Phew! and Sigh!
Jul. 26th, 2004 04:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
auntiemeeshAlthough I know it's not terribly rational, I hate flying. Or rather, I hate thinking about flying, before the fact, and I hate take-off. Once up in the air, my fears pretty much disappear and I'm always absolutely enchanted with looking out the window and seeing the world in miniature, the great piles of clouds, the whole of the planet spread out below me, if only my eyes could stretch far enough.
I nearly missed my flight out of San Diego. I was sure it left at 10:30 pm. So, a group of us went bowling in the evening, sure that if we got out of the bowling alley by 9:15 or so, we would be in plenty of time (the airport is only a few miles from the bowling alley). Well, of course, things began to go south as soon as we finished our second game and headed over to the counter to pay up. This particular bowling alley holds on to one of your shoes if you rent bowling shoes. We got up to the counter to pay and get our shoes back and ended up having to wait at least five minutes because a crush of people had just come in. By the time we got out of there, it was clear we would not be reaching the airport by 9:30.
We got in the car and I pulled out my itinerary to make sure I had the time right. Horror of horrors! My flight was leaving at 10:15. I had twenty minutes to get to the airport, find the appropriate check-in place, get my ticket and get my bags checked.
"Well, it's ten at night and the airport isn't usually very crowded," I was reassured. "It will all be fine. No problem." I tried to believe this until someone remembered that it was the last day of Comic Con. Tons of people would be leaving town and the airport might be a little more crowded than usual.
Well, at least I was panicking about making my flight, rather than focusing on all the disasters that could occur once I got on the plane...lol. Pulling in to the airport at 9:35 we were all very dismayed to find ourselves sitting in heavy traffic trying to get to the terminal.
I made it, but just in time. Luckily, once inside the airport, there were no lines at all. I got my bags checked in with five minutes to spare and had just time enough to get through security, walk to the gate, find a place to sit and try to get my trembling body back under my control before they started boarding.
Once on the plane, of course, all my fears of take-off came rushing back but I only had to deal with that for a few short minutes before the plane was in the air and I was able to relax. Unfortunately I was completely unable to sleep so I arrived in Atlanta (for a connection) at five in the morning having had no sleep at all.
It turns out that massive exhaustion is the way to go if I don't want take-off fears. I was so wiped out I didn't even care...lol. I did manage to sleep a little but that leg of the flight was short so I was still really tired when I found myself back in Pittsburgh.
I had a little nap when I got home but kept it short so I can get back onto a decent sleep schedule, so I'm still tired but much more functional than I was earlier.
I started skimming through ten days worth of back entries on my flist and was very sad to see all the crises that came up. So hugs to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
llinos and pipspebble as well as anyone else who needed hugs this past week. I hope you are all feeling much better now.
I had lots of deep, sleep-deprived thoughts on the plane, on the nature of cons and fans. Some of these thoughts are not terribly coherent but here they are, none-the-less.
This was my third convention and the first really big one. As much fun as I had this weekend, I've come to the conclusion (as I'm sure lots of other people have as well) that I prefer the small ones. I loved getting the chance to get Billy Boyd's autograph, but it was the most impersonal signing I've ever had. I gather the con security people weren't happy about the impromptu and poorly organized nature of the signing and they were doing their best to move it along and keep the traffic flowing around the New Line booth. This meant that they were hustling us through the line as quickly as possible, preventing any real interaction while getting your autograph. I suppose this is pretty standard with the large settings like this, but it's different than what I've gotten used to at smaller cons, where the actors are given more time for fewer people. At ScaperCon last summer, there were only four hundred or so people and the actors were available for autographs for hours each day. This allowed them to really chat with each person that came throug the line. Even though they had been signing autographs all day, they were still able to make me feel as though they were truly glad I was there, talking to them. It was the same thing at the Pittsburgh Comic Con this spring. It was much smaller and the actors were at their table nearly all the time, all three days, so they were able to just hang out and chat with people as they came by.
Admittedly, it is also different in that these are less well-known actors with fewer fans, but I have heard what the official Farscape convention in Burbank is like -- very, very crowded and people are hustled past the actors much as I was on Saturday. And I've heard first hand from the actors that they just don't enjoy that very much.
