Part Five: “The SQUEE Remains” – Monday August 31st to Present Day

When Beth and I got up that Monday at about 5:00AM, the air of excitement that had greeted us for the past few mornings was replaced by an air of sadness, and continuing exhaustion since we had only gotten around three hours of sleep that night. As we got ready and packed the last of our things – cliché as this saying is – it really did feel like we’d only just gotten there yesterday…we couldn’t believe it was time to leave already. Another old favorite is ‘time flies when you’re having fun’, and that couldn’t be any truer as well than it was that weekend. But as sad as we were to leave, there was no denying or delaying the inevitable, so, bags all packed and everything we owned cleaned out, we shut the door to our room a final time and headed down to the lobby to check out, splitting the bill between the two of us. There was a taxi outside waiting for us and as we pulled out of the hotel drive, we took a last glance back at the huge building, hoping against hope that we’d be seeing it again same time next year maybe. It was still night of course, so the city was beautifully lit up as we proceeded to the airport, and that was an incredible sight to see…and at the same time a pretty wistful one, to me. It would’ve been really nice if we would’ve gotten to explore more of the city that Supernatural and Jared and Jensen currently call home, see more of its landmarks and tourist attractions, and just take in the atmosphere of it all in general. But unfortunately we didn’t get any further the whole time than within hotel walking distance and our excursion to the filming site in New Westminster. And the hardest thing about leaving without having seen so much of it was undoubtedly the knowledge that Vancouver is NOT close to home, it’s not somewhere that either of us could just decide to visit on a whim again anytime soon…it’s a trip that takes time, planning, and most of all, money. We were leaving with absolutely no concrete promise of ever being able to see the city again – though of course we have a hope to one day! – and that was a pretty morose thought that I’ve still not really completely shaken. I’m one of those people that if I’ve enjoyed having done something or having gone somewhere, I have to do it or go there at least one more time, LOL. Hence me having gone to three EyeCon conventions to see Jared three times, LOL (though the third didn’t quite work out, of course)…so you can imagine that the next Supernatural Vancouver convention is calling my name again, LOL. Loudly! But it’s up to time and my bank account whether or not I can again answer…

After paying the cabbie and checking our bags, we got a quick breakfast in the Vancouver airport, and again upon seeing the place I was struck with a major sense of “weren’t we here, like, just yesterday?!” that added to the disbelief and sadness that everything was already over. And along with that came that sense of “man, if only I could just up and decide to NOT leave today, to walk right back out those doors and stick around for a few days longer and go where the boys are!” LOL. But then of course logic ultimately set in…the fact that I had no money to do that, the fact that I had no place to stay anymore, the fact that our plane was leaving and if I wasn’t on it I’d regret it, maybe not that day and maybe not the next day, but soon enough, to loosely quote a movie classic! LOL. And oh yeah…the fact that in a city that huge, there was absolutely no guarantee of EVER running into Jared and Jensen randomly on the streets, as would be the hope! LOL. So, all those cold hard facts in mind and prevailing, we boarded our plane and bid a fond, fond farewell to the city of Vancouver, BC Canada that was soon once again below us and our beloved boys who lived there, with a burning hope in our hearts to see it and them at least once more, sometime, someday.

The plane, to our dismay, was crowded, and the worst part was that it was SO crowded that Beth and I weren’t even seated together. She was on the right side of the aisle at the window while I was on the left, at the end. I was prepared for a very long and dull trip, annoyed that not only would I not have anyone to talk to during the flight back, but also that I wouldn’t even be able to look outside at the aerial scenery. The woman and her young daughter that I was seated beside of were at least fine, but as for the other people around us? They sort of made the flight that much harder. A lot of them didn’t speak English, such as the HUGE Chinese family that took up the majority of seats in our area, and even the ones that did speak half-decent English weren’t any easier to deal with…especially the guy who was sitting in the aisle seat behind Beth’s row. Fearful that our luggage may get lost, as is a legitimate concern with all air travel – just ask poor Jared about the 2008 Australia convention and having to buy a whole new wardrobe thanks to that very thing (not to mention not knowing what size underwear he wore in Australian translation, LOLOLOL) – Beth and I decided to take our photo ops and drawings with us on board as a carry-on in a shopping bag, feeling better being able to have them within our reach. Since we had preferred access thanks to her dad’s free flight miles we had been able to board the plane ahead of most people on previous flights, which allowed us dibs on space in the overhead compartments, ensuring that our bag was secure. And just in case, I had also written the words “FRAGILE: ARTWORK AND PHOTOS” in large block letters on the bottom of the bag so people would know not to crush it. Well, despite all those things, a family of four came down the aisle, the father carrying a baby and a large diaper bag. Brazenly and rather rudely ignoring the written warning on our bag and then my subsequent frantic plea for him NOT to shove his bag up against ours, the guy did so anyway, and did so forcefully…even though there was plenty of room elsewhere if he’d only just looked and even though I’d asked him politely not to do it. And to add insult to injury, throughout the whole flight he kept getting up and getting the diaper bag back out and then of course shoving it back in the compartment, even further back. Beth and I’s level of anger rose every time he did that, and in my mind’s eye I could just see our photos and drawing mat-boards getting bent and chipped with each careless shove. I wanted to say something to that guy SO badly, because seriously, where did he get off being so ignorant, just because he had a baby with him? But, BECAUSE of that very fact, I didn’t say anything to him, knowing that even though he was being the real jerk in the situation, if I dared to confront him while he was holding that baby I would’ve been the one looking like the jerk instead to any other observers. So I reluctantly kept my mouth shut on the matter, though I did glare a couple of times in the guy’s direction whenever he crammed his bag back in with no regard for ours...not that I think he ever phased by that. Jerk.

