Sakura Con 09:

Thursday:

Woke up at 7am to do ALL the packing. Meaning everything got thrown into the suitcase and I will iron everything when I get to the hotel. Its an awesome plan. Kami and I agreed since she is doing the same thing.

Went through airport security without a single hang-up. One of these days I will get this whole being WAY too early to the airport down. Its only 1120 and the flight doesn't take off until 130. This time I am flying out of D3. Its still in terminal 4. I have spent WAY too much time in this terminal.

Allyson (Loli Skirt) is still in school and will make it here eventually.

Now all I have to do is sit and surf the net. All of the kiddie tables are taken so I can't finish up on the drawings and the outlets are REALLY non existent in gate D. The place is also packed.

Allyson found me at the computer station chatting with Kevin. It was his turn to entertain me while I was waiting for Allyson to come along and then take over the entertaining. While chatting with Kevin I remembered 2 slightly important things. One, my hoodie was still at home on my bed and two, my phone charger was still on my night stand. Bravo. Well, I hope Kami was able to look into the Sakura con Hoodies. As for the charger its ok I have my USB connection.

Once we boarded the flight I took a 20 minute cat nap and then Finished up “Jacuzzi Splot”. I haven't seen the anime but I figured I had a drawing for every VA that was going to be there so I might as well do one for the New Kid Joel McDonald. Now I just need to finish Envy and Kyoya. Those two will be finished at the hotel and on even ground... lols. There has been quite a bit of turbulence on this trip and thus, makes it a little difficult to draw.

Meanwhile Allyson has fallen to the call of the Twilight Saga. I guess after being thrown into the mix for 2 days at AccioCon it was bound to happen. I won't hold it against here. She is currently finishing up “New Moon”.

The plane has just started to dip down so I am going to assume we are on the decent and getting ready to land. Looks like we are ahead of schedule. Perfect!

Once we landed, found our luggage, and found where the shuttles were Allyson and myself placed our calls to home and friends to let them know that we landed safely and were on our way to the hotel. A 45 minute ride later through the winding roads of pretty amazing architecture and we found ourselves at the Sheraton hotel. Kami met us in the lobby. We found a piece of home in the hotel. They had the Chihuly artwork all over the hotel. Allyson and I had a good laugh. After we dropped off the bags it was time to battle the ugly line known as pre registration. I kid you not it took us 45 minutes to make it through to get our badges. Once we were done with that I had reminded Kami for probably the 5th time to go check into the Sakura Con hoodies. So off she went to check in on that while Allyson and I waited in the common area. We felt odd not have an all access pass at a con. We stayed and chatted with the convention security.

Kami came down and what does she have. A HOODIE!!!!! You have NO idea how excited I was to see this big BRIGHT red hoodie. As far as I was concerned my shopping for the con was complete and all was right in the world.

After putting on the hoodie and marveling in its awesome softness it was time to get food. After several “Kami we don't care! Just get us food” we finally wound up at the pub in Pike's Market area. I have no idea what possessed me but I ordered a bacon cheeseburger. I guess I just didn't get enough from Accio Con. This is when I found out from Greg that his DJ equipment was busted up from when they lost his luggage. Talked and caught up with Kami for a while and then came back to the hotel rooms. Where I decided that “Envy” just wasn't going to happen. Luckily J. Michael Tatum isn't dong anything until Saturday. I will also be looking into the VIP Dinner and seeing if there are any tickets left. After looking at the Schedule all of the autograph signings are on Freaking Sunday (The ones that I want to get) when Allyson and myself will already be on the plane heading home.

The plan was then made to be the first in line to see if they had any of the dinner passes left. After that was decided is was also found that I left me MSA Lolita still hanging in the closet... With my ASU hoodie.........Sad Panda


Friday:

Cosplay: Lolita and MSA Formal

Morning was good. Only had one panic attack to find where my badge ran away too. It was in my portfolio. After that we went to go find where the VIP dinner passes were. That was settled in a not so pleasant way. Ended up at Merchandising where I waited for about an hour with 2 photographers just chatting. We were NOT moving from our spots. Once the passes were obtained Allyson and I did our first round through the Vendors hall. It wasn't as good as last year. We were hoping that Time less Trends would be there so that we could ask about the Over bust corset. Alas... they weren't here. Allyson DID manage to purchase everything that she wanted and NOT go over her budget. This is a miracle in its self.

I wasn't sure how the autographs were going to pan out. This is why I got the VIP dinner pass, but that is also Iffy for getting signatures. So it was back to the hotel room and try to finish Kyoya in one hour to get to the FUNimation booth for Joel McDonald's and J Michael Tatum's signing. W00t! Kyoya was finished and the two VA's were late to their own signings. LOL. I was very happy to find out that Tatum DID remember me. I only had to mention the cell phone charm that was supposed to go to Greg and instead is found a home on Joshua's camera. Now Joshua has 2 cell charms on his camera.

CREPE'S!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !! OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I didn't get a chance to go to this little vendor right outside the convention center last year. SO I made it a point to go there this time. IT WAS AMAZING!! I even took pics!!! They were so yummy. I had the baked apple with cheese and maple syrup. Allyson had the Ham, Spinach, and cheese. Excellent. Fat and happy..

