Recovery! Obviously I am not as young as I use to be and 3 days of Pensacon is exhausting!
​
I am ready for a few days of recovering from all the walking and climbing stairs.  

The total for Pensacon 2019 was:.
47 floors climbed,  16.88 miles,  34,339 steps

We start the last day of Pensacon for this year.  It has been fun and we have been able to speak with a lot of celebrities.

As with the other days we are happy not to have to stand in the extremely long lines for the non-VIP attendees. 

Batman showed up in his "other" batmobile.  It's a Lamborghini but Bruce Wayne is rich.

Today Julie and the girls will be coming!  Yea!!!  We met down at the Fish House for lunch.  They were surprised by the waitstaff costumes and decorations.

After lunch we hurried over to the Sanger to hear the Jonathan Frakes Q&A.  We were a few minutes late but enjoyed the talk.

Julie and the girls stayed for the next session.  It was a Harry Potter Q&A with several actors from the movies.  The girls were thrilled but I just never got into Harry Potter and returned to the center for the last 2 hours of the event.

Here are just a few pictures of Cosplay at the Con.  Some people really put a lot of work into their costume and staying in character.  I did not always recognize the movie or tv show.

We had a BLAST!  It was worth all the early mornings and late evenings.  We are looking forward to next year.  Thank you Shawna for tolerating your husbands need to attend a nerd fest and to Mom and Dad for making it possible for us to go.

For fun I am adding some information from my Fitbit.
27 floors climbed, 5.14 miles, 10,437 steps

Early start today.   We were actually an hour earlier than we needed.  Today there were several Question and Answer sessions that we wanted to attend.  Of course not everyone in our group wanted to go to all the same sessions so several times we were in different ones at the same time.

Saturday is always has more attendance than any other.  It was amazing seeing the number of people in line to buy tickets and waiting in long lines to get in the center.  I love having our VIP passes because those lines are not for us to stand.

After speaking with several celebrities Lisa and I decided to stop at John Rhys-Davies table to get a picture and ask a few questions.  He was very nice and answered all our questions. He was tickling both of us during the pictures.

Next I met with with Jon and Jonathan for the William Shatner's Q&A.  He has probably done a thousand of these.  He was great and spoke on a lot of subjects along with answering questions. It was great!  He spoke on Star Trek, being a pilot, singing at the Grand Ole Opry, and the meaning of life  (in a way).  I did not think I would ever be able to meet him.

​​It was great and the Sanger was full including the balcony.  Not surprising considering the level of star that he represents.  I have not met all the surviving members of the original Star Trek series with the exception of George Takei.  Mr. Shatner spoke on many subjects and answered questions.  He is very funny. 

Back to Pensacon from the Sanger.  After talking to more celebrities Lisa and I went to our Photo Op with Mr Shatner.

​Lisa and I had a time set for a photo op with him after his Q&A.  First we sat and waited above the vendor floor till our scheduled time.

We met up with Julie and Matt to tour the celebrity tables.  Karen Allen was wonderful.​

One celebrity who surprised us was John Glover.  He was very happy to talk and called us over anytime we passed by later in the weekend.  As a joke on me he decided that since Lisa had such "fancy nails" that I needed to have some of my nails colored.  Lisa comes with her nails painted with TV or Movie designs that always impress the celebrities.  Mr. Glover used a red permanent marker to paint them and a few are still slightly pink.  You never really know how the celebs will react.  On an earlier Pensacon Lisa and I were roped into helping a celeb in playing a joke on another one.

The second Q&A was the Indiana Jones Raiders of the lost Ark Reunion. It was great! The only main actor that did not make the CON was Harrison Ford.  Maybe we will see him some year in the future.   They bantered back and for with each other and shared a lot of behind the scenes information.  We had met all of them  on the celebrity floor.  Karen Allen and John Reyes-Davies were great to meet.

Julie and Matt were joined by a group of others dressed to show their love for the movie.