As I predicted, the flight was long, and boring, and irritating. Besides the diaper bag jerk, there was the patriarch of the huge Chinese family who, while he at least wasn’t a jerk as far as I could tell, kept getting up at what I swear were mere five minute intervals and breezing past me to check on the rest of his massive brood. That wouldn’t have really bothered me had it not been for the fact that I was in the aisle seat leaned over on the armrest trying to get some sleep the whole time since there was nothing else to do, and every time the man walked past me either his arm or his side knocked me in the head and off of my perch! That got annoying really fast…that guy would just NOT stay seated! I don’t care how many people were in that family, surely they didn’t need checking on THAT often! And then there was the little incident toward the end of the flight where the dude walked by carrying food – I swear this guy had an ENDLESS supply of grub with him, he gave his grandkids AT LEAST four different meals/snacks that I saw – with one of those little paper cups on the side full of ketchup…and DROPPED IT. RIGHT at my freaking feet! Luckily the ketchup spilled out instead of splashing out and got on neither my pants and shoes nor my bag under the seat in front of me – not that he bothered to check or anything as would’ve been the polite thing to do, English fluency or no – but by this point I was just about done and ready to go off on somebody, LOL. But finally and mercifully, we landed at Dallas-Fort Worth sometime early that afternoon, Central Time. Now I’m by no means pretending that was the worst flight in history – after all, planes crash (and apparently clowns kill…couldn’t resist, LOLOL) and at the very least go through rough weather or above-average turbulence, neither of which happened – but man oh man, was I glad to get the heck off that plane! LOL. After shooting one last indignant glare at diaper bag man, naturally. LOL.

That thankfully behind us, Beth and I reunited and after a lot of ranting about diaper bag man’s audacity as we sought someplace to briefly sit, upon finding one we checked our photos and our drawings for damage...and THANK GOODNESS, there was none to speak of. Though we were of course really sweating it there until we confirmed that! LOL. Appeased, we then wandered around until we found our concourse and a food court within it, where we stopped and got a quick lunch. Beth’s choice was a sandwich place, and dang if there wasn’t a really cute guy a couple of people in front of us in line there, LOLOL…he was tall and handsome and had Jared hair, only dark blonde instead of chestnut brown, LOL. We had fun staring at and giggling and commenting over him – such as (after the woman behind the counter asked if I was going to order something and I told her that I was just was looking) my whispered wisecrack to Beth that “Oh, I’m looking alright, but it ain’t at the menu!” or “Food’s not the only thing around here that’s lookin’ good!”, LOLOLOL *facepalm* – and that helped to quell our lingering annoyance over diaper bag guy, LOL. Unluckily for us and luckily for him though, the cute guy elected NOT to sit in the food court…because yes, I was planning to plop right down at his table shamelessly, if you must know! LOLOLOL. *double facepalm* While Beth had her sandwich, I had Taco Bell, and man was that something I’d unknowingly later be regretting, LOL…but it was good at the time! I may have been missing Vancouver already, but I sure was glad to be back in the U.S., food-wise. LOL. We then proceeded on to our gate and settled in to wait a while, me not being able to resist taking my newly-autographed drawings and photo ops back out to stare at, LOL, and both us engaging in subsequent commemorative squee and post convention talk for nearly that whole time. We then boarded our plane back to Orlando around mid-afternoon, and it was a thankfully much less full plane, meaning that we were able to sit together this time and also meaning that our drawings and photos were once again safe in the overhead compartment, to our relief and satisfaction. And the flight started out smooth and remained that way…up until we started getting close to Florida. The state which, as I would learn the frightening way, they don’t call the “Lightning Capital of the World” for no reason! It seemed that this journey was going to attempt to steal the title of “Worst Flight I’ve Ever Been On” from the Vancouver to Dallas one, but through no fault of its own, as there was a weather system right smack in the middle of our flight path over Florida at the time, threateningly close to Orlando.

