Blue Roses

For posterity and fun, I present Rina's Own Obligatory MediaWest Post.

For me, the weekend started Wednesday night. A long day (am work, lunch meeting, pm work) made longer by the fact that while my plane was meant to leave at 8:30, it didn't leave until after 10:30. I got quite familiar with Midway airport's terminal in those 4 hours, let me tell you. Southwest's waiting area had ABC on originally, as a passenger had requested we watch the season finale of Lost, but after an hour, brighter minds prevailed and we turned the channel to Fox to catch the AI finale. The TV, however, was only meant to show CBS, ABC and PBS, so we had to reprogram it, and the connection was poor - it had a habit of going out for a few seconds of static every few minutes. During the 30 second reveal at the end, it went out twice, prompting horrified gasps from everyone there. Oh, and the camera people from that A&E Airline show were there, too recording a bit of out two hour wait. So maybe I'll be on A&E. <.g>

Finally, we left Chicago, and arrived in Ohio just after midnight. Oy. Biz and her hubby were gamely waiting for me, and we got to their place pretty quickly. By that point, I was beyond exhausted and into slightly giddy. I think. It's kind of a blur. LOL

Next morning, her hubby got off to the airport for his con, and I eventually woke up. We planned on leaving around 11, which turned into, I think, 2. LOL But I got a bit of a tour of the city, we got snacks, had lunch at a delicious Italian/Mediterranean/Egyptian place, and I fell in love with XM radio. In a really big way. LOL The drive was pretty nice....Lucy (Biz's dog) was in the backseat, and we played filk and fan songs on the CD player. I was pretty amused by some of them, and it was fun. Finally got in at 7, checked in, and realized our room was an accessible room. Which I didn't even notice, as that's what I always stay in, for Joshy, but waist high switches can take getting used to. LOL What I found ironic was that the door itself was catankerous and took at least two tries, often more, to open. Hardly a good option for someone in a wheelchair, as it usually involved hip checking the door with all our might to get it to open.

Being me, I managed to find 3 straight hours of CSI to watch while we unpacked and got room service. LOL Poor Biz. We also started working on our door and realized that hey, neither of us had brought scissors. Just means that our pictures had artistic edges. ;)

Next day, we registered, which was fun - I read, she chatted with our line neighbors, and everyone got confused by the registration process. My first panel was that afternoon - it was the first panel of any con I ever attended, so of course I was hosting it. Solo. LOL Biz came for moral support, and the group slowly expanded from us and two ladies to Julia and another woman. I think it was a great deal of fun, talking Christmas stories and movies and Connie Willis. I was pretty jazzed by that point...really when things started going from "OMG Overwhelmed This is all so new I hate new things!" to "Oooh, fun."

That night was the vids. I've never been much a vid fan, so I was unsure as to what so many hours would be like. The verdict? An utter delight! There was one string where I didn't care for them, but overall, they were super fun. Even when I didn't recognize the fandoms. LOL Now I'm interested in checking Battlestar Galactica and Stargate. Frankly, I don't care that they made Starbuck a woman, because she's hot. As is the guy. Apollo, perhaps? I really, really liked the look of him. LOL So I made TiVo wishlists for them, and shall give them a chance. I asked Biz if we could stay for the slash vids, and she kindly agreed. I loved it, the atmosphere was somewhat akin to a bachelorette party, with women shrieking and cheering the naked men. I loved a Star Wars one set to some country song about women of different ages - 14 year olds went for Luke, 25 year olds went for Han in handcuffs, 35 year olds had naked Luke, etc. LOL Oh, and an Angel/Spike one that was incredible, totally made it look like them sleeping together. And a lot "" of Jim/Blair from Sentinel. LOL

I hit a few more panels on Saturday. On my way down to meet Biz for the Discworld one, I rode the elevator with women talking about cooking, science, and explanations. I turned around: "Are you talking about Good Eats?" Of course! That delighted me. As did the Discworld panel - when I hit Borders a few days ago, I grabbed Soul Music on their recommendation. Can't wait! I also did the WENN panel with Biz and Julia. Mostly us, but another woman joined us. She wasn't as familiar with the show as us, so I think the convo mostly went over her head, but it was still fun. I think there were other panels, but I'm getting pretty bogged down in minutia here. LOL

The dealers room was fun. I don't go in for zines, which is overwhelmingly favored, but I found fun and creative things - magnets, jewelry, etc - that more than captured my imagination. I also enjoyed doing hall crawls, seeing what people were selling or showing. One door provided a pen and little construction paper ships, where you wrote down your fandom and pairing. I contributed Luke/Lorelai and Chris/Lance. Joining C/L were another Trickyfish, JC/Chris and Kevin/Nicky. I was very pleased to see that. LOL

Sunday was great - a Numb3rs panel that was fantabulous, where I learned that David and Judd have played father/son 4 times before now, and Rob has said point blank that he loves David and now has the brother he always wanted. No wonder the show is so awesome. What a nice dynamic and it shows through.

Highlight of the day was the night. Biz and set up camp with Winnie and Lucy in the atrium around 6pm. As the Star Wars battle raged around us, we watched the entire first season of Remember WENN. Completely on accident, we discovered Winnie makes caps - I tried to hit P to pause, and ended up capping Victor and Betty! Julia and I played around with it for about 20 minutes and finally found out where and how they got stored. We were VERY excited. And by the time we hit 1am, we were capping potential OTPs like Betty/Medwick, Scott/CJ, Scott/Foley, Scott/Eldgridge, etc. ;) Also, I took the first and only 5 caps of Maple and CJ in a scene together - true, he's over her shoulder through the glass into the control room, but whatever. I've shipped them for 4 years without proof and now I have it. LOL Yay!

So that took us to 3am. LOL Many nights of 2:30 and 3am bedtimes took its toll. We spent most of Monday recovering, watching more WENN and an episode of Numb3rs that I bought. We checked out Tuesday morning, drove back uneventfully, got me to the airport 3 hours early. I relaxed, had cheese curds and a root beer float at A&W, and got back to Chicago 10 minutes early. Then proceeded to plan to get to bed early, only to be foiled by a call from M as I was getting into bed, and ended up turning off the light at my customary hour of 11:30. Welcome home.