​
For fun I am adding some information from my Fitbit.
10 floors climbed, 5.19 miles, 10,562 steps

First day of the Pensacon 2019.  I have a lot of celebrities that I want to see this weekend.  Each of our group that is attending Pensacon have different people we want to speak to and events we want to participate in but that is the point of how diverse it is by design.
​
LINES! But we are VIP’s so - never mind - we walk right in.

We always get down to the center early enough to have parking in the VIP parking area.  The area always fills up about an hour before the event starts so being late is not good.

As always we have loaded up ice chests with drinks and have bags of snacks to eat throughout the day.  Normally we eat a big meal for supper each day.
​​

First, A quick look at the vendor floor and then off to the Celebrity tables where we could meet them as soon as they arrived. Being at the celebrity area quickly gives some time to talk to the celebrities without any pressure to move on and allow others to step up and to speak with them.  No pictures on the celebrity floor.  The reason may not be obvious to some so let me explain.  Celebrities get paid by selling selfies and autographs because of this no photography.

​The list of people we visited with is very long. Here is a partial list: Leah Cairns, Gil Gerard, Erin Gray, Felix Silla (Twiki), Kevin Sorbo, Kirk Thatcher, John Rhys-Davies, William Shatner, Jonathan Frakes, Jeffery Combs, Summer Glau, Alan Oppenheimer, Charles Fleischer, Sean Gunn, Julian Glover, Paul Freeman, Karen Page,….

One celebrity we met was Jonathan Frakes. He was on all of the shows of Star Trek : The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, Enterprise and several Star Trek movies. He also directed several of those shows along with The Liberians, Star Trek Discovery, and The Orville. Lisa and I got a picture with Mr. Frakes.

He is an interesting person and we enjoyed our time speaking with him.  We were able to talk about his directing career and both Star Trek Discovery and Orville tv episodes he directed.

​For fun I am adding some information from my Fitbit.
4 floors climbed, 3.96 miles, 8,123 steps

Again the annual Nerd Fest in Pensacola is starting.  I love going with family and meeting friends to see and speak with people who were in shows and movies we love. This year there were celebrities from Star Trek, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, Buck Rogers, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Star Wars, Harry Potter, Doctor Who, Hercules, Guardians of the Galaxy, Blade Runner, Firefly, ….  plus several voice actors from Disney movies.

Pensacon events begin tonight with picking up the VIP passes and the Fish house welcome party.  Every year several restaurants and bars in town “dress up”.  The airport even goes all out and becomes “Intergalactic” for the weekend.  This year in addition to having areas decorated for Harry Potter, Star Trek, and Star Wars the Fish house also had a small museum of Movie and TV props. 

It was pretty interesting.

We had something to eat, drank a few “signature” drinks, and made plans for the weekend. ​ There was some discussion on what celebrities we wanted to meet and what Q&A sessions we wanted to attend.

​Having still not recovered from the eye surgery plans were made that Jonathan would come by and pick me up each day.  It has been very annoying not being able to drive but it does mean I will be riding in his Tesla so there is that.

For fun I am adding some information from my Fitbit.
6 floors climbed, 2.59 miles, 5,217 steps

My left eye's vision is still a blur.  In fact when I look down, it's like looking through water or a big tear.  The gas bubble is decreasing but at the last doctor appointment it was only reduced by 20%.  At that rate I should have the bubble gone in 6 more weeks.  I have an appointment in 3 weeks and will get an update then.  This means NO travel to higher elevations and absolutely no flying in an airplane until it is completely absorbed.  At this rate I do not expect that it will be gone before the end of March or early April.

Now for the not very good news I got from the Doctor.  Everyone who has this type of surgery will develop cataracts because of the gas bubble in the eye and the steroid drops used after surgery. Usually the cataract surgery is needed between the first year up to five years.  The good news is that this is a very common surgery and that the recovery time is about an hour.