Photos
Wizard World Chicago 2005
Wizard World, the mother of all conventions here in the midwest, is always crazy, but you can usually find something positive in all of the atrocious lines and mind bending traffic of people.
The main reason I went was to meet one of my favorite artists, J. Scott Campbell. Well, with any con, you don’t get to see just the great artists, but all of the weirdos, the little kids dressed up, and you get to hang out and meet new great people. The top photos tell us just this. The fifth photo down is J Scott Campbell signing Christine’s books right before I got in line and then number seven is David talking to Alex Ross, one of his most cherished artists. Alex knows David too, which isn’t surprising if you know David, but is still weird.
Christine Sarah and I drove up on Friday night after a nice dinner at home. We met this whole group at a restaurant called Roc’s and talked for a bit, before Sarah and I left to go stay with her cousin Tim Gallagher, downtown. We then stayed up, got some food and talked until about 1:30 in the morning. Tim is great, and always so welcoming to us just dropping in and visiting him. It’s easy to be in awe of what he has, a cool place in downtown Chicago and a cool job that takes him all over meeting interesting people with others really counting on him.
Saturday, I took Christine’s car up to the hotel where she David, and Andi were staying. (Andi = Red hair bottom photo and really sweet. We also met her in Ohio last year.) We then made it back to the con just after the 8:00 am opening. That is the best part for me. Being able to walk around, calmly take the surroundings in without all the crazy people around and take photos. David then gave Christine and I a great surprise. He had gotten us Campbell sketchbooks, which were in limited print from San Diego and Campbell himself claimed that he wasn’t selling them at this show. Good old David, he never ceases to surprise me.
The floodgates open at Wizard World
Soon, the main public was going to be coming in. It was nearly 10:00 and it started to get crazy. We killed a little time, took a look at some of the huge booths like Marvel and DC with their huge colorful banners and A-list artists. We took a stroll around the extensive and expanded artists alley. I also started to keep an eye out for the comic dealers, I had some books to trade with my sights on getting a full set of the V is for Vendetta series.
We knew we were killing time however because J Scott Campbell would be signing early in the morning, and again, David got us the wristbands we needed to even get something signed. I never would have met Campbell without David, he is awesome. We were up close to the beginning of the line, and I got three things signed, and got to really tell him how much I appreciated all of the detail he has put into his artwork. He has really created a great legacy for himself, and being the great guy he was, he responded really well and was so friendly, signing my books with great appreciation. I don’t normally do the geek thing, but he is one of about five artists that I would get books signed and get all weird about.
Now that the main event is out of the way.
After that was taken care of, I started to wander by myself. I saw a ton of the props from Batman Begins, the utility belt, the cowl, and Scarecrow’s mask and getup. I was entrusted with David’s camera, so I was also keeping an eye out for people dressed up.
I saw the huge banners for the upcoming Aeon Flux movie with Charlize Theron, and I stopped by and said hi to Adam Hughes and Allison. I made it over to the Avalon Studios booth, they were selling Brian Haberlin’s Photoshop coloring training series. I already know how to color, so I am already a leg up over the average fan. I was looking for more advanced techniques, and I found just the information I was looking for.
One of the colorists who works for Avalon is Ian Hannin. I was not familiar with his work prior to the day, but I quickly became a fan. He is the current colorist on Marvel Knights Spiderman, and he had a laptop setup and was coloring at the booth, talking to con goers. He was so awesome, I asked a ton of questions relating to shortcuts, and prepping artwork, and he answered them all and seemed genuinely interested. He told me to stop back later in the day, so right before we left I did just that. I picked up one of the cd’s and we talked some more with less of a crowd. I actually gave him one of my cards, which he seemed to like, and I told him if he ever had any questions about programming a webpage or web design, I would gladly help him out. He said he will email me in a week or so, but knowing how busy he must be and he lives in LA, I am not holding my breath. I just hope I get to see him again sometime.
Time to trade
Until my feet hurt, and I was worn out, I searched around, pricing out the set of books I was looking for. The one dealer I like to trade with was at this show, and I knew he had what I wanted. He is a good salesman, and even though I know he always gets the better deal, I like not having to spend cash to get something new, and in a lot of ways, the books I trade aren’t really worth much to me anymore. I would rather have them be reused, them to basically have to give them away somewhere else. I got most of what I wanted, I am still missing two issues from the V is for Vendetta series, but I’ll find them hopefully before the movie comes out later this year.
