Back from Chicago (and Michigan, Indiana, etc)

[sholio]

Whew! Back in Fairbanks, from 90-degree Chicago to yellow leaves and chilly nights. *shivers*

I really had a wonderful time at the con; I shared a lovely hotel suite with *takes deep breath* kristen999, wildcat88, coolbreeze1, titan5 and everybetty; I also got to meet (but not spend nearly enough time with) tepring, winter_elf, calcitrix, fawkesielady_ed, padfootthegrim, crysothemis, sky3428 (though I didn't know who she was at the time), nakedwesley, margec01, vecturist and probably others that I am forgetting right now (sorry!). Oh, right, and there were some actors too, I guess. XD

After snapping off a few hopelessly blurry shots, I gave up on taking pictures and just enjoyed the actor talks. I figured I was surrounded by people taking pictures with much better cameras than mine, so I'd just stalk their LJs link to them instead! It was really a ton of fun. I don't think that there was a single actor who wasn't funny, personable and entertaining, and they were all very kind and gracious in the autograph lines, too. JF and DH's talk was, of course, the highlight of the weekend for me (they were onstage together for 90 minutes, playfully bantering with each other the whole time -- bliss!) but I was also really looking forward to seeing Michael Shanks, because I was such a huge Daniel fangirl back in 2000-ish, and, er, the crush is still there, just a little bit, it seems. *fans self* He's incredibly professional and has an impressively encyclopedic memory for every role he's ever played! Robert Picardo was sweet and funny (and at one point, not at the main talk but at the cabaret on Friday evening, his wife was onstage with him -- and they are adorable); Dan Shea was a blast (and he has such great dirt on all of the others!); Chris Heyerdahl and Andee Frizzell were so much fun, together and separately. I only peeked in on the main SGU panel (though I watch the show, I'm really not enough of a fan to be interested in the actors) but they seemed friendly and fun, and looked like they got along well.

Other people's con write-ups and pictures:

winter_elf has lovely pictures, as always: Joe and David | Chris and Andee | Robert Picardo.
crysothemis has some pretty pictures of Joe and David.
buefo has a transcript of Michael's talk, with audio for download.
sky3428 has pictures of Joe and David.
wraithfodder compiled Twitters from both the actors and the fans at the con: part one and part two.

That's all that's come across my flist so far, I think ...

ETA:
margec01 has a great write-up of Joe and David's talk (1st half, 2nd to come later), plus a bit from when they first came onstage.

Comments

[parisindy.livejournal.com]

wow it would have been cool to meet all those people from the fandom!

[sholio]

It was a really great time! :D

[parisindy.livejournal.com]

man i was crying for dragoncon this weekend
but david just canceled so if you met him you were lucky!
i need him and torri to complete my set lol

[leesa_perrie]

Glad you had a great time!! Must check out those links later - soooo wish I could have been there!!

[sholio]

It was a lot of fun! I wish you could've been, too!

[theeverdream.livejournal.com]

Thanks for compiling those links!

[sholio]

Thank you; I'm glad you enjoyed! :)

[roga.livejournal.com]

Aw, that is so, so cool :D I'm glad you had a good time!

[sholio]

See, I wish I'd been able to meet you when you were over here in the States -- just ships passing in the night, damn it! :D Maybe one of these days ...

[abyssinia4077.livejournal.com]

Yay this post isn't a horror story about Creation!

Shanks is very good on stage, isn't he? I mean, he very blatantly puts on an act for the fans (but, well, at this point he seems to be making a career of the con circuit) but he's good at it and funny.

(It was interesting last year having Michael and Amanda back to back because they're both *really* good with the fans and onstage, but they both have such incredibly different personas while doing it)

And I'm very jealous you got to see Dan Shea! I seem to have caught the only Chicago con he didn't make.

Anyway, glad you had fun.

[sholio]

*laughs* Yeah; this is not to say that I didn't continue having issues with them at the con, but those were relatively minor in the grand scheme of things.