Up until that time, my recent meal had been my source of misery…note to self for next time: tacos and flying DO NOT MIX! LOL. I was feeling rather nauseous, fearing that I was going to have to make good use of the provided airsickness bag sooner or later, and definitely not looking forward to that. The ginger ale that Beth had recommended me to request for my in-flight beverage had helped a little, but not completely…and that’s when the turbulence started. It wasn’t really BAD turbulence, mind you, but when you’re feeling like you’re going to toss your cookies at any second, ANY turbulence is definitely not a good thing, LOL. But soon into that, my focus and my concern became less about the nausea, and more about the blasted STORM that was raging outside of our window. Now I’m not the world’s biggest fan of storms when I’m merely on the ground, reasonably safe inside of my house or a building…but this? This was a whole new level of freakiness, because we weren’t on the ground, safe inside four walls with a floor under our feet and a roof over our heads; we were on a PLANE, the ground thousands of miles below, INSIDE OF THE STORM. Flying freaking THROUGH it! Oh no…I didn’t like that, not AT ALL. LOL. My treacherous brain kept replaying a particular episode of this Weather Channel show called When Weather Changed History that told the story of a plane that crashed – one going from Florida to Dallas-Fort-Worth, oh-so ironically! – due to having flown through a thunderstorm and getting caught in this relatively rare weather incident called a downburst, along with a statement I’d heard a weather expert make one time that “lightning strikes planes all the time and usually it’s not even detectable thanks to planes being constructed to withstand such things, but occasionally a strike will hit in the wrong place and the wrong time, so there’s never any guarantee of total safety”…or something along the lines of that. Second note to self: try not to watch so much Weather Channel next time before you go on a flight! LOL. But it’s not like I needed those things running through my head to be paranoid. About every five seconds we could see lightning outside the windows; sometimes it would be a clear and distinct bolt slicing through the darkness, other times it would look as though someone had just taken a picture of the plane with a huge camera, as the entire window pane would light up, and oftentimes stay lit for a few seconds as the plane continued on through the clouds. On the surface, I stayed surprisingly relaxed and collected, but on the inside, I was feeling quite unnerved! LOL. The announcement came over the intercom that the storm was pretty much right over top of the Orlando airport at just right about when we were scheduled to begin our descent, so instead the pilots decided to circle around for about twenty minutes and wait it out, nearly opting for an unexpected layover landing at Tampa airport before ultimately going ahead and braving what was left of the storm to get to Orlando. It was a bit of a rough ride, of course, but we started to see the city lights and various bodies of water below at a little after sundown, and even though they weren’t nearly as exciting as seeing the city of Vancouver and the various bodies of water surrounding it below us for the first time, after coming through that storm like we had? They were still a beautiful sight! LOL. I’ve gotta hand it to the pilots, they did a good job, landing us safely at Orlando International at about 7:30PM (Eastern Time!) if I remember correctly, and I told them as much as I was exiting the plane. We retrieved our carry-on bags and all of our luggage without any problems and made some quick calls to assure our parents that we were okay, and about half an hour later we were picked up outside by Beth’s folks, and headed back to her house. Once there, we relayed a brief summary of the convention to them, Plurked to let all of our SnOb pals back home know that we had returned, ate a quick meal of Triscuits with melted cheese on top, and then got our exhausted selves to bed, for a refreshingly full night of sleep.

The next morning marked the beginning of the month of September, and the official end of our convention vacation. Beth had to get back to her job, so we hugged each other goodbye and shared one final moment of face-to-face squee before she headed out, with her parents having kindly agreed to drop me off at the airport. I then hugged them goodbye upon arrival and thanked them for their boundless generosity, promising to be back to visit again sometime. Having already eaten a bowl of cereal at Beth’s house, I then proceeded directly to my gate, where I sat down and naturally couldn’t resist taking out my drawings and photo ops and staring at them happily again…don’t care what the people around me thought! LOL. After a while though I put them back up so I could lay my head back and rest my eyes a bit while I waited, and also because I was becoming increasingly distracted by bouts of coughing that had started just before I went to bed that last night, though they weren’t too noticeable at that time. Back to U.S. Airways (instead of American Airlines) and non-preferred access, I boarded my flight to Charlotte, North Carolina at a little after 11:00, settling back for the now routine and short 1 hour 12 minute flight. It was comfortable and uneventful, but I can’t say the same for the trek to my next gate after getting off the flight! LOL. It had been slightly delayed as some rain cleared out causing us to of course land a bit past what was scheduled, and while that was probably no big deal for most, though, it was for me, as I had a pretty dang long way to go to my gate and little time to get there. So I power-walked on through, thankful for the Charlotte airport’s comparatively small size and familiarity, not to mention its simple layout. I made it to the gate a little ahead of time as it turned out, though, because there was another slight delay for the flight back to Charleston. I called my dad at work and let him know when we were scheduled to board, and we did so at around 1:00. My seat was right in the front of the small plane, and I was pretty glad that it was such a short flight duration – less than an hour – as the woman sitting across the tiny aisle from me, while not being as annoying as some of those people on the flight from Vancouver to Dallas, would not SHUT UP, talking LOUDLY to and even outright flirting with the poor hapless male flight attendant the whole time, even asking him out to dinner! LOL. Luckily for him he got unexpectedly called back to Charlotte last-minute though, LOL. Outside the window, the good ole’ West Virginia mountains started coming into view and though I was still sad to have to had left Vancouver, definitely, it was at that moment that I realized how glad I was to be getting back home, as always seems to happen when I go on a long trip. We landed safely on top of the mountain that housed our diminutive Yeager Airport at about 2:00, and after a mere two minute-long walk, LOL, I retrieved my luggage at the baggage claim, all there and intact, and that was where Dad picked me up. After the 20 minute drive back to our house during which I naturally relayed the great time I’d had, I called Mom at work, cuddled my cats whom I’d also dearly missed, took out my drawings and photo ops and admired those some more, and then promptly fell asleep on top of the covers on my bed, LOL. Yes, I would miss Vancouver, but it was good to be home.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t a couple of days yet into being home when I started to realize that the nagging coughs I’d first really noticed in the Orlando airport were going to turn into something more serious. And boy did they ever…turns out thanks to that infernal flight from Vancouver to Dallas – or at least I would bet my bottom dollar that’s when it happened – that I caught none other illness than the dreaded H1N1 virus, aka “swine flu”. One day back to work and there I was needing to take more days off again…I felt awful about that! LOL. But I suppose I would’ve felt worse if I’d have went to work anyway and gave it to someone else…and so would’ve that person, in a whole different way! LOL. But yeah, that was no fun, even though it no doubt could’ve been a lot worse, I definitely realize. What it did do was knock me down for an entire two weeks…fever, aches, sinus drainage, runny/stopped up nose, fatigue, nausea (though thankfully no actual puking…haven’t done that since sixth grade and still holding! *knock on wood*), and some very NOT-needed weight loss, LOL. You saw my photo ops! Plus, as if all that wasn’t bad enough, that was when ‘that time of the month’ also decided to hit…though I’ve still gotta be grateful because that was better than it happening in Vancouver! LOL. The worst by far though, was all the coughing. Endless, constant, harsh bouts that stayed with me for that entire two weeks, leaving me struggling to catch my breath on more than one scary occasion and ultimately with a hairline rib fracture due to their duration and intensity. And then that pain from the fracture stayed with me another two weeks, long after the illness had run its course. I never did get an absolutely official diagnosis that it was swine flu, BUT, it was definitely the flu, and our family doctor said that all my symptoms, along with their severity and duration, more matched those of swine flu than they did regular seasonal flu. The thing about swine flu that people seem to forget with all the media hype nowadays is that MOST cases aren’t fatal, or even require hospitalization, really. And I was lucky enough to be in that majority with my case, thankfully. Still though, definitely not a good way to start the month of September, nor was it a happy homecoming gift! LOL.

