alwaysenduphere (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
alwaysenduphere) wrote2008-11-17 06:20 pm
alwaysenduphere) wrote2008-11-17 06:20 pm
Chicago Con, act one: getting to the big adventure.
So, I've been really excited to make these huge long posts about my experience, but I'm still so exhausted from the whole ordeal, I'm like...BLAH.
BUT.
I will do my best. I'm sure everyone's already heard most of the good (and the uberbad) that happened, but mine's just another perspective of the event. Splitting it into two entries, one all the stuff up to when they came out on stage, and the other entry is just Jared and Jensen.
SO.
I give you, the journey UP TO the amazingness that is J2.
Some basics to talk about. I drove Saturday afternoon from Muncie to Crown Point to stay the evening with Erin, who I'd only communicated through email with.
I left Muncie a little later than planned, so I couldn't take my time so much getting to Crown Point as I wanted. The route Erin gave me formed a big "L" through Northern Indiana, taking my to Lafayette then up to CP and probably wasn't the quickest way to get there, but I loved it. I hate being on the Interstate and take back road highways as much as possible. I'm not sure if that's the country girl in me or what, but it totally like made me feel like Sam and Dean, drivin' the backroads of America.
Some example town names on the rustic Indiana State Road 26: Russiaville, Phlox,Point Isabel, Hemlock, Sedalia, Pettit, and then of course, Fairmont, Indiana, that I voiceposted from earlier, home of James Dean. Sort of. I'm told he's from Marion, but they seem to claim him. And Jim Davis. They've got like a little museum and stuff about them, and they have a James Dean Festival mid-september that there's signs for. I was starving the whole way on 26, but there wasn't a food place to stop at. At all. Just to give you an idea of how small some of these towns were. It was like driving through Wheatland over and over again, lol. I felt much at home. Until I got to Crown Point, and especially until we got to Chicago.
So, got into Crown Point all good, drove by Erin's house once then found it. She was making dinner when I got there, so I ate and it was delicious. I guess at Purdue she's got some complicated roommates, foodwise and she does all the cooking there. I was like...so why would you come home and cook? But it was tasty.
We got to talking about Supernatural, of course, and it was so awesome to like...talk to somebody about "oh, Jared said this at this convention" and have them know exactly what I was talking about. Which I guess would probably make us both equally obsessed and crazy, lol. But I feel like I'm constantly explaining what I'm talking about to people, so it was nice to not have to. We were up pretty dang late just talking about crap, in her Supernatural-decorated room, which she seemed to be a little embarrassed about but I thought it was AWESOME. So we only got like 4 hours of sleep before leaving for Chicago Sunday morning.
Erin's mom made this for her after graduation from last year's Chicago pics. How cute is that?
This one's right above the bed. It WATCHED me sleep! lol.
Sunday we left at like...8:30 am to get to Chicago for registration. I took the Supernatural comics with me, Origins and the first 4 of Rising Son and read them on the way there. They're decent, good back story about John and how he adapted to being a hunter, but not really necessary. I carried around the first novel with me too at the con, but I never started reading it. Erin's brother Danny came with us, and he was so cute. He's like 16 and he was all "I'm gonna be the only guy not attached to a woman or gay there" And...he may have been, actually, but I think he had a good time. I'm sure he also heard some things he had no clue about. :s
So I had my nose in the comics for about half the drive ( I read fast, lol) but we had to drive through Gary, and that was pretty iffy. I already knew Gary's reputation a little bit, but Erin and Danny were like.."we're NOT driving back through here at night" so they fixed the Tom-Tom GPS thing (who's name was Tim) on the way back so we didn't. Chicago traffic scares me. We'll just leave it at that. It's probably just that I grew up in small town driving. But I can manage Indy okay. And that was a lot worse. I do understand now why some people drive so crazy: because their GPS is telling them to. I swear, Tim would be like "stay left for 600 yards, then exit right" in his staunch British voice. So, basically, GPS encourage you to speed and then cut across 4 lanes of traffic to exit. *rolls eyes*
I don't much watch baseball, but the home of the White Sox warrants a picture.
The Windy City Skyline. It's wavy a bit cuz I was taking it with my phone in the car...
Got there, registration. I was still a little worried about my ticket thing, even though I was told I shouldn't have been, and I shouldn't have. It was easy, just say my name and show my ID. The vendor room was a lot smaller than I what I was expecting from past experience at other conventions. There were only 4 or 5 tables with some stuff. Stuff that is mostly available online. The t-shirt line was kinda long and rushed, but I bought 4 t-shirts. I've lost one somewhere since purchasing them, though (;_;) so Rachael and Nicole had to share a shirt between them. I gave them one of the pictures I bought for me to make up for it, but I feel bad. Not because I lost $20, but because they didn't get their shirt. Lol.
Erin and Danny basically went a separate way from me once we got there, Erin to all the photo ops and Danny to be bored waiting. lol. I went and claimed a seat in the first row of the general admission. And then a couple girls and a dude came and sat down right next to me. Even though there were plenty of other seats. But it was a good spot, I suppose. But the guy like...wasn't talking to anyone and he kept shaking his leg and I was kinda uncomfortable. I had this plan of making friends with the ppl next to me, ya know, and he didn't talk. At all. Then these two girls came up in the row behind me, and they seemed to be trying to find the best seat to see the stage from all the way back yonder. I was like.."I did the same thing." then pretty much invited myself to sit next to them. Which I think may have been the smartest thing I've ever done, because without Abby and Katy to keep me awake and stuff, I think I would've been miserable for like the 4 hours before the panel.
We were like laughing really hard in this one because I can't take pictures with my own camera, apparently. Katy, Abby, and Me.
And that concludes this post. I'm gonna put all the stuff leading up to Jared and Jensen speaking and then them into another post that will probably be much longer than this one.
