Easter in my family means a couple of things. First, it means a delicious meal made by my parents that’s supplemented with some decadent dessert contributed by yours truly. Second, it means stuffing eggs, treats, prizes and money into every bush, bench, pot and tree in my parents’ backyard for the nieces and nephews to rabidly pursue.
Miles found the coveted golden egg this year and was thrilled with its monetary contents.
This Easter held its usual joys. My parents cooked more baked beans, potato salad and barbecued chicken than any army of oinkers could consume and Jason and I added ice cream cupcakes from Cold Stone Creamery to the gluttonous mix. It was quite a satisfying spread.
For a little tike, Abigail sure accumulated a lot of goodies.
Madison may have been giving off that “disgruntled teenager” vibe here but she was rummaging through the bushes with as much gusto as the rest of the kids.
The hunt this year went exactly as expected. Quite a few adults were involved in the cramming of goodies around the yard but it still took a while to hide the collected heaps of treats and toys, way too long as far as the kids were concerned. Those kiddies practically exploded outside when they were finally allowed to emerge from the house and, of course, due to overstimulation, they missed much of the entirely obvious plunder around them.
Isabelle thought this “golden egg” was a prestigious enough find.
On Easter, munching and seeking has become a family tradition for us. I’ve been told by nieces and nephews that rummaging for Easter loot with their cousins is a preferred pastime and seeing the excitement on their small faces as they tear around the yard in search of oval treasures has made it a favorite pastime for me as well.
Utah was recently named the nerdiest state in the Union by Estately. I’ve never been prouder of my magical homeland. This epic announcement, fittingly, came only days after a record-breaking geeky gathering ended in Salt Lake City. Although Utah’s capitol hosted its first comic con just six months ago, the biggest inaugural con ever, a couple of weeks ago it shattered its own heroic numbers with Fan Xperience, a spring rendition of that costume-loaded convention. FanX’s over 100,000 attendees assured it a position as the third-largest comic con in the United States. Way to go my fellow Whovians, Trekkies, Dungeon Masters, Tolkienites, Pottergirls and LARPers!
Karl Urban got the girl and the gun.
Jason and I, of course, bought tickets to this fanatic affair months ago and have been debating our many apparel options for a while. We attended all three days in costume and I even went into work at 5:30 AM that Friday so I wouldn’t feel guilty about leaving early to touch Karl Urban.
I got to get in the actual Batmobile, talk on the Batphone and push some hood-popping buttons.
The delights of this convention, for an all-purpose nerd such as myself, are too numerous to be itemized but allow me to relay a few. First and foremost, we met the entire cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation, minus LeVar Burton. Besides talking with them all over autographs and camera flashes, we saw them onstage at the Star Trek Ultimate Xperience, an evening entirely devoted to my favorite TV show of all space and time. The genesis of the Galaxy-class perma-grin I’m currently wearing can be traced to that very night. On a side note, the Enterprise’s stellar crew does not disappoint in person. Our interactions with them were entertaining and moving; their wit and warmth made it so.
Getting a picture with this many members of the Star Trek: TNG cast fulfilled an intergalactic fantasy of mine.
Along with those star stars, we also encountered, i.e. got photos with and gawked at, Nathan Fillion and Adam Baldwin, of Firefly fame, Karen Gillan, of Dr. Who notoriety, and Karl Urban, who needs no filmography index.
This could only happen in an alternate universe.
Check out newstarship.com to learn more about the refurbishment of this fine set.
Our celebrity pursuits made FanX a strange mix of euphoria and listlessness. The lines for any sort of iconic contact seemed endless and self-replicating. On Saturday, between autographs with Patrick Stewart, pictures with the hunky boys of Firefly, and then pictures with Patrick Stewart, we were in line for most of the afternoon. But, given the choice, I, like Rory, would wait all over again.
The kids got their own TARDIS. I’m almost kid-sized but, apparently, I’m still too big to travel in short space.
I bought many geeky treasures in my wanderings on the convention floor. My acquiring tactics may have been a little too exuberant for rationality, I’d make a pathetic Ferengi, but my resulting stash is glorious indeed! I purchased an oil portrait of the Tenth Doctor painted by a local artist, piles of nerdy t-shirts, unique prints, Starfleet jewelry and steampunk accessories.
This shuttlecraft was lovingly made by The Seventh Fleet, a local fan club, over the course of a year.
I have humbly offered much advice over the years regarding comic cons, from one geek to another, but allow me to give another insight: expect uninformed volunteers and disorganized lines to be as prolific at these conventions as Gangers in an acid factory. Be skeptical when a staff member tells you that “these aren’t the lines you’re looking for.” And definitely get confirmation before you jump out of a place you’ve been lingering in for a while, based on someone’s instructions, in favor of a new spot someone else randomly directs you to or you may find yourself in a temporal line-loop without a dekyon emission to save you.
This DeLorean was definitely a blast from the past…or the future?
Salt Lake FanX confirmed that a comic con of a slightly different name does smell as sweet. For FanX certainly smelled ever so sweetly of musty costumes, fangirl sweat, foam armor, waxed concrete and star-induced drool, all the odors of nerd paradise. Yes, as Utah has proven by outranking all those other so-called cosplayers and level-20 wannabees, nerdery’s roots go deep in Salt Lake City. With that in mind, I propose we stop calling Utah the Beehive State and start calling it the Borg Hive State. I’m just saying.
April Fools’: the one day a year that pranks are not only accepted but expected. Admittedly, I frequently make use of this holiday to humor myself at my coworkers’ expense. However, this year Jason decided to surpass me in the mischief department. He planted several gags in our house, some of which I, the should-have-been suspecting victim, didn’t discover until days later.
First, Jason rendered our computer’s mouse useless with a piece of tape and got a good chuckle out of my failed attempts to use it. Yes, although this is a classic hoax, I didn’t catch on right away. Jason also decided to make my bedtime rituals more exhilarating by pushing a dried cranberry into my toothpaste tube. I, a self-affirmed sanitation zealot, felt like I had fallen into an oral-hygiene nightmare of the Freddy Krueger variety thanks to that red blob.
Jason sneakily stuffed a cranberry into my toothpaste tube. It gave the impression that something out-of-place and disgusting had become part of my oral-hygiene regimen.
Jason’s last trick, at least of those I’ve found so far, was modifying the autocorrect in our Word program to automatically change “the” to “bachHa’.” BachHa’, apparently, means “to make a mistake” in Klingon and was chosen specifically for its insulting significance. This prank wasn’t uncovered until days after all the jokers were supposed to be done with their bamboozling. And yes, I did think our computer was possessed.
Thus, I, the April-Fools’ trickster, became the chronically fooled. Jason believes he arranged a couple more traps that day but he can’t remember their particulars so, perhaps, he will get to be the twofold idiot when he steps into a snare that he set himself.
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