During and after the illness though, I did some reflecting. It was kind of an ironic thing, because before going on the trip to Vancouver, I had expressed worry about possibly catching that very thing, questioned my mom quite a bit if there were ANY available vaccines or prevention measures other than the standard consistent hand-washing, and even purchased some Airborne tablets to take with me…I remembered to take them on the flights TO Florida and Vancouver, but not the flights BACK FROM. Oops. LOL. But even with that legitimate concern, there was NO WAY I was missing that trip, of course…and so I went on it, and then I paid for it when that swine flu concern became a reality. So after first getting through all the ensuing trials and tribulations, and later taking stock of every bit of pain and misery that the virus had caused me, the question became thus: had I known ahead of time that all of that would be a consequence of going to Vancouver…would I still have went anyway? Would I have willingly and wittingly suffered two weeks of sickness plus two more weeks of rib pain in return for getting those four days of seventh heaven…were they ultimately worth it, looking back?

The answer? YES, on all counts. And some people might think that to be crazy, some people might question whether I really suffered all THAT much if that’s my answer…but those people just don’t understand, they don’t know. Because the simple fact remains: it WAS worth it, for a number of reasons. For all the gleeful anticipation of the trip…for the opportunity to spend nearly a week with my good friend Beth…for the beauty of seeing the Great Plains and the Western United States for the first time from above…for the thrill and awe of descending into Vancouver, of finally getting to visit a place I never thought I’d be able to visit…for the pleasure of meeting old friends and talking to them face-to-face instead of just online…for the exhilaration of witnessing our show’s filming in progress…for the fun and excitement of seeing old great Supernatural guest stars along with great new ones…for the bliss of standing in between the boys for a snapshot…for all the laughter and joy their boundless antics evoked…for witnessing the love and appreciation they showed to all their fans…for the wonderful and long-awaited delight of finally being able to meet Jensen…for the amazement in Jared’s voice and on his face when he first saw my drawings, and the sincerity and affection in his expressive eyes when he so sweetly complimented me on them…for the smile I get on my face every time I look at the new photo of him and I and the genuine smiles we both wear in it…and finally, for the privilege of being back home and being able to share all my fantastic memories and epic squee with all of you! And I hope I’ve done well in doing just that, that you all enjoyed these write-ups and my overall account of the 2009 Supernatural Vancouver Convention, and maybe even gained a bit of squee of your own through my words and pictures and experiences. I thank everyone so much for reading, and here’s crossing all fingers and toes that I’ll be able to share similar epic squee again with you all someday!

-Kitty (Amanda)

Note: See Part One for details. 

Part Four: “The Ultimate SQUEE!” – Sunday August 30^th (Cont’d)


I must say, it’s a hard thing to know that Jared and Jensen are in the same room as you are and not be able to see or hear or go to them…at least it was for me, anyway. But such was the situation of waiting for our row to be called for autographs…and waiting…and waiting…and waiting some more. We were in Row P after all, remember? LOL. I won’t bore you to death with the details of that, because really? There aren’t that many to speak of! Just the usual…Beth and I showing our drawings to those who wanted to see them, talking to people around us, the convention manager being shrewish with everyone like she’s so good at…nothing special or new. Except for that extra large lump of excitement lodged in our throats, of course.

Truth be told, it was a hard choice. On the one hand, we could’ve been wishing for the time to go faster so as to get up there to the boys sooner…but that also meant we’d be having to say goodbye to them sooner. On the other, there was wishing for the time to go slower, meaning that it would be a while longer before everything was over…but that it would also be a longer wait to see the boys. And unlike the photo ops, this wait wasn’t exactly one of those ‘fun’ ones…namely because the photo op line moved much faster than the rate of it being half an hour into the thing and Row B still having not yet finished. But of course, the photo ops had thankfully not went by rows, so…guess you really couldn’t call that an accurate comparison. It was taking longer than the previous autograph sessions, we knew that much…but really, what could you expect; it was Jared and Jensen, after all! LOL. Also unlike the photo ops, in the case of the autographs I’ve gotta say that I preferred the EyeCon setup, which allowed you to actually be able to see Jared while he was giving autographs to other people at the table set up at the front of the room, if only in glimpses in between those people themselves. At this convention they were behind that elusive curtain, not to mention way on the other side of the main theatre, so…yeah, it was a long wait. LOL.

