Star Trek Convention AAR -- Friday

Time for more of my memories from the Star Trek convention!

Friday was a gentler day than Thursday.  No long plane rides.  My system started to adjust to eating meals at different times from usual.  Also, we didn't have any big plans for the day, just kind of hanging out at the convention and getting situated in our hotel room, relaxing, hanging out and enjoying each others' company.

The hotel had a huge pool area, and we spent some time down there in the afternoon, splashing around and having fun.  This was the view from our hotel room:

The part I zeroed in on with the next photo with all the flat roofs is the convention complex.  It's hard to tell from above, and with me being as bad at directions and stuff as I am, but I think the tall part on the left that sort of has three steps to it was the big venue where we saw the panels of actors.  And that means that the part off to the right is kind of where we had photos taken, I think.  And the part in the back is where the vendor rooms were?  Hmmm.  Anyway, it was all inside there.

Right when you entered the convention, there was this awesome Enterprise made of balloons.  Because why not?  It amused me greatly, so I took photos of it.

We saw lots of fun people in costume on Friday.  I think my favorite group was this grandpa and his four grandkids all dressed as Borg:

DKoren loved this Dr. Who cosplayer:

L looked properly worried of being in close proximity with a Lawgiver:

You can't really tell, but that's a Borg Darth Vader on the left, getting ready to beam down somewhere:

And this is just a huge group of people in costumes from the Star Trek movies, gathered around the big 50 icon thing in the entry.

 I was still pretty shy about asking people if I could take their photos on Friday, so I don't have shots of a lot of the great costumes.  Actually, I was kinda shy about it the whole time, and mostly snapped photos if someone else was already taking their pictures and I could kind of say, "Hey, can I get one too?" instead.  But everyone was SO super nice about it, and always happy to stop for a photo by or with you.

Actually, everyone was supremely nice the entire weekend.  DKoren and L had told me that last year, they found the convention to truly be the Happiest Place On Earth.  And it was totally true again this year.  Nobody complained about having to wait in line at Starbucks, or for photos, or to get into the vendor room when it wasn't open as early as we'd expected.  Zero grousing.  Zero whining.  Do you know how rare and amazing that is when you are surrounded by literally thousands upon thousands of people?  That main venue I showed photos of in the Thursday post where we saw Nichelle Nichols -- it held 6,000 people.  That was less than half of the people hanging out at the convention on Friday and Saturday.  Way less.  And nobody was ever annoyed or angry or rude.

Random photo of the main venue -- we were sitting about 2/3 of the way back here.

In fact, I heard almost no bad language at the convention.  Once in a while, a mild word, and most of those (sadly) were from the actors during the panels.  Attendees were almost universally clean-mouthed!  Astonishing!  I hear more foul language in an afternoon at the mall than I heard at the entire convention.  It was one big festival of love and friendship -- our shared love for this fictional universe and the friendship it gave all of us, even though we were complete strangers.

I, who have a terrible time talking to people I even know somewhat, had very nice conversations with total strangers while standing in lines, while looking at stuff in the vendor room, while waiting between celebrity panels -- it was amazing.  We were all there because we truly loved Star Trek (and had paid a pretty penny to prove it by attending), and we were all overjoyed to be there.

But the best part of the whole weekend, for me, was just getting to spend So Much Time with my best friend and her sweet sister.  More about that in the Saturday post!

Star Trek Convention AAR -- Thursday

I've decided to do one post for each day of my amazing Star Trek convention adventure.  This may only be of lasting interest to myself and those two comely Starfleet lieutenants who shared a room with me all weekend, but hey.  I have a million memories, and I don't want to lose them.  So here goes.

I set my alarm for 4am Thursday morning, but I actually woke up around 3:30 and couldn't get back to sleep for fear I'd miss my alarm and thus miss everything.  So I got up, dressed, and made sure I had everything packed just right.  Quart bag of gels and liquids in an accessible place?  Check.  Classic Trek uniform and tall black boots?  Check.  Gobs of money hidden in various places so if I got robbed, I wouldn't lose all of it?  Check.  Three books so I wouldn't get bored on those 5-hour plane rides?  Check.

