davego

The : "I'm Back Baby" blog

well, as you can tell from the very words you are reading - i'm alive. I made it.
(unless of course i made arrangements for someone to come in here and make this post after i died - but that wouldnt make sense because i would have told them to call this the "oops, i'm fucking dead and now i hate airplanes even more than before" blog)
So far none of this makes any sense so I'll just start again.


I made it to and from Seattle in one piece... the flights were all pretty decent actually. It occured to me driving in to work today that i experienced more turbulance in the 20 min trip in the family van (grand caravan - i know you were dying to ask) than i did for the entire plane trip there and back again.

A big help was a beautiful young woman called Annie travelling with her 3 extremely well behaved kids, who chatted with me the entire 4 hour trip from Chiicago to Seattle once my fear conquered my shyness..

on the way back for some reason i wasnt afraid in the least .. but i did have to suffer this arrogant fucking prick who - although at least 7 inches shorter than me - insisted on splaying his legs into either side of him infringing on my side .. he did it with his arms too - forcing me into the fetal position against the window for the entire flight back, while he watched movies and played games on hiis techno-geek playtoys. This was after he agressivly attacked a magazine. yeah - you read that right - what the fuck ... it was like this guy had a mission to show how badass he was - he can be tough on a magazine, take up everyones space, and bring some stinky asian soup/meal on board in a big greasy bag and force everyone in a 10 aisle radius to experience his cullinary shame.

all i could think of the whole time was the scene in commando whare arnold kills the guy on the airplane next to him with a fast and forceful elbow to the face. "he's tired, better let him sleep"

anyway - Seattle ...

The convention was fun. It all took place in a small clean hotel about an hour out of seattle in a small town. this had the result of feeling like one of those celebrity cruises. there was nowhere for anyone to go so you'd be in the elevator with the Guests, or drinking in the bar with them, or saying hi in the halls, eating lunch.
By the end of the weekend, everyone knew everyone.

my primary objective was to take photos, and do some interviews, but - and this is kind of hard to explain properly - once i got there - i found the layout wasn't ideal for what i wanted to do. People weren't milling about in one large central location - like in the big cons .. so the picture taking opportunities werent there.
They also had too much going on at the same time so i never knew what to cover.
Plus the guests were placed with the vendors in an underground parking area. kind of cool for the vendors - but not the guests .. terrible place for taking photos. i didnt do any interviews because there was only one person i had any questions for - and she was sitting right next to her costar who i had no questions for. interviewing one would be excluding the other and i didnt want to be that callous. i dont suppose other journalists have that hang up .. but thats just me.

anyway - i hung out in the bar and restaurant for most of the weekend with a collection of writers and 1 musician, most of which are old ex-metal band guys .. which meant that there were a ton of stories and laughing going on... i had a great time hanging with this bunch.

oh - and when most people were packing it in - on sunday i saw margot kidder struggling with her bags so i took a couple from her and helped her load her car. I felt just like SUPERMAN !!

if superman was old, grey, overweight, canadian, with no super powers whatsoever.

i'l try to post a couple of pictures - i really dont have much - i put no effort into it .. but knowing what to expect - i'll have more to show after next year

i hope you all survived the weekend without me