But, even the longest waits eventually come to an end, and this one was no exception. Row P was finally called and we finally at least got to get out of our seats and get into an actual line, though we still didn’t get our first look at the boys sitting behind their tables until it was nearly our turn. Again, Jensen was first and upon getting up to him, I repeated how nice it was to finally meet him and thanked him for coming. He glanced up at me with those striking green eyes of his and gave a sweet little smile and thanked me too, after signing the 8x10 I’d purchased of him. And I’ll tell you, seeing him in person is just reinforcement to that belief that in the Ackles family? Yes, Jensen really must have gotten all the good genes...LOL. Man how I wished I’d had time to complete a drawing of him, but maybe next time…hoping to goodness that there is a next time! I did, of course, have my pair of charcoal Jared drawings though, the one I’d originally done for the bungled March EyeCon, and its companion piece, the one I’d done for this convention and to match the March one. And it was finally time to present them! I happily greeted Jared again as I set my drawings down on the table for the handlers to pass over to him…this was it, the other huge moment that I’d been waiting for not only all that weekend, but for over four months! And it didn’t disappoint. Upon having my drawings slid over to him, Jared immediately knew what he was being given and apparently had been waiting to see them, eagerly accepting them and beginning his examination of them with a heartfelt, “Oh, wow…”, actually picking each one up and taking in all of the details before grabbing the perfectly color-coordinated silver marker with which to autograph the black mat-board frames. And it was then that the awed compliments started pouring out, him calling both drawings “awesome” and “amazing” and also using these same praiseful adjectives to describe me, along with phrases such as “extremely talented”. Basically, all the same adjectives I would use to describe him! LOL. And you see, I meant to give those compliments right back to him…I SO meant to! Especially since I hadn’t gotten the chance to carry out my ‘gift’ for him thanks to the cutting of his solo Q&A session. But, I must confess that at that moment my brain (and heart!) was officially dissolving into mush, and I completely blanked on everything I wanted to say to him other than the thanking him for his compliments to me. Because every time he gave me those flattering remarks, he looked up from the drawing and signing his name, straight into my eyes…and the rest of the world and any other thoughts just pretty much fell away, LOL. No exaggeration. His voice and eyes were soft, his sincerity and his heart clearly showing through both, and I was just plain mesmerized by both. His way of speaking and making eye contact with me had me feeling like I was the only person in the room with him, and amidst that feeling of bliss and thanks to that, I was finally able to discern something that I had been wanting and trying to for a long time – the color of his eyes. Though I’m still pretty sure that it oftentimes changes like a mood ring due to varying factors such as lighting, the color of his clothing, and well, his moods of course, I can now attest from both the photo ops and autograph session that the natural color of Jared’s eyes is a beautiful shade of medium-light bluish-green. I had seen it increasingly spread around on the internet that those fans who had been lucky enough to see his eyes up close and personal affirmed them to be that color, and I can now join those lucky fans in that affirmation! LOL. And have it accurate whenever I write fanfiction…

But there were also some other things that registered as I continued to look at him, and he at me. One of those things was the way he seemed to keep glancing back at a particular area on the second drawing he’d had slid over to him as he autographed it, the full-body shot one, and narrowing his eyes, almost as if he was looking for or studying something as best he could. And the other was how when he was done with his signatures and the handlers gestured for me to take back my drawings and move along, that familiar puppy-dog expression leapt into his gaze, and from and the way he was still looking at me and complimenting me even as I started to VERY reluctantly back out of the line having had my turn with him…I got this incredibly touching and very solid impression that if he would’ve had it his way, he would’ve definitely talked to me longer, would’ve definitely written me a message along with his signature on those drawings like he was able to and did at the September 2008 EyeCon, and like he was unfortunately unable to do at this convention due to the sheer magnitude of attendees and limited time, plus the risk that he would’ve run with upsetting other eyewitness fans with his special treatment of me if he’d done so. His eyes are incredibly expressive and even more so in person; you really can practically see what he’s thinking nearly word-for-word when you look into those blue-green depths…and what I saw was true appreciation for what I’d done mixed with a wish that he’d had more time with me, along with what I could only describe as a bit of apology for something…though at that exact moment I had no idea what it could be. After thanking him once more and concluding with how great it was to have seen him again, I continued to SLOWLY back out of line at the handlers’ ushering…but oh man, sweet Jared was making it that much harder because even then, he continued to talk to me! LOL, that’s right, I’m about two steps from being on the other side of the curtain again, and there he is, still complimenting me and my work with that soulful look like he couldn’t say enough and from what it seemed like to me, at the very last few seconds appearing as though he was really searching his brain and his memory for something, something that may have been on the tip of his tongue, but ultimately after that bit of hesitation deciding to go with another, all-encompassing compliment to be on the safe side. Head turned to his left and leaning forward to make sure he was directly looking into my eyes again, he finally gave in to the handlers who were now urging him along as well as me and let me go (blasted handlers, you made him let me go! *cries and kicks you all*) with a heartfelt, “You’re so good,” and then, after that aforementioned bit of thought and hesitation, “Very talented”. And naturally, I couldn’t help but smile and thank him one more time.

