Buff, NY B4C4

Limited connectivity makes for hard posting, so bear with us before we get to the con hotel.

We arrived Tuesday, found our hotel, and went to the con for early pick-up of materials. It's going to be a loooong con.

The LA Convention Center's pretty easy to find and navigate, but expensive for parking. Glad we'll be shuttling mostly.

Registration was screwed up already; packets to be mailed in April didn't go out till May, and many went out incomplete. So last week they added advance will-call pick-up Tuesday. It was actually a SHORT C4 line for will call, and we ran into Michelle from Pittsburgh. We also saw people from Indy we'd met on the plane in Atlanta connection, who'd told us they had wanted the con in Indy, but the city didn't want to release hotels from the 500 race.

Anyway, once they let us in to will call, it was slow going and being shuttled from line to line, from will call to customer service, and long waits as they hunted through boxes of file folders that apparently weren't properly alphbetized.

But we got our stuff -- all of it, so we were clear for Disney on Wednesday instead of the 6 film marathon.

Lots of great new Pirates and SW stuff at Disney. Some new exclusive 30th Anniversary stuff at Tatooine Traders, and neat new Disney SW character pins.

Best of all, we saw the new permanent Jedi Training Academy. They've really ramped it up. Some of the changes we can incorporate into ours. They now do 25-30 kids per session, and it goes very quickly. After the trainer introduces the routine and the stormtroopers interrupt, the central podium rises up, and Vader makes his smoky entrance. He then brings out Darth Maul. The padawans are split into 2 teams and while one set battles Vader onstage, the other battles Darth Maul on the floor. After they've all battled, Yoda's voice intones and unites the students to repell the bad guys. I don't know if it's reassuring or depressing that the kids chosen here also cannot decipher left from right.

Very exciting!!!

On to the Bonaventure and Con tomorrow.

Hope this posts.

 

I hate you













Nah! Have a blast! You'll be missed.

 

Have fun y'all!

 

Have fun storming the castle kids!

 

Have a blast while you're there and don't let anything get in your way of doing so.

Remember, take LOTSSSSSSS of pictures. I would like to see what I'm missing out on this time around.

Janice - "Is the hotel everything you thought it would be?" I hope so for the cost. Anyway, have a great you two - see you when you get back.

 

Have a great time! Wish I could be with ya.

OH, if you see any posters/pix of Anakin transformation from farmboy to padawan to Knight to Vader, could you pick it up for me? That would be VERY cool for SFX!

Take care.