ComicCon: The Day I Met Luke Skywalker and Captain James T Kirk

Last year (March, 2016) I got to volunteer for Fear Factory to staff a "Walking Dead" panic room experience at FanX, which is something of ComicCon type of deal.

Mostly I just answered questions about pricing and what the experience itself was like.

Which, if you're wondering, was stressful.  I got to walk through it with some of the other Fear Factory people who were also volunteering, and by the time we were done, I was shaking and sweating to the point that I needed new deodorant.  So, it was expensive (not for me, I went through for free) but hands down I would say it was worth the money.  You definitely got what you paid for.

Also, the costume watching was pretty spectacular.

Also last year (September 2016), I got to attend the actual ComicCon with Ben.  I had originally taken the day off, but he texted me saying he had a backstage ComicCon opportunity that his wife wasn't interested in, and did I want to "staff" him?

Absolutely.

Your wife is a crazy woman, whom I love, but there is no way I'm passing this up.

Turns out his "backstage opportunity" was having access to the VIP room where the main stage speakers gathered before and after they went on stage.

I grew up watching Star Trek and we've all grown up watching Star Wars, and in one morning, my childhood dreams of meeting both Captain James T. Kirk, and Luke Skywalker came true.

I met Captain Kirk and Luke Skywalker.

And as as a cherry on top, I also met Bo Duke.

After chatting for a minute with John Schneider (Bo Duke), we were anticipating the arrival of Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker).  I was standing in front of the refreshment table when suddenly someone was right in my face, reaching around me for a bottle of water.  I turned and looked at them, getting ready to adjust to get out of their way when I realized it was Mark Hamill himself.

And thus ensued a funny conversation about refreshments and then a light political conversation (as we were right in the middle of the presidential elections with Trump and Hillary Clinton) when he found out Ben was the Mayor.  No commitment from Mark Hamill on which way he was voting.  Seriously though, he was the nicest guy and seemed to be in such a good mood.  He was cracking jokes and taking pictures with us.

And then we stepped back out into the backstage area and listened to him speak, which was entertaining.

We then heard that William Shatner (Captain Kirk) was arriving soon so we hung out in the VIP room in hopes of being able to meet him as well.

We were not disappointed.

William Shatner is getting up there in age and seemed to always want to sit down when he wasn't be asked to do something.

Who can blame him?

We spent several minutes talking to him about politics as well.  It was a hot topic with so much conflict and controversy.  If you ask Shatner what his stance is, he pulls out the, "I'm Canadian," and leaves it at that.  But he's more than willing to grill you on your stance on it.

This day was off the charts amazing.

To have grown up with these figures on my TV screen, but then to find them all really great guys in real life as well; I was on cloud nine excited and could not believe the day I'd just had.

I seriously have the best boss, who would let me tag along with him on such an experience.

Random. And Twerking.

I'm interested in having guest posts written on other people's experiences in life.

In other words, I want your stories.  And life lessons that came from them.

I'm so fascinated by other people's stories.

And I think it's nice that we can relate to each other's stories.

If you have one you'd like to share, please email me at swithers6 at gmail dot com.  You don't have to be blogger.  And I'm willing to post them anonymously.

As it is, yesterday was kind of a draining day.

I feel constantly exhausted right now and I thought, this semester is only two weeks in, if I'm already this exhausted from it how am I ever going to survive it?

But then I remembered that last semester started out the same way, with utter exhaustion, but by the end of the semester I was just fine.  I think it's more of a matter of I just need to get used to it again, rather than it's already kicking my butt.

On top of that I went to a funeral yesterday.  My cousin lost her 4 month old baby to SIDS.  The hard part about that is you listen to the words that are said about being a parent and you begin to relate, and then it hits you how hard it must be to lose a child.  For someone like me who's never experienced it, that is.  And it began to feel emotionally heavy.

My heart goes out to my cousin right now.

And then I donated blood.  Which kind of sealed the deal on my exhaustion and I went down for a nap at 7:00 and never really recovered.

Except I've been getting a lot of extremely intense and painful cramps in my foot and that situation kept getting me up last night.  I have to get up and try to walk them off, which sometimes takes a  long time.  And the pain... holy Moses.  I think I have a high pain tolerance but those cramps send me through the roof.

Maybe I need to look into a potassium supplement.

I blame them on Casidee because they started when I was pregnant with her and I've been getting them ever since.  Though lately they've just been so frequently.

Hallelujah weekend.

