San Diego Comic Con

 Grant and I decided to go to one last comic con.  We have been doing the cons for almost ten years and have tired of them but, before we declared ourselves done, we decided to go out big.  The San Diego Comic Con is the original con and it draws about 130,000 fans.  Also, the writers strike came on the heels of COVID so this felt like the first time in five years that San Diego had a real con.  And because this was our last con, I spared no expense to attend it.  The tickets alone cost over $2,000 and then I had to pay for the flights, hotels, Ubers, and meals.  It cost a lot of money but the payoff was to see my son in his element where he was happy and truly excited to attend the meetings and tour the exposition.

Thursday: I picked up Grant at 4:30 am and we were at the airport 15 minutes later.  Our flight was supposed to leave at 6:00 but was delayed for six hours because o a maintenance issue and a part had to be flown in from Charlotte.  Of course, we missed our connecting flight and had to wait an additional five hours in the Dallas airport for the next available flight.  After almost 21 hours of travel, we arrived at the hotel at 10:00 pm (1:00 am eastern time), and we had lost a whole day at the comic con as we were originally supposed to land in San Diego at 11:30 am.

Friday:  We were supposed to see a panel on “The Boys” but missed it because I didn’t think that anyone would line up before 9:00for a panel that started at 10:00.  I was wrong and we arrived too late to get in to see the show.  I remained humble for the rest of the con and went where ever Grant wanted to go, when he wanted to go.  We saw Bill Amend who draws the “Fox Trot” cartoon.  He was nervous at first but lightened up as he told the story of how went from earning a degree in physics to becoming a cartoonist.  The second major panel that we saw was about “Like a Dragon” where the star was flown in from Japan and who didn’t speak any English.  He had an interpreter and sat in rapt attention when they played the trailer from his show.  Finally, the star took a selfie in front of the audience, and that reminded us that appearing at a comic con is as important to the star as it is to the audience.

Saturday: I started a routine of getting up at 4:30 to be in the gym by 5:00.  After lifting weights for an hour, I would sit in the breakfast room and wait for Grant.  We would leave the hotel at about 8:00 to get to the convention center in time to get in line for the 10:00 panel.  Saturday started with the stars of “Ghosts” and then we saw Matt Groenig, the creator of “The Simpson” and “Futurama.”  Up next was a panel on “Batman: The Caped Crusader” where all of the voice actors from the television show made an appearance.  Finally, we saw the artist who created the prosthetics for the many iterations of the “Star Trek” franchise.  This last panel was so good because the artist was so excited about his craft and so happy to show off his work.  I loved his enthusiasm.

Sunday:  Our first panel was about how Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko were the co-creators of Spider-Man, Ironman, and Dr. Strange.  They were as important as Stan Lee but were not so good at self-promotion so he got the lions’ share of the credit.  The next two panels the the voice actors and the musicians from “X-Men ‘97,” the “Star Wars” cartoon series, and “Arcane.”  There was a nice moment when one of the musicians broke down and cried as he talked about composing a song for a scene where a daughter was forced to leave her father.  The musician wept as he recalled how he had his own newborn daughter in his lap as he wrote the score for the scene.  She was perfect in her innocence and goodness, and he cried in the knowledge that this little bundle of joy would some day leave him.  I teared up as he wept while telling his story because I was thinking about how my own two daughters have left me to live in Texas.

Monday:  The convention was over but we had the morning to tour San Diego as I had booked an afternoon flight.  We did the “Hop On Hop Off” trolley and got off at the Hotel Del Coronado and the Japanese Garden.  Finally, we arrived at the airport at 12:30 for our 2:30 flight.  But when our flight was delayed by 45 minutes, we missed our connecting flight in Dallas by five minutes.  The airline put us up at a hotel and after sleeping for less than four hours, we went back to the airport for our 6:30 am flight.  I was so tired that I laid down on a table in the terminal and slept for an hour.  Usually I am all about decorum but I had no more gas in the tank.

This was a hard trip; not as hard as S.E. Asia but very difficult in its own right.  Once again, I had to ask myself, as I was trying to get some sleep while laying on an airport table, why on earth do I do this to myself?  The simple answer is that I do it for Grant because he enjoys these conventions so much.  And I could not have been prouder of him for the way that he carried himself.  He could have pitched a fit when we missed the panel on “The Boys” or cracked under the pressure of the ordeal of flying home, but he didn’t, while I lost my temper twice.  What made the trip worthwhile was to hear Grant describing the comic con to Tracey when we were at lunch yesterday.  He was happy and animated and excited to share our trip with her.  It was our last con together and, even with all of the problems that we encountered, I am still glad that we did it so that we could go out big.

Non Sequitar
1. For our last meal in San Diego we went to “The Old Spaghetti Factory” where an old woman in a wheelchair asked to sit outside.  The hostess tried to explain that the outside tables could only hold four people but, even though she had a party of five that included a wheelchair, the lady insisted.  It is people like that who must drive the staff crazy because they have set themselves up for failure and certainly will complain throughout the meal about being crowded.
2. When informed that we could not get on the plane for our return trip to Louisville, the lady behind us let out a cry and then began to sob uncontrollably.  She did it again when told that there were no more flights out that evening and that we would have to spend the night at a hotel.  A wheelchair was called for her and she collapsed dramatically into it.  Later on, she clung to Grant and me so that we could help her find her way to the bus, hotel, and the airport for the following day.  Clearly, she was not used to traveling by herself.
3. I like to chat up the Uber drivers in the hope that I can learn something from them.  We had drivers from Baghdad, Lebanon, and Mexico.  Harold was a candle and scent salesman while Van tried to convince us that the FBI was in on the plot to assassinate President Trump.  We didn’t try to argue with Van but let him rant for the whole trip to the airport.   
4. I became over-stimulated at the exposition.  It was over-crowded and the noise from the booths and the lights from displays were getting to me so I sat down in the common area just to calm down and read for awhile and Grant went shopping.  You have to pace yourself when you go to the comic conventions.