No matter how prepared my wife and I are for San Diego Comic Con (we’ve been attending the event together for nearly 15 years now), it seems like the last week before the event is always a bit of a mad dash to finish things.

I spent the better part of yesterday putting together revised/new props for my “Stone Trek” costume (a mashup cosplay of “The Flintstones” and “Star Trek”), and my wife is currently in our living room sewing together a new outfit (you’ll see...).

You’d think we’d have finished these things ages ago (we’ve had our tickets and hotel reservations for months), but my wife is on summer vacation and finally has time. You also get zero-hour inspiration to try new ideas, too. Luckily we still have a safe cushion of days left for such last minute surprises.

There’s also the checklist.

* Enlist a trusted friend to look in on our ‘pet’ (our surly, 15 year old fish).

* Make sure we have everything needed for our stay in the hotel room (little things like Q-tips, small scissors, or even nail clippers come surprisingly in handy).

* And, in my case, make sure I have a solid plan for sharing the experience.

Here’s how I shared my experience last year:

San Diego Comic Con 2017, Days 1 & 2.

San Diego Comic Con 2017, final writeup.

This year, I’ve decided to do things a little bit differently.

Rather than do a big writeup (with pics) every other night or so, I am going to streamline my process by doing photo essays for at least two of my posts, and then I’ll do a final writeup (with anecdotes & stories) after I’m back. I will try my best to put captions to the photos (if needed), so that they will hopefully tell enough of the story until I can write about it later.

This will save a lot of time, since I plan to be very busy, well… Comic Conning. Another upside is that each of the posts will have lots of colorful pics from the event.

I also plan to do the same with the annual Star Trek Convention in Las Vegas in August a week later, since I may have a couple of interviews to do at the convention and won’t have as much time to work exclusively on the site.

San Diego Comic Con is intensely difficult to get into (the days of buying tickets at the convention are long gone; tickets sell out online in a matter of minutes). My wife gets professional registration, so it’s a little easier for us to get in than others, and for that, we’re both very grateful.

Booking a hotel room is still a challenge however (especially with the randomized hotel ‘lottery system’ currently in use for booking), but we usually get something in the ballpark. This year we managed to get our personal favorite; the downtown Marriott Residence Inn in the Gaslamp Quarter (yay!). It’s walking distance from the convention center, and has a full kitchen as well as a complimentary breakfast (even more yay).

The full kitchen comes in handy, since my wife and I tend to bring some of our own food & drinks to save on dining costs during the convention. It’s kinda like camping out, but in a comfy, air-conditioned hotel room instead of a tent in the wilderness (for the record, I’m not a big fan of sleeping outdoors; if I wanted to sleep outdoors, I’d just cancel our mortgage payments). It’s also easier to chow on snacks while I’m writing/corresponding, instead of stopping for a full meal somewhere. San Diego Comic Con isn’t always the most nutrition-friendly time of the year, but you do tend to burn serious calories with the miles of walking that you do there daily.

Even after nearly 15 years of attending San Diego Comic Con, I still think it’s a very special event, and it’s both my privilege and pleasure to share it with friends, dedicated readers, or anyone who cares to read my little corner of the internet here at “Musings of a Middle-Aged Geek.”

I humbly thank you for reading, and I look forward to sharing the San Diego Comic Con experience with you soon!

Stay tuned…

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