I gotta go and upload the few crappy videos I took. And I need to shower, take a nap, and stuff. But 1 outta 2 ain't bad.
BUT.
I will do my best. I'm sure everyone's already heard most of the good (and the uberbad) that happened, but mine's just another perspective of the event. Splitting it into two entries, one all the stuff up to when they came out on stage, and the other entry is just Jared and Jensen.
SO.
I give you, the journey UP TO the amazingness that is J2.
Some basics to talk about. I drove Saturday afternoon from Muncie to Crown Point to stay the evening with Erin, who I'd only communicated through email with.
I left Muncie a little later than planned, so I couldn't take my time so much getting to Crown Point as I wanted. The route Erin gave me formed a big "L" through Northern Indiana, taking my to Lafayette then up to CP and probably wasn't the quickest way to get there, but I loved it. I hate being on the Interstate and take back road highways as much as possible. I'm not sure if that's the country girl in me or what, but it totally like made me feel like Sam and Dean, drivin' the backroads of America.
Some example town names on the rustic Indiana State Road 26: Russiaville, Phlox,Point Isabel, Hemlock, Sedalia, Pettit, and then of course, Fairmont, Indiana, that I voiceposted from earlier, home of James Dean. Sort of. I'm told he's from Marion, but they seem to claim him. And Jim Davis. They've got like a little museum and stuff about them, and they have a James Dean Festival mid-september that there's signs for. I was starving the whole way on 26, but there wasn't a food place to stop at. At all. Just to give you an idea of how small some of these towns were. It was like driving through Wheatland over and over again, lol. I felt much at home. Until I got to Crown Point, and especially until we got to Chicago.
So, got into Crown Point all good, drove by Erin's house once then found it. She was making dinner when I got there, so I ate and it was delicious. I guess at Purdue she's got some complicated roommates, foodwise and she does all the cooking there. I was like...so why would you come home and cook? But it was tasty.
We got to talking about Supernatural, of course, and it was so awesome to like...talk to somebody about "oh, Jared said this at this convention" and have them know exactly what I was talking about. Which I guess would probably make us both equally obsessed and crazy, lol. But I feel like I'm constantly explaining what I'm talking about to people, so it was nice to not have to. We were up pretty dang late just talking about crap, in her Supernatural-decorated room, which she seemed to be a little embarrassed about but I thought it was AWESOME. So we only got like 4 hours of sleep before leaving for Chicago Sunday morning.
Erin's mom made this for her after graduation from last year's Chicago pics. How cute is that?
This one's right above the bed. It WATCHED me sleep! lol.
Sunday we left at like...8:30 am to get to Chicago for registration. I took the Supernatural comics with me, Origins and the first 4 of Rising Son and read them on the way there. They're decent, good back story about John and how he adapted to being a hunter, but not really necessary. I carried around the first novel with me too at the con, but I never started reading it. Erin's brother Danny came with us, and he was so cute. He's like 16 and he was all "I'm gonna be the only guy not attached to a woman or gay there" And...he may have been, actually, but I think he had a good time. I'm sure he also heard some things he had no clue about. :s
So I had my nose in the comics for about half the drive ( I read fast, lol) but we had to drive through Gary, and that was pretty iffy. I already knew Gary's reputation a little bit, but Erin and Danny were like.."we're NOT driving back through here at night" so they fixed the Tom-Tom GPS thing (who's name was Tim) on the way back so we didn't. Chicago traffic scares me. We'll just leave it at that. It's probably just that I grew up in small town driving. But I can manage Indy okay. And that was a lot worse. I do understand now why some people drive so crazy: because their GPS is telling them to. I swear, Tim would be like "stay left for 600 yards, then exit right" in his staunch British voice. So, basically, GPS encourage you to speed and then cut across 4 lanes of traffic to exit. *rolls eyes*
I don't much watch baseball, but the home of the White Sox warrants a picture.
The Windy City Skyline. It's wavy a bit cuz I was taking it with my phone in the car...
Got there, registration. I was still a little worried about my ticket thing, even though I was told I shouldn't have been, and I shouldn't have. It was easy, just say my name and show my ID. The vendor room was a lot smaller than I what I was expecting from past experience at other conventions. There were only 4 or 5 tables with some stuff. Stuff that is mostly available online. The t-shirt line was kinda long and rushed, but I bought 4 t-shirts. I've lost one somewhere since purchasing them, though (;_;) so Rachael and Nicole had to share a shirt between them. I gave them one of the pictures I bought for me to make up for it, but I feel bad. Not because I lost $20, but because they didn't get their shirt. Lol.
Erin and Danny basically went a separate way from me once we got there, Erin to all the photo ops and Danny to be bored waiting. lol. I went and claimed a seat in the first row of the general admission. And then a couple girls and a dude came and sat down right next to me. Even though there were plenty of other seats. But it was a good spot, I suppose. But the guy like...wasn't talking to anyone and he kept shaking his leg and I was kinda uncomfortable. I had this plan of making friends with the ppl next to me, ya know, and he didn't talk. At all. Then these two girls came up in the row behind me, and they seemed to be trying to find the best seat to see the stage from all the way back yonder. I was like.."I did the same thing." then pretty much invited myself to sit next to them. Which I think may have been the smartest thing I've ever done, because without Abby and Katy to keep me awake and stuff, I think I would've been miserable for like the 4 hours before the panel.
We were like laughing really hard in this one because I can't take pictures with my own camera, apparently. Katy, Abby, and Me.
And that concludes this post. I'm gonna put all the stuff leading up to Jared and Jensen speaking and then them into another post that will probably be much longer than this one.
I gotta go and upload the few crappy videos I took. And I need to shower, take a nap, and stuff. But 1 outta 2 ain't bad.