Friday, July 19 was a much less busy day for Jay and me. I woke up around 5:55 a.m. to go to the bathroom and looked out the window to check out the line situation outside of Hall H. There were only two panels that day that I really wanted to see: The Veronica Mars panel in Hall H and the Bones panel in Ballroom 20 and they were back-to-back, so I wouldn’t make both of them. I decided that because the Veronica Mars panel would probably be online by the end of the day, I was going to go back to sleep and play it by ear for Bones. I looked out the window again at about 6:05 a.m., right before I went to lay back down and the line seemed to have gotten bigger over the past ten minutes. Here’s a picture I took of the lines outside of Hall H on Friday, July 18. The big panels in H for the day were Veronica Mars, The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, and the Sony Pictures panel.
When I woke up again, a couple hours later, I was in desperate need of water and a fruit fix, so we headed down to Ralph’s to buy a pack of water (which we usually do on Tuesday, but didn’t this year) and some fresh fruit so I could eat a healthy breakfast. We headed over to the Convention Center around 10 a.m. and spent a while walking around on the Exhibit Hall Floor. I got word that the line for Ballroom 20 wasn’t bad at all at that point and considered heading upstairs to get in line with Jessica and watch Bones, but in the end, I decided to just hang tight and stay on the floor. By mid-morning on Friday, Michael had arrived at the Con, so we walked the floor with him for a little while and caught up. We visited Kris at his booth for his graphic novel The 36 and then met up with Mike and Renee at La Puerta for some mid-day Mexican and margaritas.
We walked around the Gaslamp District for a little bit after lunch, complete with a stop in the lululemon showroom. I hadn’t washed my hair in the shower that morning, so when we got back to the room, I did that while Jay chilled. Jay left while I was getting ready to meet up with Jack and Michael at the Revolution Cafe that was outside the Omni. Once I got downstairs, we headed over to the East Village Tavern for an impromptu Jay and Jack meet-up.
I was not a big fan of the East Village Tavern last year when we went. We were in a separate room that was upstairs and no one really mingled. I hate parties and meet-ups where no one mingles! Everyone just stayed at their tables and it was more like one big dinner than a meet-up. We were also really upset last year to learn that our friend Lynn was turned away because they wouldn’t give her any options to get upstairs in her wheelchair. If that was the case again this year, we weren’t going to stay. Luckily, we ended up in an awesome room on the main floor, right next to the bowling lanes. Our waiter also ended up doubling as our own private bartender, haha. It was GREAT. We had a blast. There was good food, friends, laughter, and bowling. If we can get that downstairs room again next year, then I am eager to hold another, more formal meet-up there again.
Josh and Jen from the Gleeful Podcast came to hang out at the tail end of the meet-up. They were going to another meet-up after ours and invited Mike, Renee, Jay and I to go with them. We were having a good time and had nothing that we had to get up for on Saturday morning, so we decided to continue the evening’s festivities. We walked uptown to a place called The Beer Co. and hung out there until last call. Friday night was definitely our “stay out late drinking” night. It’s funny that in the past, every night was “stay out late drinking” night, but this year, we only really had the one night. Every other night, we were back at the hotel pretty much by 12:30 a.m. I think we’re growing up. I’m glad we didn’t have to get up for anything other than the Jay and Jack Panel on Saturday, because I was beat. I had a blast on Friday, though. It was a superb day.
