WONDERFEST 2014

Ok, here is my tale of WF2014 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 13th consecutive year. And the first time we got in on Thursday instead of Friday.
Man, it was nice to be able to relax after unloading the car, and unpacking.
Then just getting to chill most of the day on Friday.

We had a pretty uneventful trip down. That is, if you don't count the little wrong turn I made [embarassed]
I missed the I71 split off of I75, and by the time either of us realized it, it was quicker and easier to keep going to Lexington then
cutting over to Louisville. (on the bright side, this kept us from having to deal with the 15 mile stretch of one lane traffic that I saw on the southbound side of 71 when we were driving back home)
Of course, when we got to the hotel, we couldn't get the room I had requested. Which is pretty much par for the course with the Crown Plaza.
Turns out the room I had wanted was one of the group of rooms on the 2nd floor that was getting renovated.
We still got a 2nd floor room with a balcony. Just a little further away from things than I would have prefered.
Unloaded the car, unpacked, then we headed out to Bob Evans for dinner.
Neither one of us were particularly hungry, but we figured we should probably have something. When we got to the restaurant, we realized
that maybe were were hungry after all. And when we got our food, we found we were actually starving, and basically pigged out.
Spent the rest of the evening hanging out in the lobby and wandering the hotel visiting with friends.
Actually got to bed early (2 AM) and slept in.

Spent Friday working on kits, and more wandering and visiting. We looked in on the various paint classes taking place on occasion too, to see what was
going on. Kept waiting for Dave Hodge to get there and see when we could start setting up the Prehistoric Scenes display.
We had seen Cortland Hull setting up Thursday night, and most of the day Friday, so we knew that Dealer Room B was open, and ready, but didn't want to
do anything until we got the go-ahead from Dave. He finally got there around 3 and gave us the green light.
That's when the fun started.

The next 5 hours were a blur of hauling, unpacking, assembling, setting up, arranging, and fun.
Catching up with even more friends who were there to contribute to the display and lend a hand.
Highlighted by having Andy Yanchus come over, hang out, and talk about some of the thinking behind the kits, and why they did some of the things they did.
Lots of fun, but also very exhausting. So, around 8, we called it done for now, and headed up to the room to order dinner.
After laying around and eating a bit. We fiddled some more with our contest entries and filled out the contest forms.
Made it back down around 9:30 and wandered around the dealers room to scope things out and visit a bit.
Then back out to the hall for the Friday night meet-and-greet.
And of course, our usual of hanging in the lobby, wandering around, and running into people outside having a smoke.

Saturday started off a bit rushed. I slept later than I wanted to. Early Bird was at 8, and that is when I woke up!
Threw on cloths real quick, ran down to the display to finish a bit of last minute tweaking for things that were set aside for glue to dry. And to turn on my
rotating display for my Giant Bird pattern.
Then a real quick trip into the main dealers room to snag up some kits I saw on MMRs table the night before.
They had all 4 of the Haunted Glow Heads for $5 each! But they were already done setting up and gone when we were in there the night before.
Thankfully, they were still there when I got in in the morning. Everyone always looks for the rare resin first thing in the morning. I look for the cheap styrene.
Then back to the room for some breakfast.
By then, Britny was motivated also, and we both went down for our first pass around the room.
Then back to grab out contest entries, and get those submitted, and back to the dealers room after visit to the display again, until the first item on our 'to see' list.
Which was Andy's talk and slideshow about Aurora.

Learned all kinds of cool things from that.
It ran a bit long so we didn't have as much time until the next thing on our list as we thought we would. No sense hitting the dealers room again, so we
went back to the room and got food and drink before going to catch Rick's painting demo. Very cool, and interesting. Mainly about how to do patterns via
subtraction and layering. It was airbrush based, but would also work with brush painting like I do.
I stayed for the next one on metalics, but after I realize that that also was airbrush based, I left, and hit the contest room
Was planning on catching the 25 Years of Wonderfest discussion at 3:30, but I was so absorbed in checking out all the entries, I decided to skip it.
Turns out my daughter did too.
We then ventured into the dealers room again after stopping to swing through the display area to check out more stuff.
Before we knew it, they were shutting down the dealers room, and the day time events were over for Saturday.
A little colapsing in the room to counter all the activity of the day, then off to dinner at Bob Evans again.