My weekends plan include, but are not limited to:
Painting a bunkbed.  Still.
Date night.  Maybe we'll shake it up a bit and go swimming in the crater.  Maybe we won't and we'll just hit dinner and a movie.  Either way I'm perfectly content just being with The Man.
Math homework.
Naps.

And maybe if the man's lucky I'll even get around to taking the Christmas lights down.

But I'm not holding my breath on that one.

And also this weekend I'm going to write a blog post on the story of Samson from the Old Testament.

It's been requested of me that I start going over scripture stories on my blog the way I do in church and at Girl's Camp, so I'm going to start doing that.

If that interests you.

Not that I'm a scriptorian or anything, I just like to try and make them come alive so you can really get the feeling of them into your head.  And your heart.

So Samson will be coming at you "live" on Sunday.

Oh, and one more random thing. Filmed right here in Salt Lake no less.  Watch to the end.  I laughed so hard.  But maybe that's just my inner geek.  Also, can you tell they're not all men in those suits?  I wonder if any of them are.

Who Can You Trust, Padawan? Professor Trelawney. A Birthday Post.

I was threatened with cadaver parts today.

And threatened with bodily harm.

I laughed in his face.

"Bring it."

Except severed fingers on my desk is kind of a disturbing thought.

Yesterday I climbed into a car with a few of my co-workers and we headed to the gas station for a quick drink run.  We'd hit the afternoon lull and needed a pick me up.

(A pick us up?)

As I climbed out of the front passenger seat I threw my door shut and then...

I was stuck.

My index finger of my right hand had some how become lodged between the two doors in the process of us closing them.

I stared at my finger crushed in the crevice of the doors and felt the pressure and I glanced at the others.

They were blissfully unaware and were starting to walk to the gas station.  I did the only rational thing I could do in this situation and started yelling, "Ow! Ow, ow, ow, ow!"

That got their attention.

I looked at the co-worker who had closed the back door that had trapped my finger.

"The door, the door, open the door, open the door!" I cried.  I couldn't get any other logical thing out of my mouth.  My finger was beginning to pulse and I might have panicked a little.

Just a little.

Finally he realized that my elbow wasn't tweaked up in the air for the fun of it and rushed to open the door and release the car's grip on me.

My finger throbbed and grew hot.

And I repeatedly told them I was fine though I was struggling not to cry.

You can't cry when you're the only girl.  

That makes you the silly girl.  

My finger swelled to twice the size and looked like a little sausage.  There was no feeling to it on the outside, though there was plenty of feeling to it on the inside.

I continued to assure them that I was fine.

Last night Cali complained of a stomach ache. 

(This ties in, trust me.)

And then Brynn complained of one.

In the middle of the night Tayler also complained of stomach pain.

So when my alarm went of this morning I called in with sick kids, figuring with three of them I should stay home.

I sent an email letting various people in my office know I would be home with sick children, but if a certain co-worker asked, to let him know that I was out with a hurt finger.

(See?  It tied in.)  

He's the prankster of the group.  It's fun to prank a prankster.

Turns out this morning the girls woke up and felt fine after all.

So I sent them to school and headed in to work.

Turns out the office had played my hurt finger off well.  One person telling him my finger had been hurt so badly I had to stay home.  The chief investigator told him that because it had happened in a State vehicle he needed a memo explaining what had happened.

He was feeling pretty bad and agreed quickly to write a memo about it.

Then he was called into the Director's office.

He began to understand what was happening at this point and after the Director mentioned it, said that I had been speaking badly about the Director so he slammed my finger in the door.  He said I'd deserved it.

And the Director actually believed him for a split second.

My co-worker said he knew where this was coming from and not to worry, I still had nine fingers left that he could go after.

When I arrived at the office he smiled at me and said he knew someone and had access to cadaver parts.  

Don't be surprised if I find extra fingers lying around.

The moral of this story is: it may be fun to prank a prankster but be warned, it only fuels them.

The rest of my birthday was fun.

Aside from the creepy gas station clerk who called me Padawan (is it bad that I know that's from Star Wars?) and then sang the afro circus song to me while dancing.  

I just wanted to pay for my drink.

And he was egged on by my co-workers who told him while doing this that it was my birthday.

Thanks again for that guys.

Thanks to everyone who drove my house honking.

And thanks to our family who showed up for dinner.

 

P.S.  It's not Padawan, thank you very much.

Professor Trelawney is in the house.

P.P.S.  Thank you to my husband who knew that the funny party dress ups would be hilarious.

He gives the best presents.