San Diego Comic Con - Day 1 - Wednesday

Got up early as I couldn't sleep. I was too excited for the next five days. Not only was I going to be cosplaying and seeing cool thing at the con but I was going to be spending 5 days with two of my favorite people in the world Chris and Robert. I had just seen Chris a week and a half ago but it's felt like forever and I could wait to go pick him up from the airport. I see Robert almost every week and I still get excited when we get to hang out, these guys mean the world to me.

Still had a few last minute things to do/pack and man do those little things really add up.. so much so that it made me late. I loaded up my car with my bags around 10am, I had two suitcases (one for cosplay and one for regular clothes) and several back pack kind of bags.  I wanted to be gone by 9:30am. Traffic was pretty heavy so I didn't get to Roberts until around 11:00am. Chris was flying in at 11:30am at LAX, which thankfully is close to Robert's place.

Timing couldn't have been better, as I got to Roberts he was packing up his car, I transferred my stuff into his and within a few minutes we were off. We got to LAX around 11:30am and had a bit of a problem with communication as Chris' phone has a mind of it's own. Finally after our third go round at LAX we met Chris outside the terminal and loaded his stuff into the car. We were now ready to hit the road to San Diego Comic Con.

We drove about 20 minutes or so before deciding to pull off and grab some lunch. Once feed we jumped back on the freeway and headed south. Traffic was hit and miss as usual. Took about three plus hours to get there. We got to San Diego and found our hotel and checked in. We took our stuff up to the room and kind of relaxed for a bit. It was nice room, pretty large and had two double beds. It would be just the three of us for a few days (Wed/Thurs) then my brother would be joining us for Friday and Saturday. We unpacked and then headed to con to pick up badges. Well I was picking up my badges as both Robert and Chris were relying on others for their badges and we weren't sure when those folks were getting them.

Our hotel is about four blocks east and five blocks north of the convention center. It's just over a mile and about 20 minute walk. All of this isn't bad and we got such a great deal on the room (Thanks Robert). We got to the convention center and it was a madhouse. There were hundreds and hundreds of people all over the place. It was around 4pm and the con wasn't opening for another two hours but you couldn't tell from the crowds. I got into the very long professional line (at first I wasn't sure where to go as the staff there wasn't that helpful) but I did manage to get in the right line. Robert and Chris took off around the convention to see if they could find the Assassin Creeds Ship, which was docked on the water. It was hot outside but luckily the line moved quickly and within 20 minutes I had my badges (mine and my brothers).

Once I had my badge I hooked back up with Robert and Chris and we walked around The Gaslamp district looking for a place to grab some dinner. We found The Counter (burger joint) that was closed last SDCC was now open so we grabbed some dinner there. By the time we were done it was 6ish and we headed back to the convention center. Since my brother was not joining us until Friday I had the extra badge to give to either Chris or Robert. They did rock/paper/scissor and Robert won two out of three. He was going to use the badge first and then come out and give it to Chris later. This was Roberts first time on the con floor. He came last year but didn't actually do the con itself. We ran into some friends and one of them didn't have a badge so he hung out with Chris, who come to find out found a large group of friends to hang out with outside of con.

We entered the con and everyone went in different directions. I went to the Weta booth to get the exclusive Hobbit action figure Azog. It was crazy busy on the floor. There were people everywhere. It felt like a Saturday rather then a Wednesday preview night. It took a good hour or so to get to the front of the line but I did manage to purchase two of the exclusive Hobbit "Azog" figures. I also got a cool Superman/Hobbit mash up tee shirt as well.

We hooked back up with some friends (Both Chris and Robert had their own badges now). We walked the crowded floor for a bit before getting in line at the Titan shop to buy the exclusive The Guild Companion Book (come to find out they only made 30 of them). We stood in line for what seemed like forever (about 30 minutes) but we finally got the book. What made these different from the "regular" books is these are hard bound covers and have an extra page with the autographs of the entire cast. (I'm going to do a separate blog about the Guild Companion at a later date.)

It was now 9:00pm and the con was closed for the day. We were all tired so we headed back to the hotel, what was great is that there was a shuttle bus that would take us back to the hotel and after along day it was nice to not have to walk back.. even if it was just a little over a mile away.

Once back at the hotel we dropped off our stuff and headed back out to meet up with some friends who went to see the Hammer Improv show. We got there just when they were getting out. It was great seeing a bunch of people that I haven't seen in over a year. We stood around and chatted for about a half hour before we started to walk around the gaslamp district looking for a place to eat and drink. After walking a few blocks and not finding a place that could accommodate all of us (there were about 15 of us) I finally called it a night and headed back to the hotel room, Robert joined me. As it turned out alot of people called it a night and only a few stayed out to party (Chris included).

Back at the hotel I was in contact with Greg and Red 5 about my Hobbit feet. If you remember from an earlier blog I had asked Greg to make me some new feet as my old Hobbit feet were going on three years and I didn't think they could take much more. They asked that I leave my old Hobbit feet as a reference. Well these guys are so busy they didn't have time to make my new feet so Red said she would stop by my hotel and drop off my old ones. I was just hoping they could last a few more days. Robert went to bed and I stayed up (not by choice, I was tired). Chris got home around midnight and went to bed. Around 12:30am Red called and said she'd be downstairs in a few minutes. I went down and a few minutes later she drove up and dropped off my old Hobbit feet.

I went back up to the hotel room and crashed.. had to be up at 7am to prepare for my Hobbit cosplay tomorrow (err rather later today).

So ended day 1 of San Diego Comic Con 2013, It was a crazy day.. being at the con for only a half hour I was already tired and asking myself why I am doing this again :) Of course this was only the beginning of what I hoped would be an AWESOME five days in geek heaven.

Pictures from SDCC 2013 Album 1

Pictures from SDCC 2013 Album 2

Pictures from SDCC 2013 Album 3