I made it to Dragon*Con (Woot!) The con is spread out across 3 hotels with the Space, Science, and Podcasting tracks (and me) in the Hilton, and the check in in the Hyatt with the Marriott in between. Being a bit sleepy (I was up until terrible hours the past two nights working on academic presentation posters for the EPO conference next week), I stupidly thought we (and the tracks) were staying in the Hyatt. I was wrong. So our first adventure of the day was trying to check in at the Hyatt, then walking three hotels to the Hilton, than walking back to the Hyatt to check in with the conference. It was during that last step (where we were inline 2 people behind John Delancy), that I learned I was supposed to give a reading (from my Blog) at 1pm. It was 3pm when we learned this, so I moved on.

First things first, I checked in with my tracks and got to meet Derek from Skepticality for the first time in person! After discovering there are far too many ways to spend my money here, I sat in on a live recording of Geologic by George Hrab (who does not talk on geology). He is hilarious. At the end of that show, I complimented the person who’d been sitting in front of me for having the cooled died hair I’ve seen (red types on natural black hair with blue midnight highlights. After we were talking for a bit, she had one of those stop talking half way through a sentence and ask, “Who are you?” moments. It turns out she recognized me from Astronomy Cast and the guy who was with her did a total “Oh my God, I love your show!” on me when he heard my name. To which I responded with a “Oh my God, you’re the first random person to do that to me in person!” So I got a picture with him. Woot2!

A few hours and chicken fingers later, I was on a Moon Hoax panel with two folks who’d been alive during the Apollo Era, Bill Keel and Hugh Gregory. I learned there are times I’m just not in the same league because, well, I just wasn’t alive and can’t speak to things the same way. But it was fun and (all though I had one total lose of knowns moment and one terrible foot in mouth moment when Hugh renamed me Jenny, and I corrected him, and he said he’d been under the impression I was Jenny from JPL the whole evening, so clearly I was a hoax, and I responded “Could someone please debunk me,” which when said aloud is far more terrible than when written on a screen).

And now it is 1am.

And now I am going to bed, eager to go out and meet future listeners, freaks, geeks, and all my favorite type of people tomorrow.

I want to get my picture with a storm trooper!