Allyson and myself really don't do panels. After seeing the same ones over and over it gets a little boring. So Allyson went back to the room to finish up on Girl Scout papers and I went out to take pics of some cosplay.

After that it was time for the VIP dinner. Well it really wasn't a dinner. They had an open bar and really good appetizers. Here I was on a mission. Plain and simple. The only signatures that I didn't get where Kappei Yamaguchi's (The VA for Inuyasha) and Leah Clark. Kappei's translator said they were signing on Saturday. He did look at my sketch book and said a whole bunch of Japanese and then showed it to the rest of his group. I take it he was happy. Lol. I couldn't find Leah anywhere and when I got back to the room to look and see if she had any panels on Saturday......... Sad Panda...

While I was on my mission I had separated from Allyson. Yeah.. Im bad like that. I did see her mingling around with people and talking through Hangry and Angry's translator. She wore her. sweet Lolita to the dinner. All the Japanese guests loved her sweet Lolita. This doesn't surprise me that they liked the Lolita. Allyson's mom (Pat) is amazing at making all the Lolita's.

Afterwards back at the hotel I managed to remember that I had an S video cable to hook up the laptop to the big screen in the room. Sad panda.... I didn't have the r,y, and w, cable for sound. No worried the HP Laptop has loud enough speakers. Halfway through the first episode I passed out into sleepy land.

Saturday:

Cosplay: MSA Formal and MSA Camo

Sitting here catching up on the report. The only panel I want to go to is Kappei Yamaguchi's. That isn't until 1. The Plan is Breakfast and then go to H&M, come back to Iron the Cosplays, hit the photo booth and then off to the Con.

Meet the Miniskirt army Panel is at 5pm and then the MSA uncensored Panel is at 1130 tonight. Fun times.

Fun times with the Photo Booth. Got the first professional pic of the Battle dress uniform and Lolita MSA. Allyson and I are “Get in and get out” types of people. After the photo booth it was back to the hotel for a quick change and then Allyson wanted to go to H&M clothing store just a bit down the street. I was surprised that she didn't break her bank there. She made it out just shy of 130.00. This was including my 3 dollar contribution for hair ties.

We also made a sweep of the vendors hall again. Yesterday Allyson picked up the 2nd part to Negima and she got a Free “Saint Candle” that had Shin chan on it. It was freaking awesome. So today she picked up the 2nd host Club and got a 2nd candle for her sister.

The MSA panel was a full house. We ACTUALLY Had internet access thanks to “Babycakes”. We showed the youtube of Travis huffing helium from AFO 2007. Everyone was pretty well entertained. Still not a fully successful panel. Kami didn't mention the key things for the MSA.. lols. But it was still an entertaining panel. Fun times. Told some interesting “Starter Stories” that led people to want to come to the uncensored panel.

I was BEYOND sad panda that I wasn't able to get Yamaguchi's signature. I missed his Friday signing session.. That one really wouldn't have mattered. People had waiting in line for 3 hours to get a signature and then they were handing out special tickets for a separate signing. If I come back for 2010 I hope he will be a returning guest.

Right after the skirt panel it was food time. I am Sad Face that we didn't meet up with Sigrah500. I completely spaced it and was listening to the demon in my tummy who was demanding food.

Luckily there is a REALLY good Bar and Grill in the hotel. Allyson and I decided we were going to have a few drinks since we hadn't had any together since she got her internship to Disneyworld. I ordered her a Cosmo and myself an AMF. Dinner was a big friggen cheeseburger for Allyson and a chicken quesadilla for myself. Once we were loosened up and starting to get giggly we had this brain child idea to walk the 30 feet to the hotel bar and order another round of drinks. I ordered Allyson a Pear Martini and another AMF for myself. The adorable bartender messed up a cranberry martini by adding Vanilla Vodka to it and we ended up with a 3rd drink!!! So our 2nd brain child idea was to return tot he room toasty until the MSA uncensored.

Sad panda I angered a friend of mine that I really shouldn't have and had an INSTANT sobering up. Popped back some Excedrin and filled up the ice bucket to munch on ice. Now I remember why I don't drink a lot at one time. Im not very entertaining then. I'll have to patch things up with said person here soon. So this is your public service announcement. Don't drink and piss people off! Its not pretty.

The MSA Uncensored panel was PAST full capacity. Amazing crowd. Funny Stories. And PEDOBEAR was our guest of honor. Not many ACTUAL skirt stories told but hilarious stories none the less. For our first uncensored panel I would call that a HUGE success! I do hope to continue them more at other cons that offer after hours panels.

Sunday:

And now I sit here at the airport with Allyson after saying goodbye to (In alphabetical Order) Allison, Brandon, Brian, and Kami, waiting to go home to the valley of the sun and my normal life.

While we continue to wait here Allyson has used up her quota for blonde moments for the month. She lost her boarding only to find it when we were at baggage in Phoenix in her under coat pocket.

Next Con up! Anime Expo!!

Pics HERE