Summer catch-up #3: Jason comes to visit.

Here's Jason and Pat in the green machine.

Right before I started my new job at LIAI, our good friend from Maine, Jason Fickett came out to see us. So, unfortunately Amanda will not be able to claim the first visitor distinction again. It was great to have someone else to explore San Diego with and it forced us to leave Escondido! We hit the Gaslamp District one night, and had great burgers in North Park at Crazy Burger. One the day Pat had to work, Jason and I went to the San Diego Wild Animal Park which is part of the San Diego Zoo, but is actually pretty close to where we live. We got to snap some pictures there.

The park incldues large stretches of area where the animals can roam. The Zoo uses the park for its breeding programs.

Here's Bella the Serval that we got to meet. The park has various Animal Encounters throughout the day. Some of them are planned and some aren't. We happened to be walking by when they were taking her for a walk.

There's also a tethered balloon you can ride in to see the bird's eye view of the park. (I didn't go on this as I'm a little afraid of heights.)

Here are some lions basking in the hot Escondido sunshine. I really didn't get that close, my camera just has a great zoom!

Summer catch-up #2: Pat goes to Comic-Con

A shot of the wait to get in to Comic-Con 08

Patrick got to go to Comic-Con this summer with people from his work. Comic-Con is held in the San Diego convention center and covers comic books (of course), movies, TV, games and most anything Sci-Fi, fantasy or cool. Since I didn’t get to go, I can’t really tell you all about it. But he posted about it on his OTHER blog, so I’ll just repost what he wrote there.

The convention center floor.

Patrick said:
Comic Con 08 was almost everything I’d been led to believe. Grown adults doing cosplay, a barrage of multimedia, and a squirming mass of people EVERYWHERE. It was fun but exhausting — 5 hours and I was completely fried. Read on for some impressions.

A panel of the cast of Stargate: Atlantis.

I managed to get into the tail end of a session on Stargate Worlds, and then stayed for Stargate Atlantis (OMGWTF, they started the season two weeks ago???). I don’t know who was funnier, Jewel Staite..

Q: What’s different about this show and other shows you’ve worked on?
A: This one didn’t get cancelled.

… or Robert Picardo…

“I think the aging, balding male hero demographic is underrepresented.”

After these sessions, I lurked around the exhibit hall, bought some souvenirs, and met a few people! I dropped by Penny Arcade and had a brief chat with them, wandered the hall looking for some gifts for friends, checked out some of the game demos (getting unexpectedly excited for the upcoming DC comics MMO in the process), and got a few introductions by virtue of running into Raph Koster and tailing him for a bit. (Sadly, now that I’ve met John Smedley, I find him quite likeable and retract some of my more hideous plans for NGE revenge.)

The Millenium Falcon!

The Doctor Who area

And if that wasn’t cool enough, I also got to meet Peter Mayhew — the mighty Chewbacca himself! Note the normal-sized people at the sides of this photo. (Costumed Chewbacca is, of course, some random attendee.)

Chewbacca is REALLY tall. By the way, he got his autograph for me.