Walking on jelly legs with Beth back to our seats, we didn’t have much time for deep afterthoughts of all that had just happened because the next convention guest, Richard Speight Jr., aka the delightfully devious Trickster on Supernatural, had already started his Q&A session since everything was still running a little bit behind. But unlike previous panels, it was quite hard to balance our thoughts between the three dominating things – listening to Richard talk, all the post J&J bliss swirling through our heads, and of course, the fact that the boys were still behind that curtain and trying to control that instinctive yearning to run right back there! LOL. Like I already said, it’s a hard thing to know that Jared and Jensen are in the same room as you are but not be able to see or hear or go to them…VERY hard. LOL. Especially when instead of having any time with them in your very near future, all your time with them is in your very recent past…in other words, no more interactive in-person J2 goodness to look forward to until next time, if there is one! So, instead of focusing on that sniffle-worthy thought lest we’d depress ourselves, LOL, we tried our best to focus on Richard’s Q&A, or rather what was left of it. What we were able to see was – as Richard’s character the Trickster is – very entertaining and amusing, though. The funniest anecdote that we got in on just in time to hear fully, had to have been the story of when Richard first met Jared’s dogs, Harley and Sadie. As has been well-documented over the show’s existence, Jared’s dogs are oftentimes on the set with him to the point where I’d imagine that they’ve become nearly as much of a fixture there as Jared himself is, LOL. Apparently, when Jared is off doing his thing, whether it be filming or reading his script or eating or (one of my personal favorites) chasing people around the set with a hot glue gun trying to attach action figures to people’s hats, LOLOLOL, his dogs for the most part hang out in and around his set trailer. And Richard, uninformed and inexperienced soul that he was at one point, found this out the hard way, LOLOL. He told us of how he first approached Jared’s trailer and knocked on the door, expecting him to be inside, but getting no answer. Richard then however heard a bit of a noise coming from inside the trailer and, finding the door to be unlocked, decided to go on in and call out for Jared, thinking he was likely in the bathroom or merely too busy to come to the door and would be available in a few seconds. But instead of hearing and seeing Jared when he opened the door, what he heard was a low growl and what he saw were Jared’s dogs on the couch, LOL…and being that Harley and Sadie are pretty huge just like their master and that Richard hadn’t yet met the dogs and vice versa, LOL, I imagine that was a rather shocking and intimidating sight! Richard told us that one of the dogs started to get up and that was when he let out a quick expletive, slammed the door back, and got the heck out of there! LOLOLOL. If only Richard would’ve known at the time – and I imagine he later found out – that Jared’s dogs are supposedly really big cuddly puppies at heart…also much like their master, LOL. I wish we could’ve gotten in on Richard’s entire session, but unfortunately we only got in on about the last ten minutes of it since we were still in line for Jared and Jensen’s autographs. NOT that I would’ve changed THAT of course, but would it have killed them to wait about a half hour more to put Richard on? I personally still don’t think it would’ve, but then again, what do I know, because it would’ve apparently also killed them to spare just a half an hour more for Jared’s Q&A as well, and I sure didn’t think that either, so yeah…what do I know? Hmph.

The truth about Creation is what they certainly couldn’t bear to do without were their chances to make more money. If we hadn’t been before, we were crystal clear on this fact in the moments directly following Richard’s departure from stage, as the next official event was a ticket/seat upgrade sale. All the details were given and as it turned out, for a low, low price of a mere 519 dollars, all paid UP-FRONT to them, right then, you could go ahead and buy your Gold ticket for the August 2010 Vancouver convention, either keeping the seat that you had or being able to upgrade…what a deal! NOT. We were stunned, and quite frankly, a little disgusted with the convention managers. For one thing, this went on for about forty-five minutes…forty-five minutes, twenty to thirty of which they could’ve given Jared for his solo Q&A, and the rest of which they could’ve used to push back Richard’s session so that more people who were still waiting in the J2 autograph line could’ve seen the whole thing, or at least more of the whole thing. It just irks me to no end that there they had no problem having Richard onstage while we waited in the J2 autograph line, but yet they had to take up a whole forty-five minutes or so to further oil their money machine when they could’ve so easily been doing THAT while something else was going on, like say, later that evening when we were waiting for autographs from Richard and Jim Beaver. That would’ve made MUCH more sense to me than overlapping Richard’s Q&A with the Jared and Jensen autographs and uh, what was that other thing they did that made no sense whatsoever? Oh yeah, CUTTING JARED’S SOLO PANEL. Like I could ever forget that. And the other thing…seriously, Creation? 519 freaking dollars, UP-FRONT? RIGHT THEN? Right at a time that we were all – except for those select rich few who just whipped out their credit cards like it was nothing – very likely and very SURELY in my case, running very LOW in our wallets and bank accounts thanks to all the money we had just spent to be able to be where we were sitting at that said time?! When most of us still had our hotel bill yet to be paid? Again, I have no experience in the field of big business – not dishonest or shady or greedy enough – but to me and to a lot of other people, it would’ve made more sense if we had been allowed to make a down-payment for a Gold ticket at that moment, say, 100 to 200 dollars at the most up-front, then another 100 the next month, and another the next month and so on until it was paid off and the Gold ticket was officially ours…and that was also something that honestly, more people would’ve had a chance with.

