Dragoncon 2010 Recap (sorta)

We’re home!
I tried to post a couple of times from the con but just didn’t have enough down time. So here’s a recap. This isn’t going to be that interesting – we didn’t really “do” much outside of changing costumes LOL.

Wednesday:

Ash and I went and picked up the van, Chase got home, we loaded it up and hit the road. Got to Nashville and went to Five Guys for dinner, then a quick Target run before heading to the hotel for the night.

Thursday:

We got up as early as we could manage and got on the road. We got into Atlanta around noon, I think? Thankfully we were able to check into the hotel right away, on the second floor, yay! Got our stuff into the room and went to get our badges. Also found my cousin Cath whose flight had been at 7AM so she’d beaten us there. She was already working (she’s staff) Anyway, once we our badges those in hand we headed off to Ikea – Chase was looking for a specific shelf, but they didn’t have any. We ate lunch there and it was surprisingly good. Came back and hung out for a while – unpacked and set everything out. We walked down to Jalepeno Charlies for dinner, and Chase scouted the spot he wanted for the parade.

Came back and I put on Wonder Woman. Chase & Derek sat up a photo booth on the bottom floor of the Marriott and we just hung out for a long time. Thursday was fun.

Friday:

Got up and put on Alyss. I stayed in that for a little while before putting on Jane so we could go eat lunch. It was SO hard to find tables this year! Anyway after that I put on Black Widow so we could look in the dealer’s room. I found the Her Universe booth and got a shirt. (The Han/Leia “I Know” shirt). Then it was time for Ladies of Gotham and I was going to wear classic Black Canary but decided to go for comfort and put on the old “modern” one. The shoot was fun – lots of folks there. After that I was going to put on Gaga but was too tired for it… we ate dinner somewhere but I dont remember (maybe food court again?). Chase and Derek were going to shoot the Ironettes on the 10th floor, so Ash and I followed them up there and hung out with Cath for a while before she had to run back to work (she worked ALL DAY friday!). I wore the “secret” costume which was Ame-Comi Supergirl šŸ™‚ It was so comfortable!

Ended up calling it a night a little early – Chase and I had a drink at the bar and called it a night.

Saturday:
Up bright & early for the parade, put on Ms Marvel and met Ash in her Quail Man costume which was made of awesome. We headed down to the park and man the weather was nice! Found the rest of the SOSI group. The parade was fairly uneventful until the end – Ash snagged us bottles of water and we turned to go in the door and came face-to-face with Stan Lee himself. I became instantly uncool – I was pointing my finger at him like 2 inches from his face with my mouth hanging open. He just smiled and went on his way, looking around and just having a great time it seemed like. Ash had pretty much the same reaction. Joe ran into him in his Iron Man LOL

Then we found Melissa whose train had gotten in that morning YAY! We grabbed a quick lunch and took it up to the 10th floor and did about half of the SOSI shoot before the Fire Marshal shut us down.

My feet were hollering after wearing Ms Marvel for so long so I went to change into Magik – I was hoping to have time to wear Supergirl in between but didn’t. Magik took a while to get into so I’m glad I gave myself time. Had to do a few last minute fixes to make it wear-able but I made it to the Marvel shoot. OMG those silver boots killed my feet! I couldn’t sit down to rest so as soon as the big shot was over, Chase took a few quick shots of me and we headed back over so I could get out of it.

(just as a sidenote – since we were on the 2nd floor I took the stairs almost everytime. I think I was only in the elevator 4 or 5 times throughout the whole weekend, and most of those were just from going to the 10th floor friday night and sat morning.)

I didn’t realise how hot I’d gotten in Magik until I started taking it off… between that and my feet I was a mess! I just laid on the floor of the hotel room for a while before taking a shower LOL

Then all of us (me, Chase, Ash, Melissa and Cat) went to Benihani for dinner. Chase put on his costume (“Wars” from Darksiders) and I just put on my new shirt and handled for him for a while. He wore it for about an hour, then I got him on an elevator and followed him upstairs (had to do the same going down, no room for all of us.)

The girls were waiting for me downstairs so we could do our girls’ night, so I put on Mara Jade as Arica because we were going to go to the Alderaan party. Met up with them and we went over to the Hyatt for something – only to realise I’d forgotten my badge. Cat went back over to the Marriott to get it from Chase, while Ash ran upstairs to plug her phone in – and my heels broke. Not just one, both of them. More on that in my costume wrap up. So as soon as Cat got back I told her I had to go change, there was no way I could hobble around in them the rest of the night.

