productive 
(left) The MVP kids play area at the Rochester airport featured terrifying clouds above the plastic airplanes and mushrooms.
(right) I think it's really interesting how restaurants change their menu based on both geographic location and also location-context. For example, lots of restaurants offered breakfast menus at their airport satellites that they don't offer normally (at least in Upstate NY). Mexican-food-chain "Moe's" had breakfast burritos which even went so far as to be called airport names like "Extra Luggage."
(right) I think it's really interesting how restaurants change their menu based on both geographic location and also location-context. For example, lots of restaurants offered breakfast menus at their airport satellites that they don't offer normally (at least in Upstate NY). Mexican-food-chain "Moe's" had breakfast burritos which even went so far as to be called airport names like "Extra Luggage."
WEDNESDAY: It's been forever since I've taken a week-long vacation without the rest of my family, and I've never taken more than a day off of work in a row before, so there was some massive prep-work and packing to be done! Between that and our excitement, Adam and I chose not to sleep all night before our 4:30am pick-up (thanks Max!) to go to the airport for our 6am flight. The flights were uneventful, but we did test out AirTran's in-air wireless by finally planning out which panels we wanted to go to and noticing how more than half of our plane were obviously geeky con-goers like us. We handled one-hour of delays between the two trips from Rochester to Atlanta and Atlanta to San Diego, but our arrival was slightly more "interesting:" Matt and Kara were our ride to the hotel, which was also in their name, but Delta screwed them over royally and they suffered 5 hours (!) of flight delays! So, Adam and I took our second taxi ride ever, and Matt wisely called the hotel and allowed us to check in ahead of time.
(left) The Manchester Hyatt lobby. | (right) The hotel, as seen from across the harbor.
Walking into the lobby of the Manchester Hyatt, Adam and I momentarily worried what we'd gotten ourselves into -- several-story-high ceilings, hand-painted frescoes, chandeliers, even a bellhop station. Beautiful work, but thankfully our actual room was very much a standard hotel room, albeit with a fantastic view of downtown San Diego out our windows on the 26th floor:
I can't even begin to imagine how many miles we walked throughout our 5 days in San Diego. We took the car out a handful of times during the first and last day, but otherwise it was up and down the 2 blocks between our hotel and the convention center, all day at the 'con, and the 2 times we wandered up the mile or so into the gaslamp district for dinner and minor groceries. We did get to sit for panels, but if we weren't there or walking between them, we were standing in lines for hours on end; I truthfully don't think any of my family's trips to DisneyWorld were as standing intensive as this trip was -- not a complaint at all, just a shocking fact I didn't fully comprehend the extent of before.
Registration in the sail atrium. I mostly left the zoom lens on my camera throughout the week, so I have very few images that even begin to show the sheer volume of people in attendance, or the scope of how big the rooms really were. You'll just have to take my word on it, or find other people's photos on Flickr.
After finding out the Anna, Val, and the Bad Karma crew were also still hours from arrival, Adam and I decided to blindly venture over to the convention center, get registered and pick up our badges. Having little to no idea of what we were doing, we were instantly overwhelmed by the sheer mass of people, unlabled lines, and overall lack-of-knowing-what-to-do. The badge pick-up ended up being really fast, easy, and straight forward, but then we had several hours until Preview Night actually opened and, despite seeing people standing in lines already, we decided to hit up Seaport Village for some food and wait until Matt & Kara showed up before returning to the 'con.
(left) Food at Buster's Beach House, which had great outdoor decor, nice plants, and a waiter who talked with us about clothing from the 90s coming back in style before he paused and asked "Wait, you guys were around for the 90s, right?"
(right) Seaport Village was insanely manicured-pretty, and featured a surprising amount of wildlife. There were lots of gulls and ducks in the water, but Adam particularly enjoyed the small crabs that were walking around the harborfront.
(right) Seaport Village was insanely manicured-pretty, and featured a surprising amount of wildlife. There were lots of gulls and ducks in the water, but Adam particularly enjoyed the small crabs that were walking around the harborfront.
Adam and I got a late lunch at Buster's Beach House, scoring a seat outside on the deck in the afternoon sunshine, and split an order of Jamaican Voodoo Chicken skewers and a "Molokai" pizza covered in fresh pineapple and pulled pork. We browsed some shops, listened to some live music, ate some cookies, and even met another guy from Rochester in the funny Norse souvenir shop, apparently only populated with very friendly people who all wanted to talk with us.
(left) Matt & Kara in the Exhibition Hall during Preview Night. | (right) Val in pigtails. Possibly the cutest thing EVER.
Matt & Kara did eventually successfully arrive, so we went with them for their registration and then we all headed down to the Exhbition Hall for Preview Night (which is an event you can only get into if you have a 4-day pass). Since there were no panels, everyone who had a pass was there and as a result it was packed beyond belief. Combined with the sheer massive size of the place, the number of booths, and the lack of having had any sleep and my poor brain quickly spun itself out of control and exploded into a pile of goo. "Overwhelmed" doesn't begin to cover it.
(left) San Diego at night, again from our hotel room.| (right) Tasty food from In-n-Out Burger.
My downward spiral / brain disintegration continued as Kara, Matt, Adam, and I hopped into the Austin's rental van for a late dinner trip to In-n-Out burger. I deliriously joined conversation, but otherwise mostly slept on the way there, somehow ordered myself some food when we arrived, and then magically woke up the minute Kara and I set foot outside to lay claim to a table. I remember a lovely conversation with Kara, but then as soon as my food arrived my brain began to slow down again, and 3/4 of the way through my burger I was the walking-sleep-zombie again. Apparently we drove back to the hotel and I climbed into bed, but that's pretty much a blur. It should be noted, however, that the part of my food that I DO remember was one hell of an excellent cheeseburger, which I'm told was my actual opinion and not in fact a dream.