The cool and the weird stuff
I heard a ton of cool rumors this weekend. The best being Joe Madureira being on a book with Jeph Loeb in the near future. There was a print that we got at the show with Wolverine, Spiderman, and Hulk, and after a three year absence to work as a video game art director, I welcome him back. Michael Turner is also now doing some work with Marvel. That is the cool.
The weird. Everyone has heard this story, but this is still really weird to me.
I packed two bagels with peanut butter for lunch at the con. It was time for me to re-energize
I had my book bag at a booth of a friend of David’s and I got out one of my bagels. It had that kind of congealed look to it, where the peanut butter had soaked into the bagel some, and it had gotten squashed under all of my comic books. I started to eat it and headed around the table to meet up with Christine. The hallway was clear for just a moment, which was weird because it had been crowded all day. Then this pseudo goth girl in this lacey top comes bounding up like she is skip riding a horse. She stops right at me, looks up cause she’s a shorty and says, “Where did you get that?”
Without looking like a pig, I looked at her badge on her chest long to determine if she was Wizard staff or something. After I figured, eh, it’s safe and I think I may just be able to take this little girl, I said, “Uh, I brought it from home”.
Looking a little confused, this chica kind of tipped her head and asked like she had only been at the con for five minutes, “Well, where would one buy food?”
I was surprised, but maybe she had missed it somehow. I pointed behind me and started to explain, “You see right back there at that white divider, that is where the food court is loca…” But I didn’t finish. The whole time I was watching her and she wasn’t watching my hand, but my bagel and looking at me with these puppy eyes. Halfway through my statement I felt like I could read her mind.
Me: “Do you want part of this?”
Little Gothly Gurl: Big cutesy nod.
Not having to re-enact the feeding of the five thousand, I had voraciously bitten into my bagel, a third of the bagel halfway to my belly, and two jagged wet bagel ends were left free to the wind. The thing with Bagels, is that they rip at the bow of the bagel, and it so happened that without giving this complete stranger my whole bagel, I would have to rip off a partially eaten end to give to her.
I did so, she snatched it up firmly but not greedily, said thank you, wedged the chunk in her mouth, and hopped off. Perfectly normal. I commonly reach the 8th level of dating, eating the other’s food, with random fan girls at comic cons.
After telling the story three or four times, Sarah suggested that it was a dare. But I don’t know many gothly girls that do scavenger type hunts do you? Whatever, it made for a hell of a story and it made me smile from ear to ear. It was a weirdly electric.
More creator time
Christine and David got in line for Alex Ross. I love Alex Ross, but I actually didn’t feel that strongly about getting his signature, and they ended up waiting in a long line for over an hour, so I wandered. In the end they were still nice enough without prompting to let me walk up with them. I don’t remember if it was at this point or not, but David and Christine had been talking all weekend about a huge controversy with some conflicting shows next fall. The show we just went to in Charlotte, with a brand new Wizard World in Atlanta. Supposedly the artists are rallying, and Travis Charest is going to be at the Heroes con next year. I loved that con, and now I have to go. This is going to be a once in a lifetime type of thing.
The con ended at 6, and we went to a very nice restaurant. I had a big lunch, so I didn’t eat, instead drawing a terrible picture at the dinner table in Andi’s sketchbook. But it was really nice to get to meet some of the other people in the group, especially Terri. (pictured in the lower right with the sketch in hand and the fresh cool hair). I took David back to his hotel and then Christine and I headed out.
Time to get Sarah from Tim’s
We picked up Sarah, who spent the day with Tim, most of the day at Ikea up in the north part of the city where we were. They got pizza for dinner and hung out and caught up more. Despite that, she was all ready to go when we got there, which was good cause we were late as I figured we would be. We said our goodbyes and I drove the trip home without any problems, just over three hours of boring darkness. But it was an awesome busy crazy day and a great memory. Plus, it’s our one trip to Chicago for the season.
