DragonCon and the End of summer

It's after Labor Day! Which means several things. The biggest is that life returns back to a normal routine with actual weekends spent at home. Alex and I are trying to relax and recover from the craziness that was this summer by only traveling once a month from now until after the holidays (though twice in December, as Hanukkah is very important to me).

We have also decided that this will most likely be our final DragonCon for a while. The fact is, there is a lot of crap to go through in order to get there and while there were a few things that Alex and I really enjoyed, overall the Con was not worth the $1000 cost of getting there. We arrived late Friday night to Atlanta and almost weren't allowed in our hotel because we did not have a key (our roommates who had gotten there before us had it). Lucky, we were able to get through security and up to where the room was, but no one was in the room or picking up their phone, so we were pretty much stuck in the hallway until one of the roommates got back. Fourtnatly, there were a bunch of drunk Con goers running around our hallway giving us some entertainment and me some flirtation (at least 3 guys, and all because Alex was not next to me, but 4 feet away playing on his phone). After about an hour, one of our roommates, Rich, let Alex and I in. Then there was some drama about what was going happen with the beds since there were 5 people, two couples and one other, and no one seemed to want to sleep on the floor. However, that was resolved simply by the fact that the one stag person was out much later than the two couples, who then claimed the beds.

Saturday at D*Con was actually pretty good. I went to a couple of panels, including one where the guest was Tom Felton (Draco Malfoy from Harry Potter). That was super cool! Alex went to a bunch of gaming panels and I joined him for a while. For dinner, I had looked up on the Food Network where the best BBQ was and found a place called Daddy D'z. So we invited one of our friends and headed there. It was actually a bit of an adventure because we ended up taking the subway to a remote part of Atlanta that seemed pretty ghetto and we had our friend walking with us in full costume, which consisted of a corset and a ripped skirt, so she ended up getting cat calls and stares while we were trying to find this BBQ place. But it was worth it because the food was amazing and we ended up bringing some back to the hotel where our drunk roommates finished it off as hangover food.

Sunday, Alex and I bought some items, like a Mace for the weapons closet and a replacement lightsaber, since his has been broken for a while. I also went to a panel for the Being Human show on the Syfy channel and had a blast with my friend Mel. We were both dressed up in our Avatar: The Last Airbender outfits and looked awesome.


Alex, Mel and I as Avatar characters. I'm Katara, Alex is Zuko and Mel is Mai.
I also was part of an Avatar photo shoot, which turned out quite well.
Sunday night, we went to a steampunk ball and a Firefly themed party where Alex won some Star Wars toys and the fan film sequel to Serenity. And then Monday we went to a quick panel and then headed home.

Since DragonCon is now over, Alex and I have decided to stop doing NYJedi so much because we aren't interested in the direction a few of the leaders are trying to push the group towards. Instead, we plan on only going once a week to Jedi and then using the free day to go to a gaming store called The Complete Strategist and play a miniatures game called Warmachine. Think of it like chess, except much more complex. I on the other hand have made an appointment with my personal trainer and am set to start working with her next week.

Next con is NYCC, but until then, it's good to be back to a regular pattern.