Melissa and I got off to a nice, easy start. \u00a0We gassed up the car, picked up some cash, and had breakfast before hitting the road. \u00a0There was a little bit of traffic, but it wasn’t terrible or unexpected, and we arrived at the hotel about 10 or 15 minutes ahead of what I had predicted.<\/p>\n
Registration was a breeze this year. \u00a0Last year, there had been some hiccups along the way, but there was none of that this year. \u00a0Just like last year, the staff was exceptionally friendly and helpful. \u00a0We got our Patron Goody Bags, took our stuff up to the room, and made plans.<\/p>\n
Speaking of the Goody Bags, we received toy ray guns! \u00a0It was a fun treat. \u00a0There were some other fun items in the bag, too, but like a little kid, I was giddy over the plastic noise maker. \u00a0What can I say? \u00a0It’s the little things.<\/p>\n
We set off to explore a little and make our way to Opening Ceremonies. \u00a0That was the first item on my list. \u00a0Along the way, we ran into friends. \u00a0When they invited us to go with them for lunch, we realized that would be a much smarter move than going on to the panels, hungry.<\/p>\n
After lunch, Melissa and I headed to the first panel on my list. \u00a0I’m not going to go into detail on the panels in these updates, saving that for my Convention Notes, which I will post when all is said and done. \u00a0The panel was fine, and I did get some interesting insights from it. \u00a0For example, if you want to portray something as magical in your story, you do it through the reactions of the characters. \u00a0This isn’t a new concept to me, and it wasn’t stated explicitly in the panels. \u00a0But it’s an important part of storytelling, worth remembering from time to time.<\/p>\n
Melissa and I went continued to the next panel, which was only okay. \u00a0The problem with the panel was that the topic was too broad, which made it that much more challenging to find focus or clarity. \u00a0It was okay, but I didn’t take a lot of notes.<\/p>\n
Then it was dinner time. \u00a0Melissa and I went off to a grill a block away, and I ate food that was fried, full of fat, and tasty. \u00a0It did not meet the Brian Approved Diet Plan, but one meal isn’t going to kill me.<\/p>\n
Melissa and I discovered that our room is on the party floor. \u00a0It’s still a little bit early in the evening, so I don’t know yet how that’s going to play into our enjoyment of the convention. \u00a0I think it will probably be okay, but who knows? \u00a0Maybe it’ll be loud. \u00a0Maybe we’ll enjoy the parties that much more, knowing that we don’t have to deal with stairs or elevators in order to stumble \u00a0back to our bed. \u00a0We will see!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Melissa and I got off to a nice, easy start. \u00a0We gassed up the car, picked up some cash, and had breakfast before hitting the road. \u00a0There was a little bit of traffic, but it wasn’t terrible or unexpected, and we arrived at the hotel about 10 or 15 minutes ahead of what I had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=401"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":402,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401\/revisions\/402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}