Trip to Sacremento / San Francisco CA
We were looking forward to this trip for a year. I admit I was nervous about the whole thing, and then before we knew it, like it always happens, we were wondering where it went. This is a pretty large amount of photos, and a good deal of work doing some simple Shadow/Hightlight correction on them cause my camera sucks.
We left late after work on a Thursday and spent something like 4 hours in the air flying to Texas and then north of Sacremento. We found our hotel, bought a room for Thursday, with reservations for Friday and Saturday, and crashed.
We slept in on Friday, but did eventually head downtown Sacremento. There are some photos of that. We rented bikes for a day and rode up and down the river the runs to the west of Sacremento and we also walked around a good deal in Old Sacremento. Old Sacremento is a bunch of country saloon type shops selling all sorts of knick knacks and souvenirs, basically everything I was not interested in. However, there were candy shops with barrels and barrels of salt water taffies, my favorite. The kicker, Free Samples! So that meant, you could eat as many as you wanted, in the store, as long as you didn’t feel guilty. My limit over two candy stores was probably somewhere around 50 pieces. Ha ha, suckers. Sarah didn’t participate as much, but she enjoyed it too. We rode past the stores a couple of times and each time I would ask her, “You wanna go get more free candy?” “Sure”, she’s thinking, “That is the last thing you need ride now you hyper-bean.”
Friday night was the rehearsal dinner at none other than Bucca Di Beppo up in Roseville where Chip and April live. That was a good time, and the first time I had seen a lot of people since our Wedding a couple of years ago. Plus I got to meet Traci, who is great friends with Jerry, Avi, and Michelle. After dinner we got to catch up more and then continued our free alcolhol frenzied binge by going back to April and Chip’s place until like 1-2 in the morning. Some things never change, and drinking is one of them.
Sacremento is a really pretty place, all of the trees and brush, and their apartment really reflected that in the earthy colors and whatnot. At the party I talked with John, Chip’s old roomate. He’s awesome and he has done some really interesting things since college, including getting engaged the prior week in CA to Shannon, who I worked with in the cafeteria at U of M. So long and short of it, lots of reminiscing and good ol fun.
Saturday Sarah and I had to take the bikes back. Then we walked about three miles back across the city to our hotel. We got to see the downtown more and more of the amazing trees and other growth that makes the whole place seem very tropical. Like Indy, few tall buildings, but the city seemed to be spread out over a large suburban area. The main attraction was a 5-6 block open air mall that ran right into Old Sacremento. Suprisingly, I guess I don’t really have too many photos of Old Sacremento.
I took a quick dip in the pool in late afternoon and then we headed to the wedding. Really romantic, it was a small setting in a vineyard. But holy hell was it windy. The place settings were blowing over and the glasses were breaking, and it didn’t really let up all night. Set right by a river, it got colder as the night went on, it made for quite a memorable experience. But nice little, very short, ceremony. We couldn’t barely hear them, the DJ was set up in a way that the microphone was giving them major problems. Great food, cool party favors, and of course, a ton of dancing and more free alcolhol. It has been so long that I have drank four days in a row, and it was a blast.
We got out and on the road Sunday morning at checkout. We made a quick stop to visit a local comic book store and then went out on 80 to San Francisco. The highways are so barren on the sides, but in the middle mediam, they have these gorgeous bushes with blooming flowers, really pretty.
We stopped to take a tour of the Jelly Belly factory and learned all sorts of neat things about how huge taffy is made into small little christmas tree rolls, and how much president Reagan liked Bellys. We checked out the Budweiser factory, but they weren’t giving tours on Sunday. I took a photo, but looks like it got messed up cause I don’t have it now.
We got into San Francisco around 3:30, and that was a small adventure. Jen Beyer was staying with her roommate from college, who lives there now. I got directions from them at the hotel, and was desperately trying to find my way around. I really only got turned around once before I made a call from a payphone. Dirty area that I made it, I just pulled over with my flashers in downtown, cursing that I didn’t have a cell.
We did find their place, and they happened to be up in those apartments you always see on the steep streets, close to the top of the city. It made driving fun, and not fun. We got to see so much from their place, and actually driving over the Bay Bridge, like Golden Gate and Alcatraz, but really the hills are scary to drive on.
