Chi-Chi-Chicago Com-Com-ComicCon

To the car we went, and on the road we were! Months before the mini vacation was to take place, I booked a 4-day, 3-night stay at a hotel, paid for the Felicia Day VIP passes, and got all of my geekiest gear packed away. I didn't even have plans for anyone coming with me when I spent the boat loads of cash on everything involved in a Comic Con weekend all the way in Chicago. Chicago is about 800 miles from where I live, by the way. As the trip approached I realized my car was not going to make it all the way to Chicago and back. Because of this I had to spend another chunk of cash to get there. My only option was to cancel the trip, or take out a loan. Being that I was not canceling this dream trip of mine, I went out to get a loan. The loan was for $3500 and would cover the car repairs, some of the tolls and gas costs, food for the weekend, my newly acquired lady-friend's 4-day pass to the Con, a handful of photo-ops and autographs, and of course, a ton of souvenirs from the Comic Con vendors. This loan happened to be at 27% interest and would end up costing me $6500 to pay back over the years in the agreement if I did not pay it back early. Oh yea, the Comic Con, and meeting Felicia Day meant that much to me. Good news, I had the best time I have ever had in my life that weekend, did meet Felicia Day and Jeff Lewis(Bonus!), purchased some wonderfully, geeky things for my unborn daughter, and got to meet Patrick Stewart(Super Bonus!!!). Also great news, I paid that insane fucking loan off only 5 months later and instead of costing me the $6500, it added up to about $4200 after interest paid.

Deeply Dreaming Of Deep Space Nine

I believe my most fond memories of my late teenage years are of me and my friend Dennis, almost every night, sitting down in front of his TV and putting on random Star Trek episodes for hours until I fell asleep (upside down in a Lazyboy chair). This routine happened virtually every night for years. I watched every single episode of every single Star Trek series except the Original Series, those were much too painful to sit through if we weren't looking to just laugh and make fun of a TV show. Deep Space 9 remains, and always will remain, my very favorite series of Star Trek, and I can estimate that after fully watching every episode while awake, that I have easily fallen asleep to all of the episodes about one hundred times each. I still put on an episode when I am struggling to fall asleep and within minutes of hearing my second family's voices and the theme song to DS9, I am sound asleep and dreaming of the day I can travel to DS9 and hangout at Quark's bar. DS9 means so much to me that I even named my daughter after a regular character on the show. My beautiful, amazing, soon to be geeky just like dad, daughter Ezri!