New York Comic Convention

Welcome!

We go to the Comic Book Convention because Jason loves comic books and his friends are very good to him.  Because Eric runs The Fedora Chronicles we are able to go on a Press Pass.  Jason and Doug go as a writer/journalists.  They are able to have fun, do interviews and totally enjoy themselves in their Geekhood.  Eric is less into comic books but enjoys the people and the high energy.  He goes to the panels to listen to the speakers.  I go to take pictures.  This year he went to a panel with a speaker who discussed voice-over work.  When asked for volunteers he got right up and walked to the front.  Didn't hesitate at all.  A young woman, obviously a college student, really wanted to go up, but raised her hand instead.  Eric told her to go up with him, but she was too nervous and missed out.  Poor thing!  Eric on the other hand was asked to do a small child voice, a child's laugh, and then to sound like a chicken.  He got totally into it!  Afterwards, the speaker got his info and asked if he'd be willing to do voice over work!

Doug

Doug brought some comics that he planned to sell.  He got $13 for a X-men Origins- Wolverine.  Not bad.  The other's weren't sold. :(

mixer

This is the 4 channel mixing board.  We were able to plug in 4 microphones to do podcasts.  Except we only brought 3 microphones!  People were very eager to be interviewed for the podcast.  Some were podcasters themselves!  If you are interested in listening to the podcasts, please go to The Fedora Chronicles and listen!  They will have a new podcast weekly.

Woman who works at MSNBC and Forest of Fear in Tuxedo, New York

The woman being interviewed above was interviewed shortly after I arrived from walking the floor.  I missed the couple before her, they were dressed as vampires.  They are actors in the Forest of Fear in Tuxedo, New York.  They don't have a website that I have found, but you can check them out on you tube.  Though she doesn't want her job at MSNBC mentioned on the podcast, keep work and play separate, she did let us know that she is a journalist for MSNBC.

The line to get in. Note: it's not the entire line, only as much as I could fit in my lens

 The line was already building up to a crescendo when we arrived at 9:00am.  The doors don't open until 10am!  This picture was taken at 9:30am.  There is a lot more line, but the wall was in the way and the floor.  This line lead out into a giant hallway which lead outdoors.  They said that this year was 300% larger than last year.

I took this thinking the kids would like to see the dolls.  Then I looked closer at them at home.  The kids won't be seeing these closely.

 There were all sorts of wares.  Costumes, t-shirts, dolls, comics, posters, chainmail jewelry and clothing, and so much more.  An entire blog post could be posted listing only what was available.

This guy was paid to be in the suit.  This is not Cosplay.

 There were so many things to see!  Famous artists, products for sale, people dressed in Cosplay, people in costume to advertise a video game or movie, a car and a motorcycle, and much more!

Another person paid to be there.

 I had Jason pose with this guy because I got the kid with the other one!  It seemed that everyone who dressed up was there for one reason.  To get their picture taken!

These two are Cosplay types

 Here I caught Spiderman and the girl behind him not posing.  They were posing seconds before.  I did get him posing afterwards, but you can't see her in the picture and I liked her pink outfit.  Don't worry, you'd never catch me in that thing!

Curt Shilling started a video game company with Todd McFalane and R.A. Salvatore,  38 studio's.
R.A. is one of J's favorite writers.    The guy in the green shirt is just a fan boy.

 Jason applied for a job at 38 studio's.  The company is here in MA and was in the same building that Jason works in!  Unfortunately, the HR guy who submitted the Ad didn't really know what he was looking for.  So he kept getting people like J to apply, but they needed someone with a completely different set of skills.

Jason posing with the Black Beauty

 Jason absolutely loved this car.  It was neat.  This is the car used in the movie, The Green Hornet, coming to a theater near you!  Follow the link for the official site and release date.

Who you gonna call? Ghostbusters!

 Not everyone who is into Cosplay wears weird stuff.  This guy is completely normal with his "Slimer" on his shoulder and hundreds of dollars spent on the costume.

Chainmail outfits...very tempting to get the necklace on the bottom right!