We relaxed for awhile at their place and then we headed out for some dinner, Jen, Regan, and Geniveve (roomates). We hit up a mexican restaurant that I thought was ok down in a really dirty part of town. But it really gave us a true experience of the area with all of the interesting bums coming up to you, probably addicts, and all of the colorfully dressed folks. We-hoo, I am from Indiana, Folks huh?
Funny story, we took a cab to the other side of town to get the restaurant. I had given the Avi – Jerry crew a call to see what they were doing, and then all of sudden they go walking by the window. I dashed out and got their attention and we hooked up ten minutes later when we were all done eating. We found a bar down the street that was a small little hole in the wall, but we took over a small little room with a large bay room window like seat in the back. It was loud and fun, we had some video games there that we played, and we had some drinks. At one point I found I was shouting so loud that I looked over and a group of 6-7 locals were staring at me. Fun stuff.
Monday Sarah and I got up at a decent time and took a loop around the city. We went to the top to a cathedral, and then took a trolley down to the docks. By the time we were heading back, we were hungry, tired, and hot. We were desperately trying find slices of pepperoni pizza, but had no luck. The whole city is artistic I guess, all of their pizzas were filled with chickens and greens and junk. We just stopped and got something at their supermarket, Trader Joes, which is like a health food store too, and headed back to Regan’s place.
Regan works for Gap, and works directly with the seasonal lines of clothes, and her place is gorgeous. Wood finishes, big, great view, nicely redone kitchen with a stainless steel fridge, I was jealous. We ate some pre-lunch and then got ready to head out. Chip’s old buddy from back home Philadelphia, who also lives there now, reserved a spot at Golden Gate Park. This park was huge, it spanned for miles and miles. I was surprised we found them as easily as we did, and I was surprised how easily I remembered how to parrell park this whole trip, even on steep inclines.
We hung out there, the whole group that was at the wedding minues John and Shannon. Easily 25-30 people there, it was a ton of fun. I got to meet a couple of new people too, Tim, Tony and Tom, no joke. Tom was Bruno’s roomate in DC, Tony was Tom’s good friend, and Tim was a childhood friend of Chip’s from Philly. The whole group did some frisbee and played a great game of football for awhile. I tried to take it easy, as I was in the last couple of suggested days of rest for my arm, but I didn’t do that so well.
It was bittersweet to say goodbye, I guess we just have to wait for someone else to get married now to have everyone in the same spot again on the planet. I took a car of people including Chip back to Regan’s to get everybody’s stuff. That was tough being the escort for the day. I didn’t mind, it was just stressful driving around San Fran, especially getting used to the lights not hanging above the streets. I just about blew through a red and got smashed.
We dropped people off downtown that were going to the bar again, and we headed out for our flight back in Sacremento. If I didn’t say it before, it was so good to see you guys, Jen, Avi, Jerry, Michelle, Traci, Regan, April, Chip, and all of the other cast from college.
It was a long night for us. We flew late into Texas again, and early out of there, not really sleeping all night until we got back to Indy, where Chris picked us up. Sarah came home and zonked for the day, I showered and went into work. But when I came home I passed out for a couple hours. I was tired, but I was happy. I was worried about the trip, but it was a ton of fun and a great memory.
A Sunday at the Indianapolis Museum of Art
I heard at work about the Grand Re-opening of the IMA, that admission for the weekend was free and that there was some extraordinary exhibit with robots that worked.
Sarah heard about it also so we took a day to go.
The Musuem, like I mentioned earlier in the blog, is really awesome. It is funny that after I am out of school, then I am interested a little more for my own knowledge in the history of art. As you see, there is a photo of the Norman Rockwell, and then just one sculpture. Most of the other photos I took were of my own personal interest.
The rest of the photos are of the gorgeous Lilly Estate that we visited second. I just can’t describe in words this place, you really got a sense of their wealth, giving, and just what it would have been like to live such a well treated life. I personally liked it for the history of Indy and how that fit into the puzzle, but there was so much there to be enjoyed. From the great views from the windows, to the ornate design inside the house and wide open rooms, I was really enamored.
The Row of trees you see in the one photo really is like all of the movies from the south on the plantations, with rows of trees and one long drive up to the house sitting on the back center of the property.
