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We walked into the lobby and met members of the Vulkon forums; retired_teacher, froggy, willk, and spikesdragon. Retired_teacher spent the first night in our room cause the hotel was completely full and her reservation did not start until the next night. So we took our stuff upstairs, and decided to go on an adventure and find a good tex-mex restaurant. The front desk gave us directions and told us that it’s only 10 minutes away. Well about 45 minutes, 2 accidents, and rush hour traffic on a one way street we get to little mexico. I had some great chicken fajita nachos and then we came back to the hotel and Froggy came to our room and he and my son played texas hold’em for a couple of hours and he told us all about his experiences with buffy/angel stars.
I had set the alarm for 6 but for some odd reason every morning I was in That first morning, retired_teacher and I went down to work out; she with her yoga and me on the treadmill and weights. It was invigorating. Then after some cranberry juice, it was time to start the endless straightening of the frizzball hair. Retired_teacher went to check in into her own room. L Then retired_teacher, Willk, spikesdragon, Mikey and I took of for So when we reach NASA it is very big. The whole front lobby is occupied by toys and experiments for the kids to do. There is a larger replica of the cockpit of a shuttle and just plain all sort of space travel stuff. We all head off for the tram ride tour and get to wait for 20 minutes while they tell us useless NASA facts. When the shuttle takes off we are excited to go see all about the shuttles but 45 very long, boring minutes later we are wondering why we took this waste of time tour. I kid you not the most exciting part of that tour was a poor little kid who hadn’t had to go to the bathroom before the tram had left, but as the tour was wrapping up he had an incredible need to go. He told his parents he needed to go, but his mom says “tell your dad.” And his dad glares at him and says “that’s too bad. I told you to go before we left so you are just gonna have to hold it.” And this is a little 7 year old boy, he is not going to be able to hold it for long. So every time he says he has to go it gets more and more desperate and his mom and dad just glare at him and ignore him, and everyone else is looking at them and backing up so this kid will not pee on them. He kept saying “I got to go! I really have to go!” and he was holding himself, dancing around and then he would start crying and said. “I can’t hold it anymore.” And finally at the last second his mom picked him up and carried him out back to pee on the bushes. I felt so incredibly sad for that little kid. About 15 minutes later we were finally back at the main NASA center. We went and got some of their disgusting expensive food but we got to eat with a big Lego Astronaut. Then we went to the play area. There was a huge play area for grades K-5 and Mikey (12) snuck in. One of the attendants kept asking him what his age was and he would avoid her and run and hide. Then each time he would slide down or try to get back into the toys he was lucky because some other big kid was being caught “How old are you?” So Mikey was able to play in it for several hours. I went to watch what is happening in space right now and what has happened over the past 60 years. It was pretty exciting. We got to go in the cockpit and see all of the instruments astronauts have to use. We tried many of the experiments and saw all kinds of things like astronaut food, beds, and other space things. We all met back up at The best was Motesagain’s Eternal is a forum member who likes to make cartoons about the conventions. This particular one was about the cruise, and they crashed, and Fernando was the skipper and Joe Motes was Gilligan, and one part Joe tells David to make a plasma TV out of ship parts, and Fernando tells him “why not make something useful like a telephone?” and hits Joe with his hat, saying Motesigan, and then David makes a telephone out of pineapple parts and shows it to Fernando who is about to call for help when Motes comes up and says “good, you found food. At least we won’t starve to death,”and he eats the pineapple. Then Fernando hits him with the hat and yells. “Motesagain!” And during this time all of the James Marsters stalkers are following him around and everytime something does not go right one of the ladies says “I want a refund!” The final straw is when Fernando and Motes are standing there together and they hear a phone ringing. Motes takes a cell phone out of his pocket and says, “you have the wrong number” and turns to Fernando and says “I hate it when that happens.” Fernando turns red and says “Come here Motesagain,” and hits him with the hat while he is yelling, “Motesagain!” It was really very funny. E and Leiden!
Early the next morning I woke up at the usual time,
Brunch was spectacular, we met lots of people and got tons of pictures. Froggy came over and took our picture and visited for a minute.
Camden, Kath, Froggy, and Retired teacher.
Socky, Secret, Webrageous, Ann, and Secret's famous dolls.