Saturday night had quite a bit more activity on the agenda.
We hit the Cult-suite for a while but then left, as sitting there watching movies in the dark made us kind of sleepy.
After visiting in the lobby a bit, we swung down to see Jimi at the Iron Modeler competition that was just ending.
Then off to see the movie upstairs with Doctor Gangrene. Godzilla vs Megalon.
A cool movie, but again, the sitting in the dark, not moving or talking lead to nodding off. So after the first break, which featured an argument
between Frankenstein and the Wolfman, we went to wandering again.
After a while, we made it back to the movie to see the end battle, then hang on the patio with Rob and Jeff for a while.
A few other events followed. One involving fireball. Then it was time for bed again.

We had both intended to catch the 9 AM demo, but neither of us were up early enough to do so.
I actually ended up spending most of my day either in the dealers room, or over at the PS display. Taking pics, keeping an eye on things, talking
to people about the kits, and visiting with Andy, Tory, and Dennis.
I know, kind of tame, but actually lots of fun for me.
Things got a lot busier towards the end of the day though.
First it was the awards ceremony. Then it was the mad dash to the contest room to pick up entries. Then it was the last minute buying in the dealers room before everyone packed up, and the show was over. Britny had already gotten a few pieces. She had been weighing her options as far as Godzilla kits available for
most of the day. There were a few Kaiyodo vinyl kits at good prices, but she finally decided on a resin Minya from X Plus.
I had been doing very well at restraining my kit purchases. I even thought I might have a nice chunk of change to bring home and use towards sending an order
to Crinon for several of his pieces I want.
But, in like the last half hour of the day, I managed to double my dollars spent with a couple offers on kits that I just couldn't pass up.
I don't regret the buys. I brought the money for buying kits, and that is what I did with it.

And now it was time for the work to start again. The show was over, the rooms were closed, and it was time to tear down, and pack up the display.
We made pretty good time. Tearing down is always faster than setting up. Think it was like half the time that it took to set up.
After getting it all out of the room, and some into the car, we set off for food.
We were both worn out and tired, and knew if we stopped, we wouldn't start again.
So, a quick trip to Subway, then time to hibernate in the room and just relax. Watched a mini marathon of Leverage while eating, and playing with our goodies.

Then we finally motivated again, and wandered downstairs. Most people were still at the banquet, but there were still a few around.
Shane, as always was here, there, and everywhere. We popped into the Cult-suite again for the new Planet of the Apes.
That is, until Brit got a text from Jimi asking to meet him in the lobby. So we wandered down there and set up on the couch again.
While wandering, we ran into Joe and Brian again. (almost forgot about the hilarious meeting with them Thursday night, when Brian was reading Joe's mind
and saying the same thing he was, before he actually said it)

We slept in until like 9 on Monday, which felt good.
Packed up our stuff, and loaded the car. Which was fun, as they were working on the entrance/exit that morning, and could only use the side that pushed in
while hauling bunches of stuff out. [rolleyes].
Checked out, hit the gift shop for something for my wife, then made one last lap around the hotel before we left.

Overall, it was another fun Wonderfest
4 days down the tubes.Over $1000 too.
But man, the good times and memories are more than worth it.(not to mention all the cool kits)
There are a few things I might have done differently. As usual, I regret not catching more demos. But there is only so much time to do stuff.
I also regret that we really didn't meet anyone new this year, other than the Monster Scenes crew.
Really have to make more of an effort next year to meet new people, and find people we already know.
There were quite a few that we really didn't get to hang out with this year.
Mostly because lots of them just stick to the room parties now, and don't even bother with the bar. So, being in the lobby, we never see them.
Going to have to make more of an effort to actually hit the other suites next year.

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