I kissed Cowboy good-bye and sneaked downstairs with my carry-on suitcase and big "personal item" bag that I was pretending was a purse, and managed not to wake up any of the kids.  I stuffed a couple protein bars in my bag for breakfast later, then waited for my shuttle to the airport.  I was the only person on the ride, so we got to the airport by about 6, and my plane didn't leave until 7:45, so I had lots of time to get through security and so on.  Especially since I randomly got TSA pre-check approved, so I didn't have to pull out my little bag of toiletries or take my shoes off.  Easy-peasy!  Got to my gate, posted that I was leaving on an adventure, and started reading a new book.

And once on my plane, guess what my in-flight movie was?  Captain America:  Civil War!!!  Which I had already seen 3 times in the theater, but I was so excited, I bounced up and down and squeaked.  Which amused the two grey-haired, middle-aged businessmen sharing my row, I think.  One of them spent the whole flight reading something exceedingly dull on his tablet.  The other spent the whole movie playing a game on his tablet that involved a fluffy little dog and making clouds rain on flowers, which amused me in return.  Then he fell asleep about the time the movie ended, by which time I needed a bathroom break, which did not amuse me, but I was nice and waited an hour for him to be done with his nap before I went.  Read my book some more.  I'd forgotten how peaceful flying without children is.  After my bathroom break, I managed to snooze for 30-40 minutes.  Was too excited for any real sleep.

Got to Las Vegas just fine, was astonished by the sheer number of slot machines in the airport, but managed to get my luggage, which I'd had to check instead of carry on because the flight was so full.

The Vegas Airport, where even the Cinnabon gets glitzed up.

It was only like 10am Vegas time by the time I was ready to go to the hotel, but my friends weren't going to arrive for a couple hours yet because they were driving over -- I arrived in Vegas before they ever left their house.  So I listened to part of Bobby Darin -- Live at the Desert Inn, specifically "Hi-De-Ho," because that album was recorded live while he was performing in Vegas, and it seemed fitting.  That and a coffee from Starbucks gave me the courage to go find a shuttle to get me to the hotel.

Sometimes when I have to do lots of daunting things all in a row, I have to pause between them to refresh my moxy.

Got to the hotel, but I couldn't check in cuz the room was in my friend's name and on her credit card.  So I found the quietest corner I could, bought a lemonade (good) and a soft pretzel (not so good), and answered a bunch of blog questions while I once again waited for my courage to revive.  Once it had, I found the bellhop station and checked my luggage, then drifted over toward the convention area.

The entrance to the convention.  Sorry you can't read the sign.

I got my tickets scanned and they gave me my first wristband, which was blue.  I got very brave and wandered around by myself.  There weren't a ton of people there yet, but still a few thousand, I suppose.  I found the vendor room and explored it, and bought a cool hand-made tote bag to carry souvenirs in as I bought them, as I'd promised to bring back presents for my kids and my brother, and a friend had commissioned me to buy him something pertaining to the event too.  I also bought a used copy of The Nitpicker's Guide for Next Generation Trekkers by Phil Farrand because, when I was a teen and heavy into Star Trek, my brother and I had read through Farrand's guide for the classic series so often that the cover comes off, the binding is shot, and a lot of the pages are loose.  I owe a great debt to Farrand's style of loving irreverence, which inspires me a lot when I write up my Scuttlebutt reviews of Combat! episodes.

My friends arrived at last, DKoren and her sister L.  We checked into our room soon after, and unpacked.  Before long, our closet looked supremely cool.

Left to right, those are DKoren's, L's, and mine.

Then we all went down to the convention, they checked in and got their wristbands, and we attended our first panel, which was a tribute to Nichelle Nichols (Uhura), featuring the lovely lady herself!

She's still beautiful, though we were left sad by the fact that she liked to repeat a couple of the same stories several times, and had difficulty hearing.  But she clearly knew we loved and appreciated her pioneering efforts as a woman in a position of authority on television, and as her prominence as a minority back when they were so woefully underrepresented in pop culture.  Especially when Whoopi Goldberg made a surprise appearance to thank Ms. Nichols for being an inspiration for her, and for all women of every color.

The venue for the panels was huge, so we got to see closeups broadcast on screens above us.

I was dealing with a three-hour time difference and kind of hungry all the time by then, and yet not especially wanting food.  So we went to a little bar and grill in the hotel lobby that they had discovered last year -- oh, DKoren and L went to last year's convention at the same hotel, did I mention that?  They loved it so much they kept sending me all these texts and emails and photos saying how they wished I was there too, and that's when we started planning to all attend this year's event together.

