Sunday was day 3 of Shore-Leave 44 and to be honest I was about ready to head back home, my feet and legs were wiped out, I missed my cats, I missed my wife, and I missed my own familiar stomping grounds, but I knew that this was going to be a great day full of meeting more cool people and talking about my favorite science fiction franchise. After some good breakfast and a cup of coffee I was off to the show again!
The day started at 10am with “The Bob and Howie Show, Minus One”, normally Robert Greenberger and Howard Weinstein do this two man show, but with Greenberger not at the show, Weinstein held his own with a rowdy crowd of people complaining about modern tv’s audio levels and acting methods. It was entertaining to listen to the attendees!
11am was another panel with Derek Tyler Attico, this one specifically for his Autobiography of Benjamin Sisko, which I finally finished on my way home on the airplane. It’s a great book and I was surprised at both the number of people in the audience and how many of them hadn’t known about the book before the panel and were interested in buying copies from him. Both of the panels that had Sisko as the main topic ended with a line nearly out the door with people wanting to get the book!
Noon I went to Greg Grunberg’s on stage event with Ingvild Deila in which he took a call from Todd Stashwick to get a Chipotle order, which was adorable.
Next up I made it a missing to track down as many authors as possible to get a selfie with them. Point of interest, I’m 6’6″ and all the authors are much less than that, so there’s varying degrees of me leaning down or just making them all look incredibly short, which they are not, I’m just super tall compared to them.
In no particular order:
Then I was back up into the main theater room to catch some of Amanda Tapping and Teryle Rothery’s Q&A session. I’ve seen all the Stargate stuff so I was very familiar with both of them and it was great to see them in person.
1pm rolled around and I found myself at the Espec books panel with a large group of familiar authors and a few that I didn’t know yet. Attending were Danielle Ackley-McPhail, Christopher L Bennett, Keith DeCandido, Christine Norris, Aaron Rosenberg, and Hildy Silverman. It was in the “Cromwall Room” which I haven’t mentioned yet, but I think this was my third panel in this room. It was like a wind tunnel and the mics didn’t work, so it was a real struggle to hear what people were saying. What I could catch though was fantastic and I’ll be honest I’ve bought a large number of books from them in the past and I’ll likely pick up a whole bunch more in the future.
After the Espec panel I booked it back up to the main theater to catch some of Todd Stashwick and Ashlei Sharpe Chestnut’s Q&A, which was great to attend, they both had fun stories of how they got involved in Trek and I’d like to think that at least one of them will be back with the franchise soon. Also, Stashwick has massive biceps with some pretty gnarly tattoos on at least one arm, not something they showed off on Picard!
2pm was the Crazy 8 Press panel with Glenn Hauman, Michael Jan Friedman, Mary Fan, Christopher D. Abbott, Hildy Silverman, and Aaron Rosenberg. They did a bonkers version of spin the wheel for questions and what if’s about their stories that worked far better than I initially thought it would and it ended up being a great panel. It was also my last panel, so one more quick trip through the vendors room and I was done with the show for the night, but my night wasn’t over!
I went to one more comic shop that was north of the area I was in for the convention, this one was “Critical Finds” and I’m super happy that I made the drive out to see them, it was my favorite of the stores that I had been to so far. Even though I only found a few books to buy from them, the husband and wife team that owns and runs the store were super friendly and we spent about half an hour talking about the convention I was just at, their recent move to their current location, and how much they enjoyed working in the industry. They were also the only ones to have a cute comic box as a mascot and they even gave me a sticker to put on my comic portfolio that I use every week. It’s adorable!
I then walked around the corner and bought a cheese steak to eat back in my hotel room, it was dang delicious and likely the best thing I ate all weekend.
I packed up my comic / book suitcase and got to bed pretty early, I had some big plans for Monday, which included a mapped out route that would take me past a few comic shops and get me back home to Florida in time to get to bed at a respectable time.
Those plans did not work out the way I was hoping.
The final part is coming tomorrow!