But to ask for the entire 519 dollars up-front as they did – and I do mean up-front, they were literally swiping credit cards at a table right at the front part of the main theatre – was just ridiculous, in my opinion…as was really the notion of already selling tickets to their August 2010 Vancouver convention in the first place. The major hype that Jared had already signed up to come back was running rampant; official advertisement /sign-up sheet s were printed on the back of our schedules and readily available to us while we were there, with the headline reading – “We’re back August 27-29, Creation Entertainment’s Salute to Supernatural Vancouver Convention 2010…JARED IS COMING: ARE YOU?” Now I’ll hand it to them, that’s a mightily appealing advertisement, oh yes…but, thing is, a lot of us have learned our lesson, Beth and I included. First from Kenny’s deceit at EyeCon, and also from Creation’s own debacle with the Supernatural set tour that never was – and that lesson is, just because the company SAYS something is going to happen, doesn’t mean it WILL happen. And Jared is super-sweet and generous and loves the fans, yes, but as my mother so aptly and truly put it when I told her about all this, he’s not stupid. He knows that the future isn’t written in stone, that in reality he has no clue where he’ll be nearly one year from now, much less a guarantee of where he’ll be or what he’ll be doing. The fact is that Jared has very likely told the Creation organizers that he will definitely be back next year if he can be, but the Creation organizers in that classic spirit of wanting to sell, sell, sell, have conveniently left the ‘if he can be’ part out of the advertisement. Though this should be automatically considered and implied with any convention appearance of course, since things can always come up for the stars and sometimes do so last-minute, but I don’t know…overall, I just thought – and still think – that it was/is too soon to be selling tickets for a convention that’s nearly a whole year away, and especially too soon to be asking for the full payment up-front. Along with just being annoyed that they took up forty-five minutes for that business venture that they could’ve used in better ways, in my opinion.

After that was said and done, Beth and I went back up to our room, and there we were finally allowed to revel in our post J&J bliss. We stared at our autographed drawings happily and replayed the words that had been said to us in our minds and out loud, squee level high! And during that moment, much as it had hit Beth earlier, it hit me what Jared’s hesitation had been, what he had been searching his brain and memory for in those few seconds, why he had been staring so intently at one area in particular in one of my drawings – it was all about my name. It all added up and completely clicked for both Beth and I that Jared, bless his sweet, huge, respectful heart, had been trying to read and/or remember my name during those moments and had ultimately been unable to do both, and that was what brought about the somewhat apologetic look in his eyes as I was leaving. He had been successful in the endeavor with Beth before, and had obviously felt a bit bad that he wasn’t able to do the same with me…likely thanks to the fact that I’d signed in small script and in pencil on top of charcoal on the one drawing, LOL. *facepalm* However, upon this realization, all I felt was a whole new upsurge in my love for him, because to me, it doesn’t matter that he didn’t say my name, the fact that he tried and would have had he been able to read/remember it was more than enough for me. It was one of those situations where that old cliché “it’s the thought that counts” truly was the case. Along with the fact that he kept talking to me like he did even when I was out of reach of his table, even when the handlers were telling both of us to move on, the way he really looked at my drawings, took them in and appreciated my work and the sincerity and emotion in his eyes and voice when he complimented me so wonderfully…all those things, all those things and then some, things I can’t do justice to in words like just the overall way Jared is and was to me, just touched me so deeply and still do, and THOSE were the things I took with me. Not the couple of things that weren’t – written autograph personalization and him calling me by name – but the many things that WERE, and those things were just absolutely amazing on all levels. Like I said, I’d hope that I have here but doubt I did and ever could, do true justice in words to what this me/Jared/drawings experience was like, either for this convention or for the previous EyeCon ones…all I can really say is, THANK YOU, JARED. Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU, for everything. And I all I can really do is just tell people about it, about him, and love him all the more. And that I do. J

At sometime a little after 5:00, Beth and I headed back down to the main theater to take our seats for the final convention guest, the one, the only, Jim Beaver – aka the one and only Bobby Singer on Supernatural. Continuing in the tradition of his hilarious stage attire, such as the T-shirt that he wore at EyeCon that read “I read John/Bobby” (in reference to slash fanfiction), LOL, he walked out onto the stage this time in a long, tan trench coat ala Castiel, LOL, joking that it seemed to work in getting girls for Misha but didn’t seem to be working quite the same with him when we all burst out into laughter, LOLOLOL. He then, after ditching the trench coat, officially greeted us to our all delights with his gruff, now-customary famous Bobby phrase, “Hello, idjits,” and we all laughed again and cheered, LOL. Since it was nearing the end of the convention, the rules had sort of by now fallen by the wayside and once again the process of drawing random questions was ignored in favor of having the fans ask them…only this time the fans that had questions lined up at both ends of the stage instead of the microphone being ran around. The questions asked to Jim covered a pretty broad range of subjects, roles he’d played from Bobby on Supernatural and where he’d like to see the character go next to his role on the CBS summer miniseries thriller Harper’s Island, comments on his wonderful recently published book Life’s That Way and concerns as to how he and his daughter Maddie were doing in the present day, and of course, any dirt that he had to dish on Jared and Jensen, LOL. And then, to all our dismay, she was back – not PETA girl but the other rude one – crawling out from under her rock for the first time since Misha had so brilliantly smacked her down. She decided to make her comeback by resurrecting the inane question she’d asked Alona – if you were on a plane that was getting ready to crash into the ocean with Jared, Jensen, Samantha Ferris, and Jim Beaver, and there was only room for you and one other person on the raft, who would you save – only this time it was modified for Jim as, “If you were on a plane that was getting ready to crash into the ocean with Sam, Dean, and Castiel, and there was only room for you and one other person on the raft, who would you save?” As Alona did, Jim chose to turn it into humor – what else could you really do, I wonder? – and also as it was with Alona, poor Jared was the first one eliminated, LOL (don’t worry Jared, I’d save you! *hugs*). However, whereas Alona’s reasoning was that Jared might sink the raft because he’s so tall, Jim’s reasoning was that Sam wouldn’t need the raft in the first place, because Sam’s played by Jared and “gas floats”. LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL! He then went into a bit of detail about how (to quote him) “that boy needs to see a gastroenterologist” to an apparently major degree, LOLOLOL, before moving on to giving Dean as his answer by process of elimination, as Castiel is an angel and therefore, well…has wings. LOLOL. (Alona, by the way, ultimately chose Samantha in the spirit of girls united, LOL) Another memorable moment was when Jim made a comment to a skimpily-dressed fan that that was a “nice dress you’re almost wearing there”, LOLOLOLOL, and I really think poor Jim was trying to compliment her and say that she looked attractive because she was dressed up more than most of us, but it was a pretty revealing dress and he got flustered and sort of put his foot in his mouth, LOLOL. And I don’t know who was more mortified by that exchange, him or the girl! LOL. Because for as long as she stood there he really couldn’t stop looking at her and kept kind of verbally smacking himself for doing so, LOL, and then even after she’d sat down he kept bringing that back up and apologizing to her! LOLOL, oh Jim, it’s okay…girls who under-dress like that really are asking for it, sometimes they just can’t seem to take it when they actually get it, though. Not your fault! LOL. As always, he was just awesome, and a great choice to wrap up the Q&As.

