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I got up at 4:00 AM so my neighbor could drive me to the airport. I was supposed to call her at 4:30 AM and get her up, but her phone was off the hook. So John went over and knocked on her door and woke her up. And we were off. I was on a code share with United Miles on US AIR so I lost my status - I have status on US Air but since I was booked on United, I lost that, too - so I was zone 5. Not good for over head bin space. However, I went on when they called for early boarding. I had pictures for David's table in my bag so there was no way I was going to check it. We had a head wind into Minneapolis and had to fly around some weather - so I was a little late getting in. I went down to Baggage claim to find my Crypticon driver and he was a no show. It didn't matter, I went up one level and came in on the hotel shuttle. I was standing in line to check in, when I saw Bill Martin. He didn't remember me, but then Dori came up and said, shame on you, this is Diane. They had seen David in the lobby about an hour past. He asked them where I was as I was supposed to be there at 1:00 o' clock. Actually, David was told my plane was landing at 1 o'clock. David had told me to book a Friday flight and show up by 3:00. Which I did. I asked to put me on the same floor as David and they moved me up from 4th floor to 6th floor with all the actors. I dropped my bag off in the room and went to get my badge so I could set up David’s table. They didn't have a badge for me or David but they did give me his per diem. I went back to the front desk retrieved my three shipped boxes and claimed David's table. I had them move the table over so there was space for David to get in and out for pictures. We had dealers on either side of us and an actress to our right- who had a cast on. She broke her foot dancing at a wedding. Cerina Vincent. I called David on his cell to tell him I was there. I was across the hall, if he wanted his money. He said he'd be right over and gave me his room number, so I could find him later on. A few minutes later, he knocked. I let him in - he noticed right away I had two beds. I told him I was getting a fridge if he wanted to put anything in it. He wanted a frig, but didn't get one. He told me I looked well. The yellow polo shirt I was wearing does look good on me. David said he owed me money, for pictures I had made for the table so he sat down at the desk and paid me. He then told me we needed to find a sprint store because he had looked everywhere and he could not find his cell phone charger. I have an Iphone 4 now, so mine was no help. I told him I would go see if the con had a charger he could borrow. I then walked over to his room to get his box of pictures he had shipped. He said he would be down at 5:00 PM. I took his box down to the table, and came back with a cell phone charger from the con runner’s wife, knocked on his door again and gave it to him. I unloaded my suitcase of my clothes, put everything (I thought) we needed into the zippered table shoulder bag and wheeled both down. I put the table sign together, put out David’s markers and scratch paper and organized his photos and my photos into one numbered box. We had 22 different numbered photos on signage and about 10 more loose sleeves. We sold books, DVDs and lots of photos. There were more Voyage than Fly fans and several people brought David the new Seaview book to sign. One fellow had printed out a list of the photos I sell on this website and chose his pictures from that. Then Charlie showed up as Andre - The Fly – in full costume. That was great. We were busy Friday night – David had customers much later than I thought he would. He left about 9:30 PM and I got everything packed up and under the table by a little after 10:00 PM. I left a sign up for our panel so the fans would know where to find us in the morning. Since our panel was first thing Saturday, we decided not to open until after the panel, but after enjoying the breakfast buffet - their blackberries were huge and very good - I took everything down to the table. I then collected the cell phone charger for David (again) and went back up stairs to tell him he had a panel in ten minutes. He answered the door, after making sure it was me. Which was a good thing, because Cerina Vincent opened her door - thinking my knock was hers - they need to place their doors further apart. He took the charger and said he'd be right with me. So I waited on the couch in front of the elevator until he came out and we went down to do our joint panel. We had a good crowd, but not many questions. So we told some stories and answered what questions there were, then we walked across the hall to sell even more pictures. We had a good Saturday. We sold Fly and Bond and lots of Voyage. It was fun. David finally left about 6:20 PM. I had to pack up quickly, as David was picking me up for dinner at 7:00 PM. We ate the hotel bar as there was a con event in the restaurant. We found a table David liked and shared two seafood appetizers and David had fish and I had chicken. It was a lovely two hours. The bar owed David a glass of red wine from Thursday, so he collected that. I didn't get much sleep Saturday night,
between the wedding dance and the con zombie dance - the hotel was
rocking past 2:00 AM. It didn't matter, David had to go home on
Sunday, as he had a meeting in LA he had to be back for. Monday I had the breakfast buffet again, and dropped off my prepaid boxes at the front desk to be by the post office. Don (of the Dead), very graciously, let me hitch a ride to the airport with Richard Kiel and his lovely wife, Diane. We had a good laugh over the fact we were both named Diane. I had a nice chat riding out with Richard. He liked that I remembered him from Wild, Wild West and told me some good stories about working on that show. My flights were on time, although the West Palm Beach one was packed to the gills and we had a half hour (weather slowdown) taxi delay leaving Charlotte. I finally got in around 9:00 PM. It was a great con and a wonderful weekend
with David. |
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