Anyway, that's what I was musing on in the wee hours of the morning as I ignored the inflight movie (Jersey Girl -- the same as the outbound flight) and failed to get any sleep.
I nearly missed my flight out of San Diego. I was sure it left at 10:30 pm. So, a group of us went bowling in the evening, sure that if we got out of the bowling alley by 9:15 or so, we would be in plenty of time (the airport is only a few miles from the bowling alley). Well, of course, things began to go south as soon as we finished our second game and headed over to the counter to pay up. This particular bowling alley holds on to one of your shoes if you rent bowling shoes. We got up to the counter to pay and get our shoes back and ended up having to wait at least five minutes because a crush of people had just come in. By the time we got out of there, it was clear we would not be reaching the airport by 9:30.
We got in the car and I pulled out my itinerary to make sure I had the time right. Horror of horrors! My flight was leaving at 10:15. I had twenty minutes to get to the airport, find the appropriate check-in place, get my ticket and get my bags checked.
"Well, it's ten at night and the airport isn't usually very crowded," I was reassured. "It will all be fine. No problem." I tried to believe this until someone remembered that it was the last day of Comic Con. Tons of people would be leaving town and the airport might be a little more crowded than usual.
Well, at least I was panicking about making my flight, rather than focusing on all the disasters that could occur once I got on the plane...lol. Pulling in to the airport at 9:35 we were all very dismayed to find ourselves sitting in heavy traffic trying to get to the terminal.
I made it, but just in time. Luckily, once inside the airport, there were no lines at all. I got my bags checked in with five minutes to spare and had just time enough to get through security, walk to the gate, find a place to sit and try to get my trembling body back under my control before they started boarding.
Once on the plane, of course, all my fears of take-off came rushing back but I only had to deal with that for a few short minutes before the plane was in the air and I was able to relax. Unfortunately I was completely unable to sleep so I arrived in Atlanta (for a connection) at five in the morning having had no sleep at all.
It turns out that massive exhaustion is the way to go if I don't want take-off fears. I was so wiped out I didn't even care...lol. I did manage to sleep a little but that leg of the flight was short so I was still really tired when I found myself back in Pittsburgh.
I had a little nap when I got home but kept it short so I can get back onto a decent sleep schedule, so I'm still tired but much more functional than I was earlier.
I started skimming through ten days worth of back entries on my flist and was very sad to see all the crises that came up. So hugs to
llinos and pipspebble as well as anyone else who needed hugs this past week. I hope you are all feeling much better now.I had lots of deep, sleep-deprived thoughts on the plane, on the nature of cons and fans. Some of these thoughts are not terribly coherent but here they are, none-the-less.
This was my third convention and the first really big one. As much fun as I had this weekend, I've come to the conclusion (as I'm sure lots of other people have as well) that I prefer the small ones. I loved getting the chance to get Billy Boyd's autograph, but it was the most impersonal signing I've ever had. I gather the con security people weren't happy about the impromptu and poorly organized nature of the signing and they were doing their best to move it along and keep the traffic flowing around the New Line booth. This meant that they were hustling us through the line as quickly as possible, preventing any real interaction while getting your autograph. I suppose this is pretty standard with the large settings like this, but it's different than what I've gotten used to at smaller cons, where the actors are given more time for fewer people. At ScaperCon last summer, there were only four hundred or so people and the actors were available for autographs for hours each day. This allowed them to really chat with each person that came throug the line. Even though they had been signing autographs all day, they were still able to make me feel as though they were truly glad I was there, talking to them. It was the same thing at the Pittsburgh Comic Con this spring. It was much smaller and the actors were at their table nearly all the time, all three days, so they were able to just hang out and chat with people as they came by.
Admittedly, it is also different in that these are less well-known actors with fewer fans, but I have heard what the official Farscape convention in Burbank is like -- very, very crowded and people are hustled past the actors much as I was on Saturday. And I've heard first hand from the actors that they just don't enjoy that very much.
Anyway, that's what I was musing on in the wee hours of the morning as I ignored the inflight movie (Jersey Girl -- the same as the outbound flight) and failed to get any sleep.
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Date: 2004-07-26 04:37 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2004-07-27 01:00 am (UTC)