I made it back from Dragon Con! What a wild ride that was. It was probably one of my favorite Dragon Cons that I’ve participated in, I definitely learned a lot of lessons I hope to take with me to the next one.
We got there Thursday afternoon after driving six hours and I thought I would definitely need to valet park when I got there because that’s usually how it works. There are only so many parking places in the self-park and I figured they would all be gone when I got there. By the time I realize there was still room to self-park I’d already committed to letting the dude at the check-in take my car and charge me a $20 premium to park it for me. So began the journey of me spending too much throughout the whole weekend, but we’re going to try not to get into that. The struggle started really when I got the bags out of the car and handed them over to the bellhop. His name was Eddie and he was actually a really nice dude.
Our first surprise of this journey was at check-in when I learned that I had apparently booked a king size bed room and then promptly forgot all about it. We had our kid in tow, which mean we were going to have to figure out how to sleep. It was going to be a rough night if we couldn’t resolve it. We tried to get a rollaway bed but housekeeping wasn’t around when the front desk called so we figured we’d get to that eventually and just cross our fingers that we could get one. We got up to the room on the 52nd floor which actually was pretty awesome. We could see a ton of cool stuff out our window and Sam thought it was awesome. We were settled in our room by 4:30 but all of our stuff hadn’t made it yet. It wasn’t long after that we got a call and they were checking to make sure we’d be in our room in the next ten minutes because our luggage was going to be brought up. I told them yes and then we ended up waiting an hour and a half for them to finally get it to us. That was bonkers. We had a dinner at 7pm with our good friends Kelly and Zaepho that we were trying to make it to and that really put us behind. Not only that, we had hoped to go ahead and get our badges before going to dinner and that just didn’t happen.
Dinner with Kelly, Zaepho, Kelly’s brother and his wife was awesome. Everyone had a great time and it was just a wonderful reunion. I love those people. We ate at Ted’s as part of a tradition since we met there so many years ago on a whim and just became fast friends. My food was amazing and Zaepho kindly hooked me up with a delicious lager that I really enjoyed. It was about this time that Stephanie and I started realizing that Sam was not feeling super great. He had been complaining about his throat for a bit but we wrote it off as probably allergies and decided to worry about that later.
Stephanie ended up leaving dinner with Sam after they were done, but I hung out with Kelly and Zaepho for a bit longer to chat and that was wonderful. After that I went back to the hotel and Stephanie told me that she was pretty sure Sam was sick or well on his way to being sick. Rather than panic, she was AMAZING. I honestly can’t speak highly enough of how wonderful my wife is. She’s just the most incredible person that ever lived. She hung out with Sam and told me to go find my friends and play for a bit. It was already pretty late, but the attending pro badge office was still open. I decided to be clever and take the habitrails (skyways) over to the Marriott where the badge office was so I wouldn’t have to walk outside. Turns out, they were already checking badges on Thursday night. They usally don’t start until Friday morning because people are checking in and it’s generally difficult to make sure everyone has one that early because so many people haven’t gotten them yet. Well, I ran into a security guard who was NOT letting me go in.
“But I’m going over to the badge office in this hotel to get it. I’m an attending pro,” I said trying not to sound pretentions.
“Not through this door your not,” he said. Then he stopped paying attention to me but I could tell there was no way he was letting me in that door.
I ended up having to walk all the way back through the food court, but was lucky enough to find an exit that would dump me next to the front door of the Marriott, where I had to explain to another security person that I was trying to go get my badge. Luckily this one listened and let me in. So that was finally accomplished. Then I went down and ran into Travis and Charlie near the digital media track home base in the basement of the Hilton. We didnt’ get into much after that but I did get to say hello to a few friends. It was already kind of late but I was happy to at least have it done.
The rest of the weekend was a bit of a blur, but I do remember having a phenomenal time. I didn’t have any big panels except for one on Friday, but that was also the day that Sam was his most sick. He really tanked that morning when we went to get the badges. Little dude felt good enough to get his stuff then really couldn’t pull it together, so we decided it was probably best that he have a rest day.
I ended up getting to see a ton of friends on Friday, including the amazing Emily Swan, Alex P, Horse Girl Tim, Phil Keating, The world’s okayest DM Dennis, Chonkey, HeWhoIsSteve, Charles McFall, Joe Ard, Hugh, Groove, and a handful of other wonderful humans. Sorry if I forgot you, but my brain is slow this evening. They really are some of my favorite people and I’m so glad I get to hang out with each of them every year.