Anne’s wedding in Little Rock Arkansas
Gosh, it’s been almost a month since Anne’s wedding in Little Rock. That was a fun trip.
It was about 8 hours of straight expressway driving, so that made things a little less stressful, until we got a touch lost on the way back and had to take about 30 miles of backroads.
But Little Rock is a really gorgeous little city, everything looks so new and clean. We got the impression from someone there, that the town has gone through some revitalization because of the new Clinton Library, in attempts to make the city a destination. They have done a good job. You can see the library in my photos, it is the last one.
But it was nice to get out and take a trip. The wedding was quaint, a nice short little ceremony. The reception was awesome for the food and the setting. It was in this old grand central station, nice little space to have a personable reception.
But, I will say, they didn’t know how to pick very good music, at least not dancing music. They picked like 60’s rock, and for half of the reception, the dancefloor was dead. But other than that, great reception.
Thomas and Andrea visit
The Lutheran convention for teachers was here in Indy this year, so everyone kind of converged on our awesome city. That included a visit from Thomas and Andrea Czinder. We had a ton of fun, one drinking night with video games, and then a trip on Saturday to Long’s Donuts. I did put Thomas to work helping me take apart our swingset, so that wasn’t hardly fun for him, but he was really great about it.
But, it was a ton of fun to have them over and play games. We need more friends like that in our lives that like to have fun, drink, within a limited budget.
Estate Sale at the old Dow Chemical Bldg.
Sarah and I were headed downtown to stop by the office, and make a return at the mall, and we came across signs for this estate sale. Me looking for a bike I decided we’d turn around and go. But we didn’t find it. We drove around the block, with no luck. And driving around just south of McCarty is not a good area, really poor, so that made thins even more fun.
On our way home we saw the signs again, and decided to give it one more shot. Well, we missed a tiny 8.5 x 11 sign, and we found our way in.
I found out later, these run down old buildings and storage garages are the old Dow Chemical Buildings that just went for 250 large. But not to stray, the sale had all sorts of cool old stuff, that if that was my thing, I could probably have picked up some great deals. Instead we left with a set of filing folders for a dollar. But you see some of the stuff, and how much there was from some of these photos. The one with the yellows chairs I thought Christine might like.
I also found out they were selling four drawer, in nice shape, filing cabinets. So on Tuesday I came back with Glenn and bought one for the office. We also toured around inside the Dow building. I guess they were selling the spaces real cheap. I wonder why. The place was such a dump, and so unsafe, only an idiot would get a place in there. It reminded me of Sherman Park, but about 100 times worse.
Still neat to walk through an old building.
BAGI Casino trip to Elizabeth, Indiana
In having some printed materials made up for the BNI conference over a week ago, our printer made us aware of this event to the Caesers Casino just West of Louisville in southern Indiana. Every year the BAGI association (Builders Assocation of Greater Indianapolis) takes this Casino trip and it is a good time for members of this organization to network in a relaxed setting.
I had not been to a casino since I was in grade school, and that was Las Vegas and I don’t remember that much about it. So I was excited to go, and after the day before at the BNI conference I was in a networking state of mind. Glenn and I represented Esystems and we were on our way.
I sat with Jerrod Klein, who is the VP of Marketing and Sales of MI homes, one of the larger home builders here in Indianapolis, and we chatted a little bit about EVS Minder, Esystems pre-registration system for tradeshows and events.
The casino itself was ok. I did a little bit of the slot machines to say that I did it. But the whole thing seems pretty dumb to me. To sit in one place, and pretty much waste money, doesn’t appeal to me. So it was a bit of a long day. But I got to talk with Glenn, which is something you can’t put a price on. To have him in one place for that period of time, was a valuable resource.
We had two coolers of alcolhol on the bus, which made things that much more fun, and on the way home, we had a movie.
Sarah had a play at school, so I met her there, and then after the play we went with the teachers out to Uno’s. (The photo at the bottom.) David Wray was in town, staying with Christine, so they joined us for some spirits and great pizza. It was a great day, and a fun and interesting week. I felt really important to the company, and tried my best to return on that investment whether it be networking or to give a professional branding image of Esystems Design.
