Getting to San Diego is definitely NOT half the fun. Yesterday morning I was up at 5 AM, and off to Philadelphia International Airport by 6:45. I arrived at my gate around 8:30, plenty of time for a 9:50 flight. Then I began looking around and realized all the flights on United (my airline) were on hold due to a computer system crash nationwide. Not a good start to the trip! I had an egg sandwich and did some reading, and the system came back on, but our flight was still delayed about 2 hours leaving. I had a connection in Houston, but since all United flights were delayed, that was not a problem, in fact that flight left almost 3 hours late. I ran into Craig Yoe and his family there, and we had a good time talking about the comics biz, so the time went pretty quickly. I finally landed in San Diego around 6 PM, about two hours behind the planned landing, so they made up an hour in the air.

Once out of the airport I took a taxi to my hotel. I’d had no luck with the con’s room lottery this year, but fortunately was invited to share a room very close to the convention center with Gene Ha and Andrew Pepoy, so that worked out well for me, and many thanks to Gene for the offer. I met Gene at the hotel, and he invited me to dinner with some other friends. I was starving at this point, having not eaten for about 8 hours, but I wanted to pick up my con badge first, so agreed to meet them at the restaurant. The photo above is the line for picking up pro badges, which stretched from in front of Hall A to Hall D, but it moved pretty quickly, and I was through with my badge in about a half hour. I had thought I’d spend some time in the con that evening (Preview Night), but I was too hungry, and opted for dinner instead. 
After waiting about half an hour outside the restaurant, one I hadn’t been to called “The Lion’s Share,” we went inside for a fine meal. Here are myself, Marie Javins, Gene Ha, Jim Chadwick and Stuart Moore in a photo from Jim’s phone taken by the waitress, and posted by Jim on Facebook. Stuart is not really as drunk as he looks, he was trying to get into the shot.

Here’s myself and Marie with one of many unusual animal paintings the place is decorated with, also from Jim’s phone.

And one of Jim Chadwick and Stuart Moore from my phone. Didn’t get a good photo of Gene, but I’m sure he’ll turn up again.

This morning, after a good night’s sleep, I’m out on the balcony of our room enjoying the usual lovely San Diego weather, and typing this up, an early riser, as usual. Soon I’ll go get breakfast and head to the Con, which opens at 10 AM. More tomorrow!