Anyway, the restaurant was pretty full, but they had room for us by the bar, so we sat there, and discovered we had to sort of wedge our drinks between gambling screen console things, and balance our plates on them.  I just had grilled asparagus, as my stomach was kind of mad at me for eating nothing but protein bars all day, plus a couple of coffees and some little cookie things on the plane.  The asparagus was precisely what I needed.

After supper, we went upstairs and got into our jammies, and they introduced me to the show Pushing Daisies.  That became our evening ritual for almost all the evenings:  jammies and Daisies at bedtime.  It was delightful!  We all conked out around 9pm, by which time I'd been awake for more than 20 hours and was more than ready for sleep.

So that's the story of Thursday, August 4, 2016.  I'll post about Friday soon!

Winners of the Western TV Legends Giveaway!

Congratulations to our five lucky winners!  They are:

Bonanza -- Heidi

The Lone Ranger -- Jill 

Maverick -- Annie

Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman -- Olivia

Wanted:  Dead or Alive -- Emma Jane

Winners, please check your email for a message from me asking for your mailing address so I can send you your DVDs :-)

Thanks so much to everyone who participated, as it warms my heart to see people excited about these wonderful shows.  And the biggest thank-you to Emma Jane and Olivia for hosting Legends of Western Cinema Week again this year!  I'm looking forward to finally reading all the posts that I missed while I was at the Star Trek convention :-)

On My Way Home

I'll have lots more photos and info to share later this week, too, but for right now, time to tell you where I've been all weekend.  Does this give you any ideas:

Yes, I've been in Las Vegas at the official 50th Anniversary Star Trek convention with my bestest of best friends and her sister.  We had an amazing time hanging out with each other and thousands upon thousands of other Trekkies/Trekkers.  We dressed in costume for two of the days, got to attend panels of various Trek stars and so on, had our pictures taken with William Shatner and Jonathan Frakes, and were generally as happy and relaxed and excited as it's probably possible to be all at the same time.

Now I'm sitting at the airport catching up on email and blog comments and waiting for my flight.  As you can see, I've got some good company:

I promise to write up a loooooong post (or series of posts) about the convention, but right now I'm trying to sort of ease myself back into the idea of returning to real life.  Cowboy and our three kittens will be waiting at the other side of a five-hour plane ride to claim me, and I'm very much looking forward to that, but probably not as much as the kids are.  This is the first time I've been away from Sam and Sarah for more than a single over-night, and I've never been away from Tootie for more than six or eight hours.  It was harder on me to leave than it was on them, but it was harder on them for me to be gone than it was on me.  And probably hardest on Cowboy, who is usually the one going off for days on end on business trips.

Anyway, time to try to finish up one of my movie reviews for the blogathons this weekend, then go find my gate.  Maybe grab some lunch or something.  Beam me up, Scotty!  Party's got to end sometime.

I'm Going On An Adventure!

I'm NOT actually going on a Middle Earth-themed adventure, but it will be epic nonetheless.  I will tell you about it when I return, but for now... here's a picture I snapped with my camera phone about 45 minutes ago:

Catch you on the flip side!

My Ten Favorite Western TV Shows

To continue celebrating Legends of Western Cinema Week, here is a list of my top ten favorite western TV shows.  I own at least one season's-worth of eps of each on DVD, and can't recommend them highly enough.

1. The Big Valley (1965-69) follows the adventures of the rich, influential Barkley family:  wise matriarch Victoria (Miss Barbara Stanwyck), sensible lawyer Jarrod (Richard Long), hot-tempered charmer Nick (Peter Breck), sensitive tough guy Heath (Lee Majors), and bold sister Audra (Linda Evans).  Together or apart, they're always encountering excitement of one sort or another in and around the big California valley they own.  (That's them in the button at the top of the page.)

2. Cheyenne (1955-63) focuses on nomadic loner Cheyenne Bodie (Clint Walker), who travels the west helping people, taking odd jobs, and doing the right thing wherever he can.  Kind of like the Lone Ranger, but generally without a sidekick, and always without a mask.