Having both Michael and Amanda would've been awesome! Yeah, Michael is really obviously doing a persona, but on the other hand, I remember back in my early SG1 fandom days that he was sort of known for being shy and stiff with fans, so apparently this is how he's gotten over it -- and he's very good at it: polished, professional, friendly, and good at ducking awkward questions. :D (I was especially impressed at how he handled the one about whether he wants his character to appear again on SGU -- it's one of the last ones on the transcript linked above, but basically he manages to avoid coming down on either the pro- or anti- side without burning any bridges with either SGU or the fans ... it's impressive!)

[margec01.livejournal.com]

It was great to meet you in Chicago, even if only for a few minutes.

For a bit of self-pimping, I'm working on con reports over here:
http://margec01.livejournal.com/32236.html
http://margec01.livejournal.com/32483.html

No pics yet, because my DVD drive in my computer won't load to show the pics a friend gave me. But they are GREAT and I plan to have the pics up in a day or two.

[sholio]

See, I knew I'd forget to mention someone! XD I kept editing my post to add people, but there were just so many ... and it was great to meet you, too!

And I'll add these to my roundup. I hope your DVD drive will start cooperating!

[tringasolitaria.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad you had a good time! :) Sounds like it was lots of fun.

[sholio]

I did! And thanks. :D

[x-varda-x.livejournal.com]

Sounds like you had a great time! ailurophile6 has just posted lots and lots of photos!

Album is here (http://pics.livejournal.com/ailurophile6/gallery/0006539t) credit on the Hewlett Daily entry. (http://community.livejournal.com/hewlett_daily/318780.html) It looks like his/her journal has some entries relating to the con too :D

[sholio]

Ah! Thank you very much for the link! :)

[winter-elf.livejournal.com]

It was great to finally meet you after talking for a while on LJ! :)

[sholio]

You too! I wish we'd gotten to chat more (my fault, totally), but well, there's always LJ for that, and maybe eventually we'll both turn up at another con together! :D

[artemis-prime.livejournal.com]

You were there, too? Oh how did I miss you? I would love to have spoken with you about your stories. Oh well, maybe another time.

But it was so much fun to watch the boys. And yes, the photo-taking-ability was the pits so I'm relying on others' far superior abilities to relive my favourite moments.

[sholio]

Hi! I'm sorry I missed you! :( We all needed name tags!

I just saw on your LJ that you went to the meet & greet ... what was that like? :D

[dark-oracle-ran.livejournal.com]

I don't know if you remember me. I wrote a comment to one of your SGA fanfiction once and I'm following your journal since than. ^^ I just had to write a comment to this entry. ^^
It is so great that you had a good time at the con. ^^ We had a con in April where Joe and David were there too. Unfortunately I became a SGA fan AFTER the con. So I wasn't at there panel. I could kick my ass for that today. *lol* But I can imagine that it was great. And Robert Picardo! *__* I totally love him. He's a great actor. I loved him in Voyager and it was so great that he had a roll in SGA. ^___^
Cons are always a lot of fun. :) I'm so looking forward to FedCon next year. ^^

[wraithfodder.livejournal.com]

When I see just how many fans I'd like to have met were actually there - sigh - definitely wish I could have been there.

[padfootthegrim.livejournal.com]

Lunch sometime? :) Bun on the Run is going to be closing soon (if it hasn't already... hmm).

[sholio]

I can't! I'm sorry! Things have been kind of insane, and I'm leaving this morning to drive down to Anchorage for two weeks. (Family stuff.)

Heh, I was actually poking around on Facebook yesterday, remembering that I never looked you up on there, and realized that I couldn't remember my password. That's how much I use Facebook, unfortunately. XD

So, uh, yeah. I'll be back in town sometime around the 23rd or 24th, but you'll be gone by then, won't you? (Or will you?)

[padfootthegrim.livejournal.com]

If everything goes as planned, I'll be gone by then, but I'm not sure if I'm going to be on schedule or not, so we'll just have to see lol. Hope your time in Anchorage goes okay. I'll be back up here for visits and things, and I'm sure we'll see each other again. :)