How I Spent My Summer Vacation
Spending time in Phoenix and San Diego
For the first time since I was a kid still living with my parents, I took a ten-day vacation. It was, as the story goes, the best of times and the worst of times. Since I’m still tired and have a metric ton of laundry to do, Cardinals to root for, and sleep to catch up on, I’m going to go all lazy and tell ya all about it bullet-point style.
- I bought brand new sunglasses for this trip. First new pair in ages.
- I dig the new Indianapolis airport. It is incredibly easy to get to, and it has cool moving sidewalk walkways. It also has a cool collection of stores and restaurants, and parking could not be any easier. The best airport I have ever been to.
- My flight to Phoenix was bumpy, and my sense of time was immediately screwed up. The three-hour flight felt like six.
- When I left Indy, it was spitting rain and 68. I landed in Phoenix, and it was 98 and hot.
- I like steak. Had it four meals on this vacation. The first time was the best.
- The dominant colors in Phoenix are brown, dark brown, light brown, and orange.
- Illinois has green cornfields everywhere. There were mountains in every direction in Arizona.
- Spending four days with Grant, his lovely wife Allison, and their adorable daughter Kendall was relaxing in every way.
- In-n-Out burger is awesome, and I wish there were one here right now.
- The Hangover is funny.
- Joe’s Barbecue had the best spicy/sweet sauce I’ve ever tasted.
- Terminator Salvation was pretty weak.
- Grant’s pool is bathwater warm.
- I am totally out of practice with Wii bowling
- The drive to the mountains was more fun than I thought it would be at first. Lots of pictures were taken.
- I semi-suck at Rock Band drums because I totally wanna play them like reality instead of “game reality.”
- Dave & Busters is a guilty pleasure.
- Green Lantern: First Flight was a little better than Wonder Woman.
- Six hours in a truck to San Diego. What the hell was I thinking?
- I learned it is a very bad idea to be stuck in the desert with an overheated engine. This didn’t happen, but we were thinking about it the entire way to San Diego.
- The only time it ever rains in Yuma is when I have to walk half a mile back to the truck. I still can’t believe I was soaked from head to toe.
- If you don’t think the border patrol isn’t profiling cars and their occupants, you’re dreaming.
- I hear San Diego is near some water… never saw it.
- I hear San Diego has a cool zoo… never saw it.
- I hear San Diego has the second largest convention center in the U.S. I saw plenty of it.
- San Diego Comic-Con is bigger than big.
- I know of no king who would have stayed at the King’s Inn.
- I’m pretty sure our bathroom in the King’s Inn was 3′ x 5′
- Mark Waid is one of the nicest guys in comics.
- I had a wonderful experience with a shirt retailer (Stylin’) who helped me find a shirt I could not buy from her. Now, that’s customer service.
- Buying hardback books and discount trades sounds like a good idea until you have to lug them around and is an even worse idea when you have to lug them around on a plane.
- The best costume I saw was a guy dressed in a full-size rabbit suit complete with a vest and pocket watch. The jaw portion of his headpiece moved with his own jaw when he talked.
- The hottest girl was a booth babe on Thursday who was handing out flyers. I wish I had taken a picture.
- The second hottest girl was a booth babe at the G4 booth.
- I saw a visibly shell-shocked mother being led by her 15-year-old son through the convention floor. I felt pity.
- SDCC security was very tight and mostly polite.
- The question of the trip, “What are you in line for?”
- Robert Rodriguez is a cool dad.
- Getting from one end of the convention center to the other was nigh impossible to do under 30 minutes.
- There were so many cool people I simply never saw at the convention. Pick and choose. Pick and choose.
- I burnt the top of my head and my nose, trying to get into the Lost panel. My nose has yet to recover.
- 2012 is disaster porn
- I totally missed Flynn’s Arcade. That totally sucked.
- Without text messaging, I would never have coordinated anything with my friends
- The Iron Man 2 footage was pretty sweet
- I never saw Brea Grant, Johnny Depp, any of the Twilight cast, any of The Guild cast, Megan Fox, or any of the Heroes cast.
- By Sunday, you just wanted to punch people.
- Driving six hours back to Phoenix with the windows down and the heat on because the engine was on the verge of overheating was not in the least bit fun. I melted.
- Yeah, I’ll probably go do SDCC again. Maybe this time with a slightly better plan…