 This girl is showing off and selling chainmail clothing items and jewelry.  It looked really neat!  I'd totally want some of it if I have any possible use.  But it would be wasted on me.

Doug, Voice-over-woman, Eric Rendering King Fisk.  Eric was offered a possible position doing voice overs by this woman after he volunteered during a program about voice over work.

 This woman has a name, but either I forgot it or missed it.  She was glad to see that the Fedora Chronicles has a woman on the team.  She had only met Eric and Doug until I arrived with Jason.  She asked me why I wasn't wearing my Fedora, and I told her that I have a cloche, but it's too hot to wear it.  She was very sweet and I would be glad to see her again.

This guy was absolutely HUGE!  Must have been 8 feet tall!

 This guy and three other guys were at least 8-10feet tall.  There is a guy dressed up as Thor and with normal boots his head was almost touching the ceiling.  Just amazingly tall.  That stuff coming off his back, in the picture, were wooden swords.  About 5 or 6 of them, and all huge and heavy!

More Cosplay.  Her gun was 8 feet tall!  

 This girl's gun was made from foam, so it was very light.  Her outfit it based on a Manga character.  Manga is a Japanese cartoon art style that is huge in America and Japan.

I found this company!  Retro-a-go-go  They are now sponsors of the Fedora Chronicles.  Cute stuff!  Rock-a-billy, Retro-30-50's, and all genre's, horror, classic, pin-up, ect.

 This company is my new favorite online store!  I wish I had money to buy some of everything!  I love the retro stuff!

Jason and Eric when we first arrived at 9:00am

We arrived at 9am, parked and walked to the convention only two blocks away.  But that meant that we had to leave J's parents at 5:00am, and Eric who came from New Hampshire had to leave at 4am!  All of us were so excited we didn't get to bed until midnight!  Jason not until 1am.  So we were all short on sleep.

Leaving the Convention at 7:30pm

We decided that we should go out to eat and drive Doug home.  The food was bland.  Sorry Doug.  He recommended the place.  It was Chinese food.  I've never been a fan, but I like Vietnamese soups, and the soup on the menu had the same description.  But totally different flavor.  On the way home it took us an hour just to pay our toll for the George Washington Bridge.  That's one hour of going 0-2 miles per hour, just to pay a $8 toll.  And there were no gas stations open!  So by the time we got back to J's parents we had to borrow J's dad's truck and a 5 gallon tank to go and get gas from the turnpike so that Eric could make it to the closest gas station.  No offense Doug, but we won't be driving you home next year!

My very good friend did offer to let us park at her Uncle's apartment in NY city, then it will only cost $35 a day for parking.  Much better than the $50 we had to pay.  I hope we don't have to take a taxi to get from the apartment to the comic con though!

One of my favorite poems

“The proper way for a man to pray,”
Said Deacon Lemuel Keyes,
“And the only proper attitude
Is down upon his knees.”

“No, I should say the way to pray,”
Said Reverend Doctor Wise,
“Is standing straight with outstretched arms
And rapt and upturned eyes.”

“Oh, no, no, no,” said Elder Slow,
“Such posture is too proud.
A man should pray with eyes fast-closed
And head contritely bowed.”

“It seems to me his hand should be
Austerely clasped in front
With both thumbs pointing toward the ground,”
Said Reverend Doctor Blunt.

“Well, I pray while resting every day,”
Said Mr. Henry Pack.
“So I should think you say your prayers
While lying on your back.”
“Last year I fell in Murphy’s well—
Headfirst,” said Cyrus Brown.
“With both my knees a’stickin’ up
And my head a’pointin’ down.”

“And I made a prayer right then and there,
The best prayer I ever said,
The prayingest prayer I ever prayed,
A’standing on my head.”

“So, if your prayers come 
From mouth and not from soul;
God may just someday let you
Fall into a hole!”

Cooking

I seem to have a habit of cooking large amounts of food when I can't do dishes for a few days, and then finally can.  OK, so that sentence makes no sense!  We ran out of dishwasher soap, so I had to buy more, but I didn't have time to get to the store right away.  It took two days before I had time, and had to do dishes by hand.  And just thinking of doing dishes by hand makes me feel......