3. The Rifleman (1958-63) tells the story of widowed rancher Lucas McCain (Chuck Connors) and his son Mark (Johnny Crawford), and all the bad guys who seem drawn to the tiny Texas town of North Fork, where Marshal Micah Torrence (Paul Fix) is forever needing Lucas and his famous, specially modified Winchester to help stave them off.

4. Wanted: Dead or Alive (1958-61) is about bounty hunter Josh Randall (Steve McQueen) and his quest to earn money by capturing bad guys and delivering them to the authorities, with many moral dilemmas mixed in.  This may actually be the strongest western show of all -- it has very few "so-so" episodes, and manymanymany magnificent ones.

5. Five Mile Creek (1983-85) delves into the daily lives of a band of strangers working together to run a small stage coach line and its way station in the Australia frontier.  Through a variety of adversities and problems, they forge a "found family" that I have wanted to belong to for as long as I can remember.

6. The Lone Ranger (1949-57) is about John Reid (Clayton Moore), the only survivor of an ambushed party of Texas Rangers.  After the lonesome Indian Tonto (Jay Silverheels) nurses him back to health, the two embark on a crusade to bring justice, law, and order to the West.

7. Zorro (1957-59) follows the merry adventures of wealthy Spanish scion Diego de la Vega (Guy Williams) as he battles injustice, oppression, and greed in old California.  It's superduper fun

8. Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman (1993-98) is about intrepid woman doctor Michaela Quinn (Jane Seymour), who moves to Colorado Springs, adopts three kids, romances handsome and sometimes mysterious Sully (Joe Lando), and generally works to eradicate disease, prejudice, and ignorance.

9. Maverick (1957-62) technically is about the three Maverick brothers:  Bret (James Garner), Bart (Jack Kelly), and Beau (Roger Moore), but Beau's only in sixteen episodes, so mostly it's about Bret and Bart.  They're all gamblers who drift around the west, preferring to use their sly intelligence and vast network of friends to solve problems, rather than fists or guns.

10. The Wild Wild West (1965-69) is basically James Bond in the Old West.  Secret Service agents James West (Robert Conrad) and Artemus Gordon (Ross Martin) foil anarchists, assassins, thieves, vandals, murderers, kidnappers, and any other fantastical bad guys the writers could dream up.  They have a special train car filled with gadgets and gizmos, and Artie is always dreaming up some wonderful disguise or other to get information or rescue Jim.  The later seasons are quite violent, and eventually the series was cancelled as a result, but the early seasons are funny and delightful.


And now you're going to ask me how come Bonanza and Gunsmoke, surely the most famousest western TV shows ever, are not on my list.  And the answer is that I like them just fine, but they're not my favorites, that's all.

Don't forget to check out Meanwhile, in Rivendell... and A Lantern in Her Hand for more fun all this week, and for links to others who are participating.  And don't forget to enter my giveaway, either!  Four of the shows I'm giving away are on this list!

Western TV Legends Giveaway

As Olivia put it, the time has come to "bask in the glory of dust and horses and old-fashioned valor for a few days."  It's Legends of Western Cinema Week!  Please check out all the good fun on A Lantern in Her Hand and Meanwhile, in Rivendell... all week long.

I'll be doing another post or two this week too, but to start things off, let's have another giveaway!  Cuz you know I can't resist giving things away :-)

Thanks to some crazy, random happenstances, I currently have spare DVDs of five legendary western TV shows.  And soon, they will belong to five of you.  Here's a whole lot of info about each item:

1.  Bonanza Collector's Edition Discs 1 and 2.  Bonanza is about prosperous Nevada rancher Ben Cartwright (Lorne Greene) and his three sons, Adam (Pernell Roberts), Hoss (Dan Blocker), and Little Joe (Michael Landon).

This is a collection of episodes that are in the public domain, so they're pretty easy to find.  This set is used.  Both discs play fine in my DVD player, but their picture quality is not the greatest, as they appear to be recorded from fairly old film copies.  Some episodes are clearer than others.  I already have all these episodes in a different collection, which is why I'm willing to part with these.

Disc 1 -- "The Ape" with Leonard Nimoy, "The Avenger" with Vic Morrow (one of my absolute favorite Bonanza eps), "The Blood Line" with Lee Van Cleef and Jan Sterling, and "The Fear Merchant" with Gene Evans.