Adam, Chris,Shell, Eternal, and Samplecd I went to the cocktail party. While I was there I got a hug from Amber and I told her I was Mikey’s mom. Before the cocktail party, was a “chance” presentation by Amber and Mikey sat in the front row and Amber talked to him and even signed his wooden stake he had purchased. During the course of the weekend she actually signed three items for him; The stake, his PJ shirt, and a card with her picture on it. She was the one who just acted like your normal everyday person. She smiled at all of us and really catered to the kids, remembering their names and talking to them whenever they passed in the halls. So the cocktail party was very interesting except as with the whole rest of the con you never have time to eat so I felt like I was going to pass out. Andy Hallet and Jonathon Woodward put on an act for us. Jonathon was very humorous he made many jokes and sang a bunch of little songs he had made up. And then Andy came out and everyone cheered. He sang some songs with Jonathon like “Sweet Home Alabama.” And another one I can’t recall right now, but then someone asked him if he could sing “Lady Marmalade” from Milan Rouge and he did. There were two ladies who got up to dance to it on the dance floor. It was great. Then they let everybody back in for the Karaoke contest. Over 20 people signed up to sing and it went well past After that James Leary had his show that I heard was very funny and quite a bit raunchy, but I was just too exhausted so I went up to bed. After James’ show Natalie and Becky, who I was rooming with, went to Froggy’s room for a party and Amber Benson was there, and they were so excited they got to see her and talk to her and party with her. (A star of Buffy!)
Early the next morning I got ready for my photo ops. First one was with Amber, she was such a cutie even though she was so tired, and first thing she asks is “Where is the little guy? Tell him good morning.”
I met some new people named Ann and Jewel and also we just got to get back in the same place in line so there wasn’t any of the confusion like in The best thing about this con compared to The stars, even James had a better chance of getting to know each of us. So after Amber’s photo (she said my shirt was cute J ), it was Andy’s turn. So I walk in and the first thing you notice is Andy is much taller than he seems and really pretty cute so I am third in line, and I walk up to him. They tell him my name (I forgot another cool person I met while visiting in line is named Monique also) so anyway they tell Andy my name and he laughs and says another? Commenting on that we both had the same name. The thing with Andy I noticed all weekend was that he has just an awesome recollection of people’s names. He was the only one during Q&A’s or really any time who called out a lot of their names instead of saying “Girl in the pink shirt”, or “little dude in black.” He is also a marvelous storyteller, he is very animated. The other thing I noticed about Andy is he is more aloof than James and Amber. He had more personal space he keeps around himself, but he has a great smile, voice and laugh.
So I walk in and shake his hand and he goes to put his arm around me for his usual shot, but I lean up and ask if it would be ok to kiss him on the cheek for our picture and he says “sure” which, I am very pleased with how it turned out. It was great then it was time to wait for James. I saw him. He looked as cute as always. Black jacket and t-shirt and since we were in the front of the line he kind of had the deer caught in the headlights look. But I kept my composure and since I had such success with Andy, I got up my nerve and said “James I have a huge favor to ask.” And he smiled at me with his soooo expressive face. Then looked at me with his expectant look and I asked if it would be ok if I kissed him on the cheek for our picture and he said “sure” and now everyone who saw how that picture turned out wished they had asked the same thing. It is absolutely perfect in every way. Then after the picture I told James “thank you so much for coming, and he said “My pleasure dear.” It was great.
After photo ops I had a granola bar and changed clothes then I headed down for Q & A’s. It was a lot of fun. Andy spent his whole half hour telling a bus story that had happened to him when he was 13. It was great. We were all rolling in our seats laughing. I noticed was that his voice is a little different than Lorne’s. During Ambers Q & A she talked about some upcoming movies she is working on. She talked about how Joss had always planned on bringing Amber does not like to watch herself on screen. She says it is too easy to pick apart her acting and so she would rather not watch it. She snorts sometimes when she laughs. It is so cute. She is excited because she just made “Chance” on a dare from her friend that she could really write and direct and act in her own film, and now it was just picked up for main screen. It is going to be shown at many large cities around the After Amber was done James came out and talked about his singing and how excited he was to be there. He just displayed such a confidence in himself. He once again re-iterated how he was more than happy to reprise his role as Spike but only for the next 5 years as after that he would not look the same and he thinks the continuity of Spike not changing as he is a vampire stay correct. He said how poor Andy was always so tired on the set and the contacts really hurt his eyes, and so Andy was sleeping in his chair and fiddling with his contacts and then the Andy outside the set was a completely different person. Very wide awake, jokester. After James finished it was autograph/gift giving time. I met a really cool guy on my left named Rod who agreed to take the picture of James & Andy signing my stuff. On the other side of me was Anne, the person I had sat by during all of the photo ops that morning. We were smack dab in the middle of the auditorium. So we got up to deliver the gifts, I had brought; three ceramic things that my sister had helped me make. A little green monster for Andy that turned out so cool it looked just like Lorne with the horns and pointy fingers and everything. Amber got a little jewelry box. They were all original awesome things. So I got up to James and he shakes my hand and says “Oh! What’s this?” and I show him and he says “wow” he loves it. I told him my sister is an artist so he asked what her name is and of course, I fumble and say she’s not famous she just helped me make it. He smiled patiently and asked “what is her name?”, and I told him and he said. “Thank you, and tell Heather thank you so much too.”