Cat told me they were closing the Marriott so I was lucky I’d picked up my room key (I usually don’t when I know Chase is in the room). So I hobbled over and got caught up in a crush of angry people who were all mad at the cop who wouldn’t let them back into the marriott. I finally got up to the front and got through. Got to the stairs and was going to take the boots off before trying to walk up the stairs, but you never know WHAT is on those stairs (broken glass, pee, etc) so I just left them on and walked on my toes LOL

I got upstairs and asked Chase to step into the hall and take a few pics of me to prove I wore it! He followed me out and I heard the door shut… I asked him if he had a key… he said no. OMG! He did take a few pics of me and then had to go back downstairs to get another key while I just sat and waited. After that I decided to give up on Saturday because it wasn’t working out for me LOL

Sunday:
I got on up and started painting myself orange for Starfire. Took my time getting ready and actually got to the shoot a little early! I was impressed with myself. The Titans shoot was awesome, and George Perez is awesome for coming and taking so many pics with us, and it was awesome to get Blackfire/Starfire pics with DJSpider, so yes it was all around awesome.

I lost track of time and realised it was after 1 and we were still going! I had to de-orange myself for DC (I could have stayed in Starfire I guess – but the shoes were hurting and I was ready to get out of it, plus I still had a new costume to wear!). Chase grabbed us some lunch while I took a quick bath and de-oranged and redid my regular makeup. I got into Donna Troy and headed over to the DC shoot.

That was fun and I stuck around a bit longer than at Marvel. I was wearing the same boots I wear for Magik so my feet were definitely hurting, but I was able to sit down for a bit so it made it ok. Dean Stockwell crashed our shoot – he was hilarious, it was great.

Chase wanted to hit up the dealer’s room after that so I went with him, but after a while my feet were just hurting TOO much so I went and sat down. A staff member came up and told me (very politely) that I would have to move, and he very nicely helped me up when I asked him to and he said, “I thought you were supposed to be Wonder Woman’s sister!” LOL. I told Chase I couldn’t stay in the boots anymore, so I headed on upstairs and changed.

Chase, Melissa, ash and I went and had a quick dinner at High Velocity and then after a short nap I put on Gaga. I wore it for about an hour or so… and I have to shout out to the awesome staff member who cleared the crowd for me to have a line to the stairs when I was ready to go back upstairs!

The stupid football frat boys EVERYONE have been talking about then decided to make some rude comments to me – with Chase right behind me! He confronted them after I walked off, but come on people. Those of us in costume are people, not playthings you can do whatever you want to. Anyway I changed and put on regular Black Canary – I’d wanted to put on Supergirl but again my feet were hurting so I wanted to put the comfortable shoes on.

Met up with the girls and we managed to snag a table in the Pulse loft bar, so we sat and people-watched for a long time and had a few drinks. Another one of the football dudes decide to flirt with me and continually put his arms around me (and stare at my butt when he walked away – he came and went 3 times) – even once with Chase right next to me!

Anyway – after that, we went over and saw the Cruxshadows for a while. It was around 3ish when we decided to call it a night, and again they’d closed the Marriott so my friends couldn’t walk me back over. I walked over by myself and the skywalk was totally devoid of people which was creepy! When I got back to the Marriott they’d closed the bar down and it was just a few folks still left over on the carpeted area.

Monday:

Monday is my no-costume day. We helped the girls check out at the Hyatt, then had lunch, then shopped. Chase & I ended up with a Han in Carbonite… I think it’s a Gentle Giant thing? Whatever it is it’s huge and awesome. Also got a couple of graphic novels.

Chase, Ash and I went to the aquarium while Cath worked and Melissa went to a few last panels – then we came back and picked them up and had a quick dinner at Panera bread. We came back and got the girls’ stuff and dropped Melissa off at the train station.

After all that we were tired… we called it a night, and that’s pretty much the end.

This morning we got on up and got out. Had the least-useful bellhop EVER (he could have brought us the carts and left for all he did). We stopped in Nashville and had Cheesecake factory for lunch, then got on in around 3:30. Took the van back, I went and picked up the dog, and I’ve just been vegging all night šŸ™‚ More vegging planned for tomorrow. LOL.