With those now over and done, the only event left to go was the autograph session with Richard and Jim. At that point, it started hitting Beth and I very hard that it was all almost over already, that we’d have to be saying goodbye to Amy and Charissa and Jenna and Mary and Sandra and all the rest of the gang in mere hours, since we unfortunately couldn’t afford another day – due to matters of both finance and employment – and would be leaving early the next morning. So naturally we decided to sit with them instead of in our own seats while we waited to be called. Before we got settled in though, Beth and I actually went on a little excursion with Immie joining us, to the elusive cupcake shop that Beth had been trying to find the entire weekend…and we finally found it! LOL. The girl working there was nice, and her name was Amanda too! LOL. She easily surmised that we were there for the convention by the Jared shirts that Beth and I both still had on, and we all shared an unexpected moment of squee combined with sympathy when she told us the story of how when she’d been working at one of their chain’s other stores in a different part of the city, Jared and his gigantic sweet tooth had actually come in the store! Sadly for Amanda though, she had to hear about Jared’s visit from her excited co-worker, as she had been in the back sweeping and mopping the floor at the time and hadn’t even known he’d been there until she was told! But according to the co-worker, he’d just walked in there, engaged in casual friendly chit-chat  with her while he ordered his fill, and left…just a normal, everyday cupcake run! Except for all the squeeing the co-worker did afterwards, of course, LOL. We wished Amanda the best of luck with seeing him next time he came in the store, and I playfully told her that when and if he ever did, to tell him that another Amanda, the girl with the charcoal drawings from the Vancouver 2009 convention, said hi! LOL. Back at the hotel, we made a quick stop in our room to refrigerate the leftover cupcakes, and then came back down and settled in for what would turn out to be a LONG, LONG, LOOOOOOOOOONG wait for autographs. Thank goodness that rules had slacked by this time and we were allowed to sit with our friends! LOL. And so we did. We finally got to show off our freshly autographed drawings to everyone and tell them our first-hand accounts of our time with Jared and Jensen, and they likewise returned the favor until our whole group was just one big ball of squee, LOL. Amidst all the squeeing I also went over and got Richard’s autograph, which much like it was with Traci and Julie, was a much shorter wait due to the fact that his autograph wasn’t included with any ticket package. I asked Richard something Beth and I been volleying back and forth amongst ourselves and our friends for the entire day, that if, as the Trickster, he would do us all a favor and pull a Mystery Spot for us so that the day could repeat over and over and over again! LOL. He laughed and said that he definitely would if he could, that even though some people might not have wanted to live that day over again, he too was one of the ones like me that did. LOL. He was very cool.

After my returning back to the group and relaying that, we continued to look back on the day, to look back on the entire weekend, engaging in several discussions relating to the convention, the boys, the show, and each other, along with all of our SnOb buddies back home! We also kept periodically checking the third floor to see if our photo ops had been printed out yet, and after a good couple of hours of waiting and checking, found that they finally had been! We squeed and swooned and in some cases, laughed at our results, especially when it came to poor Beth’s solo photo op with Jared, LOLOLOLOL…it was absolutely adorable, don’t get me wrong, but it was also hilarious because two of her fingers, apparently of their own volition, had pinched a hold of Jared’s shirt right at the photo snapping point, and it just looked so mischievous, LOLOLOLOL. We teased her with everything from it looking like she was trying to get his shirt unbuttoned, to the angle of the shot making her look like the ghoul-woman from Jump the Shark when she had her finger stuck in Sam’s side! LOLOLOL, none of us could stop giggling over it, Beth included! As for my own Jared solo photo op…you can see it below! LOLOLOL, now I will tell you honestly, I have absolutely NO CLUE why I decided to imitate the Leaning Tower of Pisa in that moment, LOLOLOL, but I think it had something to do with how Jared himself was leaning over to make sure he got in the frame with the shorter people – LOLOL, and again, I am a full foot shorter than him, possibly more since I could SWEAR he’s actually GROWN an inch or two lately, LOL – and I of course, was only too happy to lean with him, making sure to attach every inch of my side to him that I could get attached! LOL. At least I remembered to tilt my head back to the side for