and got up at one point to find a bathroom to get sick in.

After the Buffy show, Carmen and I parted ways (and I didn't see her the rest of the weekend, which was sad), and I found my way back to the Mariott. I pretty much went to bed because I was exhausted. I didn't ever even eat anything else.

Up Next - Part Two!

Dragon Con 2016 - Friday

Like last year, we didn't get down to the con until Friday. We actually got to my aunt and uncle's house pretty late on Thursday, but thankfully we hadn't intended on going downtown on Thursday.

First thing we did was, of course, go get our badges. The streamlining for badge pickup is still working great so it only took a few minutes. We had gotten down to the con earlier than regular years so we went and got some food.

From there, we went back to the Sheraton for the Tarot Reading panel. Sadly, the room was packed and they didn't have enough people to do readings. So we ended up leaving early when it became clear we weren't going to get a reading.

We went to the Marriott to wait for the Walk of Fame to open. The line seemed shorter than it had been last year, and we did people watching while we waited. Once the Walk of Fame was open, we met a few people from Legends of Tomorrow.

At this point, I decided to head off to the dealer's room by myself. I did end up getting some pictures of cosplayers in the Marriott and even got a green screen picture of me thanks to the Xfinity booth that was set up there. It was very cool.

My first stop in the dealer's room was the BPAL booth because I was picking up some of the Peach scents for people who couldn't come to Dragon Con. Beth, who is the genius who creates BPAL's wonderful scents, and I had an interesting conversation for a while. I love getting to see friends who I only see at the con!

I wandered around the dealer's room, looking for blind boxes for Emily. Todd had headed to the dealer's room not long after I had and he told me that there were blind boxes on the 3rd floor of the Americas Mart.

I found some more friends when I got to the 3rd floor and then found my husband, who showed me the blind boxes he had found. He had already bought some for Emily but I bought one box for her and one box for me.

We split up again and I went to the Hyatt. First I went to the con suite for some food, and then I went to the bowels of the Hyatt for my friend Mikey Mason's concert. He did a whole set of non-comedy songs and it was heavy. It was a great show and I did get teary eyed a bit.

I met up with Todd again and we finished out our day by going to Aiden Sinclair's paranormal magic show. It was great as usual, though we did notice that even though he tells a different story every year some of the tricks he does are the same as year's past.

From there, we headed back to my aunt and uncle's house. Emily was very excited about the stuff we had gotten her. But it was time for bed because we had to be up early the next day for the parade!

To read about Saturday at Dragon Con, click here!

Dragon Con 2015 - Friday

We usually head down to GA to go to Dragon Con fairly early on Thursday but this year we waited until Emily was out of school. Because we didn't get to my aunt and uncle's house until the evening, we didn't go down to the con at all until Friday.

Todd and I got up bright and early Friday morning to head downtown. I wore my Tightrope Girl costume and I actually got asked for my picture before we even got into the Peachtree Center. That was awesome because I rarely get asked for my picture.

Sheraton was our first stop to get our badges. Badge pick-up was a breeze again this year. It took us longer to walk into the building than it did to actually get our badges. I also had to pick up my parade bracelet as well as get the disability sticker on my badge.

Dragon Con offers a variety of disability services. Because of my migraines, I got a sticker on my badge that lets me sit in the disability area and then I get a seat at the end of the row. I didn't end up using it until Sunday, but it really is nice to be able to sit and wait for panels in a chair.

We went to the Peachtree Center after that and got some breakfast. We didn't have any issues getting a seat and the food court is a great place to relax, eat and people watch

From there, we headed off to the Hilton. I had signed up for a massive Disney photoshoot. We were a little early but there were a lot of people there already. I love Disney and it was fun to see everyone's costumes.

Todd wandered away for a bit while we were all herded outside. Because of the uniqueness of my costume, I was only in the big group photo. It took a bit to get everyone posed, and then lots of pictures were taken.

Once the big group picture was taken, Todd had wandered back and we headed over to the Marriott. Even though the Walk of Fame wasn't opening for another hour, we opted to join the line to get in. I found that sitting on the floor in a corset is not very comfortable.