Rod took some pictures then we moved over to Amber. She loved the box. I told her I loved “Chance”, especially since she got James to be in it, and she laughed and saw our pictures together and asked why I had changed because I just looked so cute in that shirt, and she had “adored” it on me. Then signed the picture out to me and asked me where Mikey was. I told her he didn’t have a platinum ticket but I am sure she will see him later. Then I got on to Andy and I showed him the little green monster and tell him how my sister has been so sick for over a year now and how for the past three months she has been making herself get up and work on this for him as Lorne is her favorite character on Angel, and how Andy himself has been sick for so long and just recently has gotten better so he gives her hope.
Now keep in mind you are lucky to get 2 seconds with the actor, I am sure I was talking to Andy for at least 2 minutes and he signed a picture with a personal sentence for Heather and then signed our picture together. Then it was time to go eat a snack and get ready for the banquet concert, after party. We had requested Jonathon Woodward’s table as our first choice, so since I was Platinum, I got his table. I let Mikey have my seat, so I sat with Natalie and Becky on the outer circle. Jonathon showed up a little late cause he had been at the costume contest that Natalie and Mikey had been cheated out of trophies at. By the way Natalie had made a dress and dressed up as Darla, and Mikey had bleached his hair and eyebrows to be Spike but there was a more annoying kid named Trey who was dressed up as Angel and won, and a little girl dressed up as Anya beat Natalie. So we were sad, but then Jonathon showed up at the banquet in an orange kilt and it is just hilarious.
Mikey gave him our gift (we had bought little notes and pictures to all the bonus gifts.) and Jonathon turns around and touches my arm and says “Monique thank you so much this means a lot, and points his hand to Mikey and says “He is cool, uh-huh he is cool.” And then during the banquet Amber’s table kept laughing, then Jonathon’s table starts laughing, so then James Leary’s table starts laughing. So Jonathon gets us all to clap and laugh. Then all six tables around James Leary stand up clap and say “Whoo-Hoo” So Jonathon sits down and looks at Leary and whispers “#itch!” After that The rest of the night Jonathon told funny stories at his table, and Mikey is very happy he gets to sit there. During the karaoke contest and banquet, Mikey got everyone but James Marsters to sign his stake, and I had James sign it during my autograph session, so Mikey had the time of his life. Then as everyone is finishing up eating, they call Amber up on stage and she is suppose to perform but she did now know that. So she has nothing prepared, and the karaoke machine had been taken down so someone volunteered to go up and get the music and words to her song as Tara on Once More With Feeling. While she is waiting she chugs a glass of red wine and tried to sing the Beatles song “ooolalay ooolahla life goes on.”, but she couldn’t remember the words. Then she sang the When we return I got a place over on the side by the door so I could hurry over to the after-party and be in the front row. James comes out. They say no flash photography but people are still flashing. Some staff goes around to try to stop people. Then James asks “ok who wants flash? Who doesn’t?” The “doesn’t”s win so he says sorry guys, no flash. Then he blows us all away with an amazing concert including a song I am pretty sure is going to get him into trouble called “bad” about a girl who hits on him at a convention, who has issues. He knows what one kiss will bring so he tries to ply her with champagne. He says she makes him want to be bad. It makes all of us wonder if there really are some lucky girls out there whom he has hooked up with at a con. I am sooo jealous. The crowd just went crazy for that song. The thing that made the whole concert so good was James expressions. He is just soo expressive, and he plays his guitars so well, I was happy to be there. After the concert we went over to the ampitheater, and retired_teacher and I got in the front seat front row. James comes out and says he is not sure what to do to make it worth our while. So it starts out just like a normal Q&A session. And then my friend He talked some about his kids, it was just so cool to see James talk about things that are just so passionate to him. By the time I left, I hurried up to my room for a shower and a good cry, and what I realized was that James had a gift. He has a gift of bringing honest truths out in people he brings all the emotions, and everything you have concealed and tried to repress to the surface. It is a little bit scary but I confronted the scary parts and let the rest give me ideas on how to be a better happier person. I think everyone in that crowd went away feeling like they had just had a very intimate conversation with James and it just amazes me that he has that kind of power but never once have I seen him abuse it. I have always basically worshipped him as Spike and just for being a great actor, but for the first time that hero worship transferred into true respect. I respect him as another human being and that is a great feeling.