Friday morning we went to the famed San Diego Zoo. I got to see a live giant panda, on breeding loan from China. It was the biggest lump of black and white fur I have ever seen - and that's about all we saw. The poor thing barely (pardon the pun) moved. I did get a picture, but it doesn't look like much!
Kara posed, sort of, with a Panda Cut-up near the entrance. It looked a lot more lively than the real panda!
We also saw a hippo who was just as lazy looking as the panda.
But the polar bears had enormous fun in their tank,swimming around, playing ball and just showing off, in general, for the audience!
The giant sand sculptures of hippos were intriguing to Kara, who has seen hippos before (she's a member at the Louisville Zoo), but never ones made of sand with sunglasses on!
She got a little hippo to take home with her and her mother had to get a sweatshirt - it was a lot cooler in California than anyone expected!She also saw "pretend" gorillas, too - and they looked real!
We got back to the entrance via Sky-Tram and went to the Con in the afternoon.

Friday was a day we had no plans, so we did the roaming around that we had done the day before, but armed with our Comic Book Superstars books and autograph books. This was the day that J. Michael Straczynski, creator of Babylon 5 (the program which had been responsible for getting us to the Con) and orbiter of a teddy bear was to sign autographs. It was an amazing line - the people who watch B5 are very ardent fans. So, Pudgy, my favorite stuffed pal, and I went with Steven to meet this director who hated cute things....I also made a small stuffed bear with white upholstery velvet "skin", a face only his creator would think "cute" (and even as the creator, I thought it turned out pretty ugly...) and eyes drawn on with a Sharpie marker, bought at the artists' booth at the Con. It also had Babylon 5 written across its little back and brown leather pawpads. It was unjointed and pretty pathetic as far as bears go, but, hey, he didn't like cute....

So I finished the little guy in the line and went up with it in one hand and Pudgy,his pawsport and my Comic Book Superstars book in the other.
Mr Straczynski looked up as I placed the little white bear on the table and said, "I don't sign teddy bears." I replied, "I don't want you to. I made this little bear for you and my teddy bear would like it, if you would be so kind, if you would sign his Pawsport." Which Mr. Straczynski did, and also signed my book. I parted with "Remember, teddy bears are always good for a hug - or a smoosh or a moosh or whatever..."

With that parting line, my day had been made, but I got other autographs, for both Pudgy and I, including Devin Grayson and Denny O'Neill, who admired Pudgy and his "chutzpaw" (chutzpah in Yiddish - it means "nerve" or "guts") in getting autographs... Which says something about me.... Anyway, that night we went to the 94th Aero Squadron for dinner (the ride there was a little tough, with Jenni back seat driving and Steven not wanting to go in any direction she or I suggested - it took an hour...). When we walked in the door, I had a feeling of deja vu! It was designed exactly like the 94th Bomb Group Restaurant in West Caldwell, New Jersey! Kara had chicken nuggets and fries (once again, we got to see how many of them she could toss), Elysha was in a picky mood and had buttered noodles - and a couple of stolen nuggets, Steven had steak and lobster, Jenni had the seafood sampler and I had crab stuffed shrimp. The food was pretty good and they gave us cash back out of the $240 gift certificate, so we decided that the last dinner in San Diego would be at Planet Hollywood on Sunday (only because they didn't have reservations open for Saturday!).

On Saturday,Jenni, Kara and Elysha got to the Star Wars: The Making of Episode One show and Kara went up with Jenni to ask a question of Steve Sansweet of Lucasfilm. They were shown on 30 foot square screens to the crowd when they asked their questions (she asked who from the first episode would be in the follow-ups - McEwen, Yoda and Portman were the definites...), so they were big! Jenni and Kara also saw Spawn - one of Jenni and Ed's favorite comic books - when she went to the Image/McFarland Toys Booth.

I went to the first half of the panel Spiritual Themes in Comics.It was interesting, but mostly dealt with Christian themes, of course. I had to split early because at noon was the panel we had to go to - 60 Years of Batman.

The panel was absolutely hysterical. Mark Evanier,writer of the comics Groo and Fanboy, both of which are very funny books, was the moderator of the panel and tried to keep things running in order. He asked questions about working for/with/as Bob Kane in the early years of Batman and got some good stories, especially from Schwartz, who apparently loves to kibitz...Other artists and editors there were Jerry Robinson, who allegedly created the Joker; Arnold Drake, who is better known for his work on Deadman and the Doom Patrol (Drake knew Kane in the early National Comics days and took the place of Sheldon Moldoff who was kept from being at the Con by illness); Denny O'Neill, a great Silver Age (post WWII comics - "Baby-Boomer era comics", I suppose would be the best way of terming it - we grew up with these) writer and now editor of Batman (Pudgy and I did get his autograph); and Irv Novick, one of the best of the Silver Age artists who drew Batman and was signed as Bob Kane. Of course, after Batman got started, all Batman art was signed as Bob Kane's work, whether it was or not.... All of these men were in their later years, having grown up with Batman from the 30s....
I met Irv Novick's wife, Sylvia, when she was sitting by the DC Comics booth - her husband was signing autographs there. We talked for a long while and I found out that they had been married 59 years - and had known each other for 74! She was very sweet and we exchanged stories about Fort Knox and Louisville, where Irv had been stationed - during World War II, I imagine. Sylvia said she learned to drive at Fort Knox, but never had a license- even when she did drive! I don't feel so bad about learning to drive in my 30s anymore....I also met Murphy Anderson's wife, who was sitting by someone else's husband (it turned out Sam Glanzman's wife was with Julius Schwartz in Artist's Alley), shared a couple of stories of Murphy and Fort Knox. She patted my cheek and wished me well when we left the autograph area. Sylvia Novick gave me a hug and told us to have a safe trip home when I wished her the same.

