Celebration 5

Day 1

Since C5 was in Orlando, my trip involved simply staying at my parent's house and then driving over to the Convention Center. Arriving at the hotel, I realized that I did not have a room key and could not get in touch with any of my roommates. I hung out in the hallways for a few minutes, trying to think of somewhere I could ditch my bags. Called John who said that our room was on the 16th floor, but I got on the wrong elevator. I got on the floor 1-15 elevator, and was sure that someone was playing a prank since the hotel apparently only had 15 floors.

Got to the convention center and hung out in the dealer room for a while. Despite the fact that I actually had 2 passes that should have gotten me access to it, the fates conspired against me and I was walking around without a badge of any kind. I had to borrow one of David's to get in the door (thanks again btw!). Talked to Alex Bickmore for a while who was nice enough to surprise me with a cool Kea Moll sketch he commissioned for me from one of the artists in attendance. I thought that was super cool of him. Ran into Elling who informed me that the volunteers for the collector panels were all gathering to begin work on the cereal box giveaway. That was outside of my responsibilities as videographer of the panels, but I decided to help them out anyway. Cereal is complicated. It should cost like $100 a box. ;)

Went back to the dealer room and hung out some more.

Eventually the decision was made to head over to an Asian restaurant a few blocks away. Since I was the Orlando native and had eaten there before, I was put in charge of finding it. About 10 minutes into our walk, I began to worry that perhaps I had imagined the restaurant and that it never in fact existed. Thankfully, we eventually found it. The walk was unbelievably long for only being about a mile or so. I think it was the heat. I've lived in Florida since I was 2, and even I thought it was hot. Right after we ordered, Oscar got a phone call, and decided to leave. The rice he ordered and then abandoned was delicious though. : )

Went back to the room, and on the way Mike discovered an R2 decoration that he really liked.

Arriving at the hotel, the decision was made to go get beer. This resulted in several hours of hanging out in someone's room. I think it was Broc's maybe? Mike's? Don't remember.

Day 2

Next day, got up and headed over to the dealer room early. I wanted to get there early, since I knew I'd be working at in the panel room the rest of the time. Hung out for a while, and chatted with friends.

Bought a super cool Droids and Ewok cheese box from Todd, who also had some matching stickers I bought a few days later. Neat stuff.

Spent the day in the panel room, expect for the brief period in which I escorted my mother around the dealer room to meet everyone. She was very excited, since she's dealt with several of my friends longer than I have. Ran into Mark, who was organizing a prank on ChrisG to spring at the collector social. He gave me my t-shirt, and told me I had to wear it to the social, but not to show anyone.

After the panels, I had to leave and run over to the volunteer check in area to hear some sort of presentation. Frankly, I didn't pay too much attention to it. Elling was there though, and to my astonishment, he informed me that I would be getting a check from the organizers for my work. I was immediately glad I didn't skip the presentation. After the panel, I ran over to finally get my volunteer badge. The woman working there asked me who my supervisor was, and I informed her that I worked for Gus. She said that Gus' people were not to check in with her, and had to get their own badges elsewhere. After 10 minutes of arguing, she strangely began denying any knowledge of anyone named Gus, despite the fact that she had said that she was sick of dealing with Gus' people, etc. Weird. Got my badge though, and headed over to the C5 store. Despite going to C3 and C4, this is the first time I've ever actually been inside a convention store. I wasn't overly impressed, but bought the (Or)Lando poster, because I thought it rocked. I took it with me to the collector social. Put on my shirt, and ran over there. At the designated moment, we all went up on stage and revealed our "Chris G Fan Club" shirts. Good times. :)

After the social, some of us headed over to a Cuban restaurant in the area. It took us at least an hour to get a group together, and decide where to go. And even after all that we switched destinations twice while on the way. The food was excellent though, and right after we arrived a bunch of other collectors showed up at a neighboring table.

I made the mistake of leaving the room without my key at 2 AM to go see what everyone in the hall outside our room was doing (I put the latch in the door, but someone closed it fully). I left my key inside. Two of my other roommates were also there, and we spent several minutes who would be the one to knock on the door to wake up the sleeping 3rd roommate inside. Since locking us out was my fault, I took the responsibility. Several other collectors who happened by as we debated our predicament said that should just sleep in the lobby or on the floor of their room rather than risk angering the room's sleeping occupant. Luckily, the unnamed sleeping roommate was too tired to be angry, and after a few good natured profanities at us, opened the door.

Day 3

Arrived at the dealer room in time to see George Lucas wandering about. Got his picture taken with the C3 Rebel Soldier figure I carry around, which was awesome. Don't personally care if I have my picture taken with Lucas, but getting the figure's picture with him was cool. It was fun watching a huge crowd of people following after him. Everywhere he went.

Spent the whole day in the panel room again. Some really interesting panels. Ran into Jad Bean, who is one of the few collectors I know who is as interested in Galoob prototypes as I am. He was nice enough to give me one of the custom Lobot figures he organized. Really stunning work.

Went back to the hotel, and sat around with a group of people debating where to eat. An hour or two later, the decision was made to eat in the buffet in the hotel's lobby. The food wasn't great, but we had a TON of people there, so all was well.

After that, we all headed up to room sales, which closed almost immediately and relocated to the 2nd floor convention space area. Didn't buy too much, although I was REALLY tempted by a couple of things. Spent most of the time just walking around enjoying looking at everything, and talking with friends. Bought some stuff from Bill Cable, but ran out of money, so I had to take a trip over to the Walgreen's ATM to get some more. Yehuda decided to come with since he needed money too. Due to the cash machine not wanting to give him anymore money until after midnight, we strolled around the Walgreens for half an hour, talking about SW and life. Finally got the money, and headed back to the hotel, but found that Bill had gotten tired and went back to his room. He was nice enough to come all the way back down to give me my stuff though, which was cool. Evening ended with a lot of folks hanging out in the bar in the lobby, drinking "Lightsabers".