When the doors opened, we walked around the Walk of Fame to see who were there and where everyone would be. I got my picture with the voice of Goofy, Bill Farmer, since I had gotten his autograph the year before. Then we joined the line for the voice of Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch, Caroll Spinney. 

The line wasn't took long long, but the people who had been in the front took at least 20 minutes to talk to Caroll and have him sign everything under the sun. It got really ridiculous after a while and rather rude because the line just kept growing and growing. It's fine to have a bit of a conversation with the guests, especially an icon like Caroll Spinney. But more than five minutes and you are being very rude to the people behind you.

Finally they left, and the people in front of Todd and I had better sense so it only took us a few minutes to get up to the front. We got an autograph that he signed to both me and Emily, plus I got a picture with him.

It was then time to head over to the Dealer's room. It took us a bit to figure out where it was since they had moved buildings and there was actually a line to get into the building itself. There were two floors of dealer's and the layout was so much better this year.

First stop was the BPAL booth where I got BPAL. I've known the owners for years, so I got a hug from Ted. I also got a hug from Beth and we stood and talked about our kids for a bit. It's a little weird talking about school and kids in the middle of the dealer's room at Dragon Con.

We had been planning on staying later but by this time I was starting to get worn out. Todd noticed and suggested we go back to my aunt and uncle's house in order to save energy for the parade in the morning. I agreed and off we went.

It was a pretty good first day of Dragon Con!

Up Next - Dragon Con Saturday

BPAL and Me

Ten years ago today I did something that changed my life forever. I didn't know it was going to change my life, it was a simple thing that I did. Ten years ago today I joined the forums at bpal.org.

The BPAL forums are a fan run site for fan of Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab - a company that makes the most glorious perfume oils. I had never been a perfume wearer until a few weeks before I joined the forum. But the perfume oils didn't smell like anything else I had every smelled before with perfume. I was hooked right away.

Back in those days, forums were one of the most popular ways to chat with people online. Facebook was still in it's infancy, Twitter didn't exist yet and while there was still MySpace and Livejournal, forums were there too for individual topics. These days, the BPAL forum is the only one I visit on a regular basis. Most of my other interaction is via Facebook groups.

Now you may be wondering how a fan run forum could change my life. It wasn't the forum, per say, it was and is the people there. The people on the forum are awesome and kind and honestly my best friends. Not 15,000 of them, but a few.

The forum-ites have been there for me when I was getting married, when I was pregnant, on my low days and on my good days. I've met a few in person, at meet and sniffs and Dragon Con, but most of my dear BPAL friends I've never met outside of cyberspace.

One of those friends is actually the owner and genius behind Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab - Beth.

Beth, me and Emily at Dragon Con 2012

She's been a member of the forum since I joined and it's been great getting to know her through the years. I got to meet her in person at Dragon Con a few years ago and I see her every year there now. She is a wonderful person and her creations are wonderful.

I feel another bond with Beth because our daughters are about the same age. I get to see her daughter through Beth's Facebook posts and I'd love if Emily and Lilith were able to meet someday.

My collection of the actual perfume has gotten smaller over the years. My body has turned against it - whenever I put any on my skin, it morphs into an awful floral and gives me a migraine. I have to use solely scent lockets now because my skin hates me. But Emily has her own small collection of smellies - she loves putting it on, though she kind of over does it because she's five.

This summer the forum went down for several months and it was hard on all of us. There are several BPAL Facebook groups, but it wasn't the same. Someone actually created a temporary, bare bones forum for the interim, but it wasn't the same either. Once the actual forum reopened, it was like coming home.

That action I did ten years ago today was a simple one but it really changed my life. I'm so thankful for all the great friends I've made. Here's to another ten years!

Dragon Con 2014 - Sunday

Me and Katie Cassidy (Laurel from Arrow)

This is the last post of my Dragon Con recaps - you can click the links to read about Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

Sunday I planned on sleeping in but that didn't happen. About 6:30 in the morning, I was woken up by Emily losing her tooth. This was the first tooth she lost normally and not in the dentist's office.

We made sure to find the tooth and I put it in a small box I had been using for safety pins. I was awake at this point so we just hung out in the back bedroom for a bit to let Todd sleep.

