Oregon Two days.... and counting

OK, two days not counting today, that is....

I'll be on a plane Wednesday night, outbound flight to Orlando fro the much anticipated Celebration V.

I am sure I will have a full adventure down there, really haven't planned much out. Like a good bounty hunter, I will be flying by the seat of my pants! For costumes, I am planning on taking my Mandalorian and my Corran Horn impression. I'm really burning the midnight oil for getting things all set, and ready to go.

I have some new knife props for the Mando, just finishing up the final touches (dying the leather and tapping the caps in place) with the sheaths for them, today, when I get home from work. Same with the holsters for the new blasters I made. Those should be done today, as well.

Still left to do is repaint my armor plates, make some leather sleeves for some of my armor strapping (new Mercs guidelines dictate no elastic to be used for armor parts, only leather or tactical strapping), mount the leather shoulder straps to the back plate and collar plate, install the fan in my bucket, reheating the back plate so that it forms better to my body, and making new workable gauntlets (and painting them).

I should easily have this all done by Wednesday night, right? I mean, really, how hard could it be.

 

Take lots of pictures.Score some freebies. Have fun.

-Eric

 

Give us an update to your CV experience.

-Eric

 

Here are some highlights:


- I met up with, and interacted with members of my yahoo Star wars fan group, all throughout the weekend. I got nice group pics with all of them.

- I saw Dave Filoni walking by and asked if I could have a pic taken with him, but not before I told him that the Mandalorian Mercs had much love for him. He said he loved us, too and had a special surprise just for us, this next season.

- Pulled guard duty for Jeremy Bulloch. It was nice little gig. His wife had, at one point, stated we should take a break. But I don't think she realized that we had relieved the two other Mercs that were guarding him. She told us to take our helmets off so that she could see what we looked like, so we did. Since my visor had fogged up, I took the opportunity to wipe the condensation offand thanked her for the reprieve.

She stated that we should have breaks when Jeremy, in the middle of signing an autograph declared, "There will be no breaks for you. You are to stand there for 17 hours!" To which I merely said, "Yes sir," and put my helmet back on. A short while later, we were relieved. I thanked them for the opportunity to guard them and stated our relief was there. Again, Jeremy quipped, "you call that relief?" I smiled and said, "yes sir."

- As I was making my way to my hotel room, I was called over for a photo op. Now at the time I didn't have the idea who we were posing with (I was in a hurry to get to my hotel room to get a couple clan patches for Novall to pass on to Albin Johnson and Dave Filoni at the 501st Mixer), but I went ahead and put my helmet on and posed for the pic.

As I pulled my helmet off, I looked over at who we were posing with and to my shock and surprise, it was Seth Green! To which I blurt out, "Dude, it's Seth Green!" Not even missing a beat he looks at me with that Seth Green look of his and said, Yeah, I am!" He was asked if he would do one more pic with us, with our helmets off. But he had to decline, stating that he was in a rush to be somewhere else.

- I finally got to meet people I had known for years on the Rebel Legion and 501st boards. These people were my heroes, rock stars and heart throbs. I felt pretty fortunate that I got to meet Twi'lek Pam and her husband (both really cool people and Pam is so down to earth, it isn't funny!), The Luke Skywalker of the Asian persuasion Matt Telosa, Jenny Braun (I-Five) Kathy Skirmont (Kay_Dee), Bradley (JediMickey), Rick Stafford (he was the guy who was featured in the documentary Heart of an Empire - he lost his son to Leukemia) - that wasa real treat for me, Jammin The Slave Master, Thomas Spanos and Albin Johnson. I chatted with Albin about my leaving the 501st, mostly to show there were no hard feelings toward him. He wished me well in the Mercs and I was blessed for having met him. All of these people were so cool to chat with and get to know.

After having met all of these people, and running into them on several occasions, it was a very surreal experience. In ever instance, it was as if we had all been friends/family/neighbors for years! The chemistry was amazing.

If there was any one thing that I took away from this convention, that was it. I was truly blessed for having met everyone. My only regret was that I wish I had more time with everyone - Rebels, Imperials, Mercs and other friends!

- The Mercs had their group pic take and afterward one of the members had nearly passed out. Jason (Volund Starfire) and I recognized that he was suffering from some sort of heat exhaustion.

We peeled off this kid's plates and vest and tried to ventilate him. I ran up to get the Mercs founder to let him know what was happening. Someone bought him a couple of sodas, trying to help, of course. But we made him drink water. Throughout the whole time, this guy's clanmates bailed out on him, to go do something else.

People came and went, but Jason and I stayed with him until he was properly hydrated again and had good color to his face. After a few more minutes of monitoring him, he was back on his feet. He p

 

I forgot to mention that Ben Burrt came by the Mercs table and was filming with his camcorder. I happened to turn in time to see him and I waved at his camera. I then walked up to him and chatted with him a few minutes, telling him how I enjoyed the book that he wrote and used one of the phrases ( a language he had made up in this book) to spam a yahoo group that had spammed my SW yahoo group. He got a kick out of it and found it to be a creative way to use his book.

- Bill