Disc 2 -- "Escape to Ponderosa" with Gloria Talbott, "Blood on the Land" with Everett Sloan, "The Spanish Grant" with Sebastian Cabot, and "The Spitfire" with Jack Elam.


2.  Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman the complete first season.  I love this show!  I love it so much, I own the entire series.  Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman follows the adventures of a woman doctor (Jane Seymour) who comes to rough-and-tumble Colorado Springs and tries to prove she can handle doctoring on the frontier.  Throw three adopted children and a mysterious, handsome guy named Sully (Joe Lando) into the mix, and, well, what more could you ask for?

This is the complete first season on 5 discs in two cases that fit inside a slipcover, as shown above.  This set is also used, as it was my mom's until she got the whole series as a gift.  All five discs play for me.


5.  The Lone Ranger compilations.  The Lone Ranger is the first western TV show I have memories of watching.  Anyway, in it, the Lone Ranger (Clayton Moore) and Tonto (Jay Silverheels) battle bad guys in a grand quest to bring law and order to the west.  This show is the most kid-friendly of those I'm offering here -- my kids enjoy this one.

As you can see, this is actually two different sets put out by two different companies.  Like Bonanza, there are some episodes of The Lone Ranger in the public domain, which is what these are from.  The picture quality on these is okay, but not great.  The disc on the left contains "A Message from Abe," "Tenderfoot," "High Heels," "Old Joe's Sister," "Cannonball McKay," and "War Horse."  The disc on the right contains "Enter the Lone Ranger," "The Lone Ranger Fights On," "The Lone Ranger's Triumph" (the very first three episodes of the show, which tell the story of how John Reid became the Lone Ranger), "War Horse," "Rustler's Hideout," "Pete and Pedro," "High Heels," and "Legion of Old Timers" (my kids' favorite).  As you can see, there are two episodes that are in both collections, so total you'll get 13 different episodes.  These are used and play for me (they used to be mine until I replaced them with a different collection).


4.  Maverick Television Favorites.  Maverick is a comic western that follows the mis-adventures of gamblers Bret and Bart Maverick (James Garner and Jack Kelly).  It's light-hearted and fun, and often spoofs more serious westerns.

Presented here are three episodes on one disc:  "Shady Deal at Sunny Acres" with John Dehner (absolutely my favorite Maverick episode ever), "Pappy" with Adam West and Virginia Gregg, and "Gun-Shy," which is a spoof of legendary western show Gunsmoke.  This is also a used copy that my parents passed along to me -- but I have this exact same set already myself (thanks to Millie).  This disc works fine in my player, and the picture and sound are good, though the picture does have what my brother used to call "sprinkles" here and there.


5.  Wanted:  Dead or Alive the complete first season.  This is the show that made Steve McQueen famous.  He plays Josh Randall, a bounty hunter with a conscience.  Unlike the other shows here, which were all an hour long, W:DOA episodes are only half an hour long.  But they can pack more -- and better -- storytelling into half an hour than most shows could manage with twice the running time.

This is the complete first season on 4 discs.  Guest stars include James Coburn, James Best, Michael Landon, Warren Oates, and DeForest Kelley.  It is brand-new and unopened -- I already own this entire series, but I won this as part of the awesome can't miss life-changing oh man seriously giveaway (TM) from Millie at Classic Forever and have been holding onto it until just the right time to pass it along to someone else.  And that time is NOW!

GIVEAWAY DETAILS

This giveaway runs through Monday, August 8. I will draw five winners (one for each show) on Tuesday, August 9, and post the names of the winners that day, as well a notify them by email.

I can only send these to US addresses because of shipping being so expensive these days. Of course, if you have a friend who lives in the US that is willing to have it shipped to them for you, that's fine, but I won't send them internationally.

PLEASE make sure your information for the giveaway widget includes your current email address so that if you win a prize, you'll get the email informing you that you won! If you don't reply to my email within one week, I will choose another winner and award your prize to them instead.

The first way to enter, as you see, asks you to leave a comment telling me your top two prize choices. I do my best to match winners with their choice of prizes, but that doesn't always work out. I will do my best.  If you already own one or more of these DVD sets, please say so -- that way they can go to someone who doesn't own them yet!

You can enter via this widget:

a Rafflecopter giveaway