Starting on September 6th, after work, I met up with Damien and Preston for birthday dinner. It was pretty cool having some beers with these two guys and just chatting. We eventually started talking about video game consoles and I’ll take their advice!
I had a stupid filter on so its hard to see Preston and I just quickly snapped it without looking
There was a little anxiety that I wasn’t aware of the next day when we tried indoor skydiving! Let’s just say that Damien and I really enjoyed it and had a blast doing so!
Afterwards, we had the open afternoon so we ended up going to see Beetlejuice Beetlejuice and it was great!
The next day, we went to the lake, but unfortunately our boat didn’t start and we had to pack up and come back home. We did a fun pool day instead.
First, I want to say today is my son’s 28th birthday!! My gosh, he’s getting older.
Okay, so on the 30th of this month, Jaime and I drove out to Tucson and did our usual check in at the hotel attached to the convention center. They moved the main entrance for the con to be right near the door of the hotel, so that was super convenient! After a quick unpacking, we went and toured the con and did some pre-shopping. We found Brian and Allysen fairly quickly. We hit as many vendors and saw as many friends we could and got pictures with them. After they closed down for the night, we had dinner in the bar and got to peep at Jimmy Hart and Doug Jones. Jimmy happened to be staying a couple doors over from us.
The next day, bright and early, our friends Angela, Jonathan, and Justin drove out and we all met in our room as we prepped for the day. We did our Cinderalla cosplay and again I had a lot of silly fun acting out. I channeled Kelly from the shoes meme, and Sheneneh Jenkins from the tv show, Martin. We got a lot of photos taken of us and some video too.
We joined the panel discussion with Doug Jones and of course, Angela and Jaime got a photo op with him and he invited us all to join it. What a nice man!
After closing out for the night and seeing everyone go home, Allysen/Brian and Jaime/I hung out in the lobby until we couldn’t stay up any later.
The next day, we simply just shopped and hung out. Behold! My stuff!
Qimir’s ArmorSnake Eye’s Arashikage sword
For dinner, we met up with Johanna and had Ethiopian food.
The next day, we checked out and met up with Sam and Marie from our Phoenix ukulele group before heading home.
About this time every year, we go to the Dark Ones party, its one of our friends birthday and its usually at his house. Its a good time and we enjoy hanging with friends and making new ones.
The theme this year was Egyptian and Jaime and I haven’t wore our Egyptian garb in a long time… One of our very first cosplays together!
After a bit, we ended up just hanging out in the pool for most of the night.
The next day, we went over to help clean up, it was nearly a whole day affair to put things away. I know we were appreciated to help do the clean up.
In 1995, the movie Hackers, came out and I was already interested in computers and knew that I would make that my career when I got out of the Marine Corps. My computer interest turned into a job in information technology which has turned into a career in Cybersecurity. Yesterday I got to meet Cereal Killer, Matthew Lillard.
With the fourth of July being on a Thursday, we postponed getting everyone to come over to celebrate for the weekend. We had a lot of fun and Jaime made some really delicious food.
We had some new friends come over and that was pretty nice. Slowly growing our group of friends and making sure everyone gets along ;)
We took Friday off and spent the whole day at the lake. It felt so good to just take it so leisurely! We literally took our time from the day before with getting the boat uncovered, the battery charged, then the day of, getting the boat and truck fueled, having the tires checked, and swapping spots with the RV.
We brought the right amounts of booze, food, and waters… and water toys too. It had been awhile since DJ had been on the boat and it was his girlfriend’s first time with us. I think she enjoyed it! We even had her drive.
It was my first time going to a Splunk conference. I didn’t start planning until 2 weeks ago. Since we got “free” tickets, which just comes with our huge Splunk renewal, I wanted to give my team all the chances to go. My boss was going to be part of a panel for the Executive Experience there, so without anyone really going, I decided to take a ticket and go give support.
My boss is really into doing the challenges, so he wanted a team put together for Boss of the SOC. We all had a good time, and I learned a lot there. The event was at the Venetian and kind of at the Palazzo. It was even at the Caesar’s forum. I got to get all my CPEs for my certifiations for 2024!
This whole year, many of our build parties have led to this weekend. We’ve been working on costumes, dresses, and acquiring pieces for our outfits. We’ve been coordinating and making plans and reservations for months! and it all paid off!
I picked my brother up from the airport, and chatted a bunch on our way home. Picked up Jaime and loaded up the truck. It’s nice staying downtown, right across from the convention center. While there, we met up with Angela and Alex, Alex flew in to join us and was rooming with my brother!
We also went next door to find Mariah and give her, her badge.
The next day we unveiled our Cinderella outfits. Jaime really did an amazing job both on the Cinderella light up hoop skirt that was the magic effect for Cinderella to go from rags to ballgown, and Jaime also did a great job on Lady Tremaine. The whole outfit and hair!
Jonathan and I were so sassy it was hilarious! Our friends outfits matched well with our whole group!
Selfies!
Here’s a link to the video (you have to be friends with me on Facebook for it to work)
The end of the day, we switched into normal clothes, ran into one of our friends, and watched the drag show and the burlesque show and laughed more than we thought possible!
After a restful night, my brother and I did Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow, Jaime wasn’t feeling well and stayed in for a bit. Surprisingly we got a few photo requests from people. We mostly walked the con floor searching for toys. We met up several times with many of our friends.
When Jaime came to join us, she was stopped by Paul Sun-Hyung Lee, and told how good she looked! He gave her a hug. That was really cool!
We ended the night with watching the masquerade and then grabbing some food before bed.
Our last day and it’s typically our plain clothes day so that we can wander around and shop. We got to see our resident Alien, Alan Tudyk’s panel and that was pretty fun! We also took some time to talk with our friends today!
We ended the night with a big group dinner, then hung out at the pool until they kicked us out, then finally when everyone was tired, we kicked them out of our room. Con was so fun this year!
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