I did manage to make it to the 20th anniversary of the digital media track panel which was pretty wild. I got Brian Brushwood to take some pics with me based on the pictures we got way back in 2010 when I first came to Dragon Con. I know he was in a hurry but he was very gracious and the pics were so fun. It was even his idea to do it which just made me so happy. Dude is a real great guy.
Saturday was my day full of panels and it was a whirlwind. I felt like I did a pretty good job moderating, but I’m also very aware of all the eyes on me when I say stuff and I think I really need to work on my moderating skills. This year we at least had panelist that were really good at sharing the mic and not really hogging the whole thing. I truly enjoyed chatting with everyone on the panels and I think we were really able to help people. The Imposter panel that I moderate every year is easily one of my favorites because its one where the point is to make sure everyone knows how freaked out you are. I don’t hide that I get concerned I’m going to blow it. I don’t pretend I have it together. If I’m trying to figure out what to do, I say it out loud. I also get the opportunity to really let folks know that they matter, and that means a lot to me. I dont’ know if it sticks but we did have a few people come up after the panel and tell us how good it was. I give Phil a lot of credit for that because he is such an incredible talent at taking something as serious as dealing with imposter syndrome and throwing in jokes. I adore Phil.
We also had our Blood Feud event that night and I couldn’t have asked for a better time. Our team was Alex P, Phil, TVsTravis, Horse Girl Time, and me. What a fantastic group of people to be teamed up with. Not to mention that we dressed as wrestlers from the WWE to go up against Chonkey’s team who dressed as Gilligan’s Island characters. That was pretty amazing and a lot of fun. The craziest two things happened during the event. I dressed as Mankind, who at one point was well known for having a tube sock named Mr. Socko that he used to do his special move on people. I didn’t have a sock because I didn’t have the right kind of sock, and me being me, I determined that it was better not to have one. Well, it would have been fine if Scott Sigler hadn’t put a tube sock on to mock me. Phil asked me if I needed a sock and I said, “sure” so he found me one. That sock just happened to be on a dude’s foot and he’d been walking around all day with it. If this hadn’t been for a bit and I hadn’t known it would go over hilariously, I wouldn’t have done it. But I took that stranger’s sock and I put it directly on my hand. I even played it up a bit. “It’s wet!” I said to uproar from the audience. It was magic. I kept that nasty sock on my hand through the whole game.
The thing about Blood Feud is that if you lose, you have to drink a nasty concoction that the boys from Botched cook up and it’s disgusting. They basically mix together a bunch of alcohol that definitly should not be put together. I was prepared to do this drink if it came down to it. Little did I know that the boys from Botched believe me to be too pure to have to do that. I was willing and I wanted them to know I was able, but when it came time for me to roll the dice as one of the losers, something magical happened. Phil started shouting “I’m Stephen Adams!” Then Chonkey said, “I’m Stephen Adams!” THey ended up pulling a Spartacus on me and some of the audience even stood up chanting, “I’m Stephen Adams” because they didn’t want me to drink the nasty stuff. I have the most amazing friends in the world. And I owe a huge thanks to the audience who stood up for me as well. I would have performed for the bit with the drink, but I’m thankful I didn’t have to.
Sunday we finally got to go to the market and enjoy ourselves since Sam was feeling way better and was functioning like a human again. I got some great art, spent way too much money, and Sam got some really cool sketches. One last thing that was fairly magical was that we got to meet the president of the Ian Fleming Foundation. I ended up talking to an artist for a minute and come to find out he does a James Bond podcast. We have our podcast so I mentioned it and I couldn’t believe it but I met Alan J. Porter who runs the Ian Fleming Foundation where they do a ton of stuff for the estate and actually have a bunch of Bond vehicles they’ve restored. What a serendipitous meeting that was. We exchagned info and want to have him on a special episode of our show.
It finally came to an end after Botched on Sunday night which remains one of the most fun and excited parts of the whole con to me. I love those guys and I’m so impressed with them every year. They do an amazing job under high pressure. They’re just ridiculously funny and they work so hard.
Monday came and we managed to get up super early and get on the road. We made it home by 2pm and had plenty of time to get our luggage unpacked and relax for a bit. The adrenaline rush fades but is not completely gone before going back to work on Tuesday. I really need to remember to put an extra PTO day on the books so I can take a full day off and recover.
Like always, I start my Dragon Con adventure wondering if I’m going to want to do it again, and I leave knowing that I’m truly at home there. It’s a place where so many people I love go and I wouldn’t miss it for the world. As long as I can keep getting a hotel, I’m going to keep going to Dragon Con. I really don’t know what I’d do without it.