Tuesday, April 17, 2007

   Sakura-Con: Epilogue
First, comments:

'Kiro: I seem to be a good guy, eh? Haha . . . nice.
Mimmsters: Yeah, I do alright.
Reddou: Now that I've gotten over my photographer's shyness, I shall always take many pictures at all the cons I go to.
Schultzers: Yeah, I do alright.
Kuroneko': I guess that means I'll talk about Monday, then!
Kikii: Yes, much yatta.
JD: Luckily, conventions are inherently friendly, and you'll find you'll pretty much be chumming up with anyone and everyone naturally. Because geeks love to be geeks around other geeks in public.
Tox': I did hear about that on the radio yesterday morning, yeah. It's scary, especially since Virginia seems to be getting hit by a lot of these sorts of things. Anyways, I was in Seattle from Thursday, April 5th until the 8th; spent a night in Bellevue 'til the 9th and came home. I also mostly stuck with just the one cosplay all convention. And yeah, I was the one in the back in that other picture.
Finally . . . a very important message for you:
I'm Twenty-three. I'm NOT lying about it. My birthday is August 5th, 1983. I count my age by western standards. Do the math and remember that it's April right now and my birthday this year has not come up yet. I'm NOT twenty-four no matter how much you want to believe it. I don't hate you for this at all or anything, and I love ya for always coming by to read my posts and comment on them and all . . . but this age thing has to stop. It's getting ridiculous. I promise when I turn twenty-four I will tell you; but at the moment, I am still just twenty-three. 23. This shall be the last I ever want to speak of this - please accept it because I don't want to have to start getting rude about it.


And now for Monday . . .

Oh, further addendum: Ed had a spare iPod Shuffle for some reason (either he got it from someone but didn't need it or something like that). In fact he had specifically asked me to ask "Yoruichi" some weeks prior if she wanted it (we all knew we'd get together at some point during this road trip and stuff); I said she already had an iPod and probably didn't need it . . . but that was then. Sunday night, he then basically asked everyone in the car if anyone wanted it; "Yoruichi" said sure. So that night I presented her with a brand new iPod Shuffle which she greatly appreciated. In any case, she thanked both Ed and myself for it, which was all good . . . heh, though once I was home Ed scolded me, saying I was supposed to have told her that I asked him to get it for her . . . I filled him in on why that was unnecessary afterwards . . . anyways, that was the last bits of Sunday night.


I'm sure we were all in some phase of half-awakeness when the sun came up the next morning; we were more awake after Ed got out of the shower and was pretty much ready for the day (he had to go to work, after all). So we all got up, got dressed into whatever clean clothes we may or may not have had by that point (or equally, may have just gotten up in whatever non-pajama clothes we were already sleeping in). We mostly just figured we could wash up and stuff once we were back in Vancouver, so we held off on any serious bathroom-related stuff for the moment . . . y'know, save the really important ones if we had to.

But yeah, the night was alright, I guess; "Icecore" is just good at sleeping anywhere, it seems, I was comfortable enough, "Yoruichi" was still coughing a bit, and "Souji" commented that tonight was the coldest night yet . . . yeah, we should've turned up the heat before we went to bed . . . . . d'oh.

(Preparing to leave Bellevue for home . . .)
Redmond and the Microsoft campus was on the way home, so we gave Ed a ride to work (I know, he works at Microsoft, how did that happen?). Gotta say, though, the Microsoft campus wasn't half bad. Big, looked impressive enough . . . but yeah, Ed said he'd give us a call once we were back on the road so he could tell us how to get back to the interstate and go home . . . after he got out of the car, everyone commented that he was very nice (well, "Icecore" knew him prior to this trip, so mostly it was the girls commenting). Yeah, it's always a good thing when your newer friends like your older friends.

In any case, I had already overshot my turn-off point before he called me from his desk and online map stuff . . . buuuut, he still turned us back around well enough and we made it back to the I-405 and eventually the I-5 . . . unless we ended up getting directly to the I-5? Hmm . . . not important. What's important is that we got back on track towards home.