...scared, sad and abused! (That's what happens when you grow up doing dishes by hand when there are 13 of you!  -to be fair, Mom always did the heavy pots and pans.)

Some might think this is an exaggeration, but really, it's not.  Really.  No really!  She'sh!  Maybe a little!

So I finally get soap, I now have to use and wash every dish I own.  But I can't wash clean dishes, I must cook many things. Many difficult things.  I made fried green tomatoes.  Not as hard as I thought they would be.  Not bad, either.  I was a little scared to eat them, but they weren't bad.  As I said, I had to dirty all the dishes in the house, right?  Well, this is what I did first. I didn't read the directions.  Second, I threw all the ingredients together and got mush, and then thought, "This isn't going to work."  It was all pasty and not going to coat the tomato slices.  When I read the directions it made things so much clearer!  But I did dirty several bowls and utensils.

Taylor likes the cornmeal coating, better than the tomatoes.  They tasted kind citrus-y to me.

Next I started to make Acorn flour.  To make it you need to first play "sink or swim."  Basically, float the nuts to see which one's float, if they float they are bad.  Since I had two kids helping, I had two small pots for the floating, one pot big pot for the good and a bowl for the bad.  Then I thought, this big pot is too big, so I got out the medium pot, and eventually realized I should have just used the big pot after all.

Here you can see the big, medium and small pot and the bowl.  But you have to really look.  I must add that making acorn flour is not easy.  My hands HURT!  First, you take all the good ones then rinse the dirt off them, then shell them (this took about 2 hours for aone gallon bag), then you have to boil them for hours or days, depending on the type of acorn.  I have no idea what kind I have.  Then roast them and then finally grind them into flour.  Whew!

Then I wanted to make apple crisp.  I bought apples for just this purpose!  Since apples are in season it should be a nice treat.  For me and Jason, anyway.  The kids won't eat it.  I first pulled out a small casserole dish, well it turns out I underestimated, again.  And I had to pull out a much larger dish.

Looks tasty!

I think I am going to end up with one entire load of dishes that are completely clean except that they touched  uncooked food for a few seconds.

With all of this going on I am having to call and find out from the school why I haven't heard from them about Taylor being able to take French II.  I called and found out that the Superintendent wanted a detailed description of what we are going to be covering!  Ridiculous!  I'm supposed to tell them that in World Geography we will be studying the worlds geography?  And that in Algebra we will be covering Algebra?  After some discussion he finally says that he wants the title of the books.  Whew, that took a while to communicate!  And I told him I'm using Abeka.  He was happy with that.  Now I have to write it on a piece of paper and send it too him.  Because it must be in writing.  Ugh!

My hands hurt.

Labor Day Weekend

Jason's parents have been volunteering their time to the Blandford fair for years!  So it has become a tradition for us to go to the fair and hang out with Meme and Pepe and just have a good time.  We let the kids ride the rides, but we skip the games.  There aren't very many and the prizes aren't good.  But we do let the kids pick a gift for themselves.  Bailey was the only one who wanted her face painted, but Madison and Bailey both got balloon animals, but both popped before we got pictures.  

Chainsaw Carving

Horse Show

Horse Pulls

Bailey Squared-  Bailey holding Bailey

After a day and a half of the fair we drove up the Vermont for camping.  We went hiking on a trail that was 2 miles each way, but we didn't make it, we got 1.7 miles and turned back.  The hike was fun, not much to take pictures of though.  But I got a few with the kids.

At the fair

K-9 unit show

Truck pulls

G-Force Ride

Having fun at the fair!

Truck pull

Madison feeding sheep

Bailey feeding sheep or goats

Jordan also feeding goats or sheep

Bailey's face painting!

Camping at Otter Creek, Vermont

At the trail head

The Midway

Pictures from the Home School Kick off

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"I'm so sad school is starting!"
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If you want a picture just let me know which one by the number and I'll email it to you.

Home School Kick Off

We had our home school kick off today!  I don't know everyone who was there, but I have some pictures!  The kids got to swim and have a good time and the parents got to talk about their panic of the up coming school year.