So last week the wife and I packed up and flew to San Diego for fun, sun, and the Pop Culture Cave of Wonders known as Comic-Con. Two whole days of awesome craziness that proved I was far from alone in my geekiness. I’ve been to at least one con a year for the last decade but have never traveled this far before, nor have I ever been to one that rivaled the capacity of six football fields. Seriously, it took an entire day and a half just to walk the floor and I’m still pretty sure we missed a booth or two. Random celebrities, free swag, cosplay, and the biggest Transformer I’d ever seen (picture forthcoming) made for one of the coolest experiences of my young life.

So here’s the rundown
Day One: We get up at 5:30 in the morning, making sure I have my registration info, my wife has her volunteer badge, snacks, cash, and all other incidentals are packed and we head out. By 8 o’clock I am in line with at least a couple thousand other people winding around the building waiting to get in. Once I have my badge, I’m in yet another line now waiting to get to the Exhibition Hall. Shortly after nine, we are let loose upon the floor. It’s fairly quiet for an hour (I have about two hours to kill while my wife volunteers at the “Burn Notice” panel (standing outside the door, hearing the muffled tones of the one and only Bruce Campbell but never allowed to go inside *sob*). I get my first autograph and spend my first thirty bucks on comics before Monica joins me and we walk the floor, breaking only for lunch and sometimes nature calls. At six o’clock we start making our way to the exit and the shuttle home.

Day Two: Getting up at 5am, same routine as before only Monica’s volunteering starts at 7 instead of 8 so we’re out the door an hour earlier, stopping for some Red Bull on the way. We both get to stand in separate lines as we wait for our respective entries to the building. Once I’m inside and I have my badge verified, I’m off to the Hasbro toy line where I stay for about an hour, mere yards away from my wife whose new job is to guard the front of the line for the “Big Bang Theory” panel. I stand in two more lines before I’m finally able to go in, shop a bit before Monica joins and we’re able to finish walking the floor. We break for lunch at the nearby mall, come back and begin shopping for souvenirs as we search desperately for any celebrities we can capture on film. By the end of the day we were tired and sore and we’re pretty sure we’d walked about 20 or so miles between the two of us. But the weekend was not quite over yet…

To be continued…