We pulled over once to get gas and supplies like food and water (and bathroom if we needed it) at some little place just off the Interstate (I was specifically looking for a gas station like this, where I could pretty much exit the freeway, stock up, and re-enter immediately afterwards). "Icecore", ever the gracious passenger, paid for my gas again. Inside the gas station, I found out that I had picked the ONE gas station with no more bottled water . . . this was a burn for all of us, especially the sick-type ones. Ah well . . . so I got a coffee drink and a Sobe (also got a muffin which I never ate until I got home); everyone else got jerky or lunchables or stuff like that. I must say, though, that the gas station attendant was really really nice; she was very friendly, very helpful, and was an all-around nice person to chat with during our break. Anyways, back to the road . . .

We probably hooked up "Yoruichi's" iPod music to the car radio again at this point, listening to Spanish hip-hop again as we drove (I generally don't listen to rap/hip-hop, but yeah . . .). At some point it also started raining . . . then it started REALLY raining . . . we basically drove through a storm, which really sucked just because you never wanna have to drive through crappy weather on a road trip . . . . . so we did that for an hour or so until it all cleared up again about a half hour before the border.

And yeah, it was really clear once we hit the Canada-US border! Score . . . so yeah, I wake up the people in the back to "gather weapons and ammo" (also known as ID); it was a quick line, gotta say, and people were flying through really fast. Heh . . . again, I practiced all the questions and answers in my head as we came up down to exactly what I had bought and how much it was worth . . .

"Welcome . . . [takes our IDs] . . . where do you all live?"
"Two Richmond, one Langley and a New Westminster."
"How long were you out of the country?"
"Four days."
"How far south did you travel?"
"Down to Seattle."
"And what was the purpose of this trip?"
"Anime convention." (The guy did not bat a single eye at this. Impressive.)
"You guys buy anything down there?"
"Yes."
"About how much worth would you say you're bringing back?"
"About . . . three-fifty, four-hundred dollars."
"[hands stuff back . . .] Okay, have a safe drive."
"Thank you."

Yeah, that was really easy . . . again, I was secretly kinda disappointed. Whatever . . . let's just go home . . . . .

"Yoruichi" was the closest to the border, so she was first. Of course, being me in all my Ryoga-esque glory, I missed every possible turn-off to get her home and we ended up taking a big half-hour long loop around before we finally got her home. I mean seriously, we had to make a bathroom break before we got her back home. 'Cause I suck like that. Nevertheless, she got home, got her stuff out, got hugs from all of us . . . and we were off to Richmond.

. . . what? You expected more? There were other people around and we were all smelly and stuff and she had lots of bags to carry all at once . . . it happens, okay?


Half an hour's drive later, we get "Souji" back to her house. Again, we unload, she gives us hugs and thanks us for "the best weekend of her life". Strong words, I know . . . but hey, I suppose it happens.

Shortly after that, "Icecore" got home. We nodded to each other as we parted ways. We're guys, that's how it happens.


Another half-hour later, maybe just a little before 2pm, I FINALLY get home. I'm tired, my right foot is a little messed up from all the walking in poorly-supported footwear . . . and it takes me a while to finally get all the stuff out of the car and into the house. Mimmi's owl pillow evidently had a ton of dust in it by that point so I beat on that in the backyard for a bit before bringing it in; similarly, I shook out all the fleece blankets.

There were notes all over the house for me from my currently-overseas parents telling me to call this or that, to arrange one or two things, to take out the garbage since the next day was garbage day . . . I took care of most of that stuff after a long-deserved shower, though . . . didn't really unpack until the next day . . . annnd . . . yeah.


The Sakura-Con road trip was officially over . . .


. . . . . and then I forgot to take out the garbage. This past week has kinda sucked for that . . . luckily I took care of that last night, so today we'll have empty trash cans again. The end.
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