Saturday, August 10, 2013

Camping and Hiking in the White Mountains

I had a break from classes and decided to take some time off in the White Mountains of Arizona near Show Low to do some camping and hiking...

ASU West Campus at Night

This summer I had an evening class that let out early enough for me to work on things, but I had to hang around campus for an extra two hours due to how the shuttle schedule was configured. After the last class, I decided to walk around campus taking some night scene pictures.

2013 Phoenix Comicon

Once again we spent Memorial Day weekend at the Phoenix Comicon. This year was special for several reasons: Dawn was the Information Desk Manager for the convention, Lexi was one of her staffers, Lindsey was working with a vendor, and I had a chance to see some of the stars and writers from my favorite television shows, films and books.

The weekend's highlight was the Babylon 5 reunion. Every living major cast member was in attendance with the exception of Bruce Boxleitner who was called to movie shoot at the week before (you have to go to where the work is). The emotions were high during the reunion as they talked about some of the strange and funny behind the scenes things that went on, told stories that had never been told before, and missed old friends that were no longer with us. Of the stories that had never been told before, JMS told the true story for the first time on why Michael O’Hare left the show - because Michael made him promise to tell it after his death. Jerry Doyle told the story of the frugal Andreas Katsulas, Mira Furlan talked about her transition from the former Yugoslavia, Peter Jurasik about the pranks that came back to haunt them, and how wonderful actors and people Stephen Biggs and Andreas Katsulas were. Who the real Jeff Conaway was and how he tried so hard to manage his struggle.

The presentation included a tribute to those from the show that has "gone beyond the rim"


Another major highlight for me was hearing John Barrowman from Doctor Who speak. He was completely crazy and spoke about a number of topics. Also seeing Nichelle Nichols and Walter Koenig from the original Star Trek and tell their stories was a fantastic experience. I also got to speak and walk around with one of my favorite authors Cherie Priest.

We were lucky enough to be in the hotel with many of the stars, so were were able to see Walter Koenig, Jason Carter, Peter Jurasik, and Garrett Wang in the hotel lobby and elevators.

Here are some of my pictures of the stars and costumes I saw at this year's Phoenix Comicon. The Phoenix Comicon has posted videos from many of their panels on YouTube in case you are interested in seeing the context of some of my pictures.