Once everyone else was up, I got Emily dressed to go to church and I donned my Tightrope Girl costume again. We got downtown right around the time everything was opening up.

We went to the Walk of Fame first. We got autographs from the one Arrow guest we needed and John Ratzenberger (had him sign a Toy Story poster for Emily since he's the voice of Hamm). Bill Farmer, the voice of Goofy and other Disney characters, wasn't there yet so we headed off to the dealer's room.

At this point in the day, I had a migraine. I didn't really think much of it because of my chronic pain, but we soldiered on. Our first stop was at the BPAL booth. Beth and I talked about loosing teeth because I told her about Emily. It was fun! And I got another bottle of BPAL.

We found an Applejack that Emily requested and I bought some mystery box figures as well. It was time to meet Goofy Bill, so we headed back to the Walk of Fame.

Bill Farmer was awesome! I got his autograph and we talked to him for a bit and he even did the Goofy voice for us. It was one of the best meetings we had all con.

But at this point, my migraine was really bad and I was feeling woozy. We headed to the food court to get some food. Even after eating, I felt horrible. Even though I was suppose to be on a Kaleidoscope panel later that afternoon, I opted to email the track director and head back to my aunt and uncle's house.

It was a sucky way to end the con. I knew I had overdid it but I had hoped I could push through to make it through my last panel. I ended up passing out and sleeping for several hours once we got back. And it kicked off a couple of weeks of illness - I ended up at the doctor's last Friday because I wasn't getting any better and it was the flu.

Next year, I think I may either skip the Geek Girls Run fun run or wait until Sunday to give blood. Either way, despite how it ended, I had a great Dragon Con this year!

Dragon Con 2014 - Friday

Paul Blackthorne (Det. Lance from Arrow) and I

This is my 2nd post about Dragon Con 2014. You can start here with the Thursday post!

I'm going to preface this post by saying that I'm a sucky runner. I've been working on Couch to 5K for a couple of years now. Chronic pain is a bitch and when I get a flare, I can't run. But I'm slowly but surely getting better. But I run inside on my treadmill because I have a five year old and my husband works 2nd shift.

I've been following Geek Girls Run on social media for a while. One of my friends, Janine, is one of the founders of the group. I had wanted to do the fun run they did last year at Dragon Con but we ended up not having enough time because we ended up in the reg line of doom.

But this year, I was determined to do the run. I cosplayed as Kaylee from Firefly because it's my best costume for running in. And I opted to go with the run/walkers. This was a big mistake. 

I was ok until we got to the park and I just started lagging behind. And the hills were so hard - mostly because I run on a treadmill. I thought I was going to pass out during one huge uphill hill.

But I made it! I was the 2nd to last but I made it. Very proud by that, even though I did it, I think, contribute to my illness later in the weekend.

I found Todd who had my bag and my jacket. Because the run was in the morning we had some time

Me and Stephen Collins

to kill before the Walk of Fame would be open. So we got some lunch and hung out in the food court doing some people watching.

We did go over to the Marriott about a half hour before the Walk of Fame open. We got in line and waited. Once the doors opened, there was a mad rush but there was plenty of room for everyone once we got in there.

Friday is one of the best days to get autographs because it's not super crowded. I got both the Hobbit Guests, and we got three of the four Arrow guests. I also met Stephen Collins who I like best as the dad from 7th Heaven. Since we don't need two autographs from each person, I usually get pictures with celebs that Todd is getting the autograph for who are doing table pictures.

The longest line we waited in on Friday was for Karl Urban. We were told one time, but he was over an hour late. He had a panel and went to lunch afterwards. Once he got there, the line moved quite quickly. He was super nice too though he did say he was a little drunk. He was even more handsome in person than he is in the movies.

After that, we went to the dealer's room. First stop was the BPAL booth to do some sniffing and to talk to Beth and Ted. It was crowded but I got some sniffing in. I got one of the Peach atmo sprays and a bottle of Coraline for Emily.

We walked around the maze that is the dealer's room. Todd found a poster from Hellboy with a bunch of signatures on it and it was half price. They had a certificate of authenticity. We already had one of the autographs on it (Doug Jones) and it looked the same so we knew it was real. It was a must buy!