(Don’t get me wrong I still have and always will have the biggest crush on the man. One touch o smile or wink sends shivers all over my body) but I am not intimidated by him anymore. Now for others, I think they started feeling those walls coming down around their emotions and it scared them so they tried to repress it. Some were very offended by what James said and they complained bitterly about it. I felt bad for them and him because it was such a neat experience for me. That night before I went to bed I wrote a little three sentence speech so I could express some of what I was feeling to James. BIG MISTAKE I and my friend waited for 3 hours so we could go last in our photo ops with James. I started talking and trying to spill out what we had written. I got as far as “Thank you, James, you made each and every one of us feel we had an intimate conversation with you last night, when I lost it and just started to cry. I hurriedly sucked it in and turned away, but James reached out and said “are you ok?”, and I almost lost it completely, but I took a deep breath and turned around and nodded and said “Ok I have the kissing picture and the holding really close picture, so how about a really big hug and he smiled and said with his eyes “I can do that,” out loud he said “Ok” and squeezed me really tight and when I got that picture back he looks really happy, and even though there were tears in my eyes, I do to, so as mortifying as it was I think it turned out ok. And I hope James has a small inkling of how much he touched me this weekend. (Okay get your mind out of the gutter.) On Saturday Mikey was able to get his photo op a day early, so he got in line with me. In
After James photo ops I ran back to my room to change and made it downstairs in time for Jonathon Woodward’s Q&A. He was telling us how Fred deserved to die so we shouldn’t be mad at him for killing her and he told us how they were filming a movie about a serial killer who was still on the loose and while they were making the movie all of the power went out for a week, not to mention the movie was about a serial killer who comes after them and kills them all as they are editing and fixing it. But then 2 weeks into post production the serial killer was caught in real life so it wasn’t too scary. Jonathon is just fun to watch because he is so full of energy and such a jokester. After Jonathon the trio came out next. Amber sat between James and Andy. They were all so funny they played off of each other telling raunchy jokes and you could just tell they genuinely liked and appreciated each other as people and actors. Amber told us how she loved all of James expressions & how she knew he was a serious actor but after “Chance” she realized how much of a comedian he was. Andy gave Amber his cell phone and told her it was on vibrate and she pretended to put it down her pants and Andy and James were joking and saying how everyone in the audience should call. It was just fun to watch the three of them. James said he would never encourage his kids to go into acting because he would not have become an actor if he had a clue of what he was getting himself into. After the question and answer he got our other autographs, James said our kissing picture was “very hot”. And I said “I know, thank you very much. I am going to hang it on my wall.” He says “I would too.” Then I finished what I had wanted to say that morning and luckily I kept my composure and got it all. I told James how he was blessed with a gift and we all loved him because he never abused it and he smiled and held my hand with his and said, “thank you.” That means a lot. I would have loved to stare in his eyes forever. Then it was the second “Chance” presentation. Amber was as funny as ever. She is just so sweet and down to earth. At the earlier presentation of “Chance” they had borrowed my copy of it because they had forgotten theirs so that made me feel good I could help out. Camden Toy remembered Mikey and I from Oakland, gave me a hug, put me at ease. What a gentleman. So far Camden and Amber win the award for being the most geniune, personable and nice...but Andy and Jonathon are not far behind. Kissmejane. She's nice. She's friendly. And apparently she reads my husband's posts. I bought my hubby a copy of her book and had her make out to Gnarl, his screen name, and she said oh I know him, he is a great storyteller. :) Got to meet Jenny Mullen, who played Nina on Angel. This was probably her first convention, or one of her firsts. She was a bit aloof. Friendly, but aloof, like she wasn't really sure of her place at this thing. Very pretty and nice to everyone.
and the everdear to my heart James Leary who played Clem on Buffy and is one heck of a comedian
Then
Nat,Becky and I plus our new super cool friend Angela
Natalie & Becky and I looked so cute in our blue and green PJs we headed down and I realized this was our final night so I had so much energy. We saw
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the necklace :)
FROGGY!
Becky, Natalie, Pearl and I at our table.
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Shell, David,Kitty