WONDERFEST 2012

Ok, here is my tale of WF2012 from my own perspective.
For those who do not know, that is us in the pics above.
Me (TAY666) on the right, and my daughter (Evil3) on the left.
This year marks our 11th consecutive year attending the show.
And it was another good one. Maybe one of the most consistently fun ones we have been to.
There have been others with some great times and some awesome stuff.
But this one was really good all 3 days. With no real down time, or boring parts.

We had a nice uneventful drive down.
A little mix up at the hotel again, as usual [rolleyes]
I had requested the same room we had last year. But of course they already gave that to someone else.
Ended up with an even better room though. 2nd floor right off the patio at the top of the stairs.
I've requested that room for 2013, I plan on calling a week or so ahead of time
to confirm and remind them about that request. Maybe I will actually get it then.

My car was pretty full. I had brought 7 entries and a few of them were on the larger side.
Coupled with cloths, food, drink and modeling supplies to finish and last minute attachments,
it was quite a bit. Thankfully, my daughter and I are old hands at this.
It took us no time to get it all in the room and unpacked.
So it didn't take us long to head down to the lobby, and start hanging out wiht old friends.
With no display this year, that left us more time for socializing.

I really liked the new Friday night stuff this year.
Instead of having just one room somewhere for people to hang out and talk, they had several rooms set up.
Some even had some sneak peeks of kits and such to get people talking.
You can see some if it on this page. Including a bit of video I shot for the Graveyard Scenes
and the new Kogar kit that Moebius is doing.

After a fun first night, and a surprisingly good night's sleep, it was time to enter our kits in
the contest, and hit the dealers room. Finally, a chance to talk to some other friends I hadn't seen yet
as well as check out all the cool stuff in the room. Lots of cool new pieces as always.
This year, I actually had some money to spend.
So, I was actually doing more than window shopping for a change.
There were a few purchases I new I had to make. Like the Bob Burns DVD,
A mammoth head that I had asked Mike at Alchemy to bring for me.
And at least one of the new Graveyard Scenes from Cult. But I actually got to look
past the must buy list and get some other stuff.
You can see my whole haul on this page. But this was the fun I was having in the room
Saturday after the show.

That is what I do while waiting for food to arrive. Play with my new purchases.
Speaking of food. This year we tried something different, as Britny really wasn't feeling the
Pizza Hut that I always want to get. Instead, we ordered from Spinelli's. The stromboli was pretty good.
Then it was down to the lobby for more socializing.
We did attempt to go check out the screening of the Bob Burns movie. But the theater was packed.
It was beyond standing room only. So we passed on that.
We did check out the end of Iron Modeler.
We also checked out Doctor Gangrene. Boy was he showing a real stinker this year.
Megaforce. Pure 80's low budget sci-fi / action.
We did try to get up to the Cult-suite. But got waylaid along the way.
Pretty sure we ended up at the Canadian Embassy instead. (we ended up there a lot this year)
All in all a fun night.

Sunday was more running around the dealer's room. Hanging out, buying kits, then up to the awards
Ceremony. I was really pleasantly surprised when my Godzilla took a bronze.
Speaking of buying kits. I ended up getting one I wanted, but wasn't planning on.

The spinosaurus conversion set.

As I said, I wasn't planning on getting it, but Mike talked me into it.

After the show closed, we got our entries packed up. Then loaded those, and our purchases into the car.
One less thing to worry about in the morning.
Then it was more socializing and fun Sunday night.

Monday was nice. This was the first time in a few years, that there wasn't a big rush to get on the road.
Since it was a holiday, my daughter didn't have to be back in Columbus for class.
Turns out that was good, as I ran into some automotive issues on the return trip.
The only bad thing from the whole weekend.
Just after we got on the road I noticed the temperature gage spiked.
I pulled off the road, let the car cool down, and topped off the radiator.
Took over half a gallon. So, I took it easy getting back to Columbus.
After getting Brit unloaded at school, I checked again. Still full.
No more temperature problems for the rest of the trip. Thought I got off easy.
The next day I learned otherwise.
The loss of coolant was from a blown intake gasket. The coolent ended up in the oil.
Which lead to some colapsed lifters.
Not fun, or cheap. But the car has been running fine ever since.

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