After that, we got some supper and waited for it to be time for my panel. The Kaleidoscope Track was kind enough to have me as a panelist for several panels. On Friday night, the panel I was on was called The Young Nerd Life. All the panelists were parents of geeklings of varying ages and we talked about their geeky likes and dislikes as well as how it is to be a geek parent raising a geek child. It was a lot of fun!

It was getting late so we headed out to go back to my aunt and uncle's house to get some sleep. The next day was going to be a long day.

Up Next - The Very, Very Long Saturday

The Preschooler At Dragon Con

Beth, me and Emily at Dragon Con 2012

With Dragon Con fast approaching, I thought I'd share my experiences with bringing Emily to the con last year.

Dragon Con has tracks that appeals to all kinds types, but you may wonder if it is appropriate for little geeklings. After I became a parent, I started noticing the kids in strollers and babies in slings all over the con. But I always thought my daughter wouldn't have that great of a time when she was smaller. Last years when she was almost four, I thought it was time to try a partial day at the con.

My daughter had already started to have geeky interests, but one of the biggest is costumes, and not just on her. She loves seeing me dress up as well. When she was 11 months old, I took her to the con just to see the parade. She was okay for most of it, until the zombies came. Ack! That was a big mom failure for me! That incident lead to a lifelong fear of the undead, so she hasn't been back since.

But after seeing the pictures of me in the Dragon*Con parade last year, she asked me to make her a costume so we could march together. It took a while to figure out what costumes to wear. Originally I was going to make her a Kaylee Layer Cake dress from Firefly to match mine and then march with the Whedonverse track like I normally do. But because I decided to march with Kaleidoscope track, I decided to shift our costumes to fit the track a little bit better. My daughter asked to dressed up like Snow White. I was going to dress up like Belle from Beauty and the Beast but those costumes were very expensive. So I ended up being Snow White too since that was the least expensive Disney Princess costume I could find.

She did great on the train ride down to the con and she loved the Kaleidoscope track room since they had a station where she could color while we waited. But then we had to rush to the parade staging area, and that’s when she started to get a little tired.

The weather for the parade is usually mildly warm but this year it was very humid out even at 9:30 in the morning and that affected the day.

She liked seeing all the costumes that were staged around us such as the stormtroopers, the Powerpuff Girls and especially the life-sized My Little Ponies. At one point, Stan Lee was very close to us so I picked her up and pointed him out to her. She didn't really know who he was, so she didn't care. Being that close to a comic genius is lost on a four-year-old, apparently. Poor Stan.

Once the parade started, she didn't want to wave at the crowd and was overwhelmed by all the people. The group in front of us stopped often to conduct a a staged battle with boffer weapons and every time we stopped she would turn to look at the My Little Pony cosplayers that were behind us.

Many times, she asked me to pick her up but because of the heat, I was only able to carry her in short bursts.

We made it through the parade and got our free bottles of water. We headed to the autograph area to meet my husband. While we were waiting, I was able to find us a table to sit at. We drank our water and my daughter played on my phone. Once my husband met us, he carried her since she was tired. We did get an autograph from Rose McGowen, who thought my daughter was cute. Then we headed to the dealer’s room for one last stop.

I've been a fan of Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab‘s perfumes for many years and my daughter loves sniffing smellies when I put perfume on. When we got there, my daughter wanted to get down and she asked in a very small voice if she could sniff smellies. The owner of BPAL, Beth Barrial, did even better than let her sniff. She gave my daughter her own little bag of samples and a little pad of paper to draw on.

This was the highlight of my daughter’s Dragon Con experience and the end of her time at the con too. My husband took her back to were we were staying so she could get a nap.

I think she did pretty good, but there were some things I would have done differently. I wish we would have had a stroller since she got tired much faster than I had anticipated. And I think she would have had a better time watching the parade than being in it. But afterwards, my daughter did said that she loved Dragon Con and that she wants to go back next year.

Because she did get so tired so fast, we've opted not to to bring her down to the con this year. We've told her that she needs to be a little older and will bring her back in a couple of years.