After the panel was over, we went to the Exhibition Hall again and I went to the annual Blood Drive, because I was the only one with health good enough to donate. I went in, passed all the questioning, had good blood pressure, good hemoglobin and went in to give blood. Now I had been a frequent donor, unable to donate because of trips out of the U.S. the past couple of years, so I assumed this would be easy. No . They could not find my veins in either arm, so I was turned down. They told me I was dehydrated so much that my veins had shrunk to where they couldn't feel them at all. They did give me the T-shirt and bag of goodies just for trying. I just didn't get the "Twinkie and Drinkie" that usually accompanies blood donation....I guess I'll have to drink more water and try again at home.
So I went to find Steven, who was at a preview and Q&A with Casper Von Dien of the new movie Sleepy Hollow. Big crowd and I couldn't find him, but I did manage to get a bottle of water while I was waiting - $2.50 for a small one, but it was cold! We made a few more rounds in the Exhibition Hall and went back to the hotel. After we got back, we collected the kids and went to Wendy's for dinner. After a little "digestion", we went to the pool and it was cold! Kara's lips turned blue and her teeth chattered - pretty hard when you only have two of them! The hot tub seemed only warm, but then again, it may have been because I had been in the pool first! Everybody went back to their rooms after getting things together and got ready for bed.

Sunday morning, Steven and I had breakfast in the hotel cafe and the kids improvised and had bagels from a shop down the street that Jenni went to - they were sort of like French Fries to Kara, but with more surface area...Then we headed for the last day of the Comic-Con. Elysha and I went to the Archie workshop for kids, with Holly GoLightly!(and, yes, that is her "given name"- I asked. She said she was born during the 60s and it could've been worse), the artist/writer for the new Archie girl comic, Cheryl Blossom. Elysha was a little bláse about it, but she did a good job with her sketches and I had fun, too. The next workshop was with Sergio Aragones, who drew Groo and Fanboy (see Mark Evanier) as well as the little cartons that ran down the sides of Mad Magazine and TV's Funniest Bloopers and Practical Jokes. His class was funny and Elysha did the first bunch of sketches as directed, then took off with her own. Senor Aragones said that he also never did things the way the art teacher told him to, which made Elysha break into a grin. Pudgy had gone with us and got Sergio's autograph (along with a tiny bear cartoon) and I got my Comic Superstars book signed, as well as a copy of Fanboy!

After that, we met Jenni, who'd been at the Star Wars screening--again. The projector had broken the day before, so they'd put off the screening. She and Kara got some candy and took Elysha with them back to the hotel where they went swimming again. Steven and I wandered about the Exhibition Hall and got more autographs - Steve had stood in line to get Stan Lee, the former Marvel head dude, on Saturday, so anything else was sort of easy for him. We got to meet Paul Chadwick , who does a very thoughtful comic about a man who was encased in a concrete-like substance by aliens, hence the comic's title - "Concrete". Pudgy and I both got his autograph!

We got back to the hotel around 3:30 and rested up to walk to Planet Hollywood at 5:30. Our reservation was at 6, but we thought it would take a long while to get there. But we were walking, not driving and it only took us about 10 minutes to get there. We saw some of the movie "artifacts" there, including the Terminator, which is in the case Jenni is standing by.
We had drinks- Elysha's was non-alcoholic and Kara's was milk in a "Rocket Sipper", which she was not quite up to yet. Her milk was put into her personal "sippie cup". The drinks are seen in the picture of Kara with Elysha's Coke, her Rcoket Sipper, Grandma's Shooter and her personal sippie cup Jenni's and mine were Shooters, small drinks with just a little punch. Steven had a "Jurassic Park", a drink with a lot of rum and tropical flavors, frozen into a slushy concoction.
After the meal - very good food - we went to the mall in which Planet Hollywood was located. Being as how it was Sunday, nearly everything was closed (we didn't remember it was Sunday, until it was nearly 8 o'clock!). But the Warner Brothers Store was open! Kara got a little baseball-style jacket, Elysha an Austin Powers T-shirt and I got a Batman "muscle shirt". We walked back to the hotel, stopping to get more milk for Kara. Everybody got packed and tried to get to bed early so we could get started early. Kara slept in Jenni's room that night, because Elysha said she had to get some sleep.

We left the next morning around 7:30. We had a little breakfast at the airport, then split up for the separate flights home. Kara and Jenni were both wearing their jackets (and Elysha was wearing the polar fleece one she'd gotten at Planet Hollywood) and they took off to wait for their flight and we went off to ours.

We had a great time and wished that it hadn't been so short! We will probably never be able to afford the trip again, but for people like us, it was the trip to "Mecca" - a once in a lifetime experience! And nobody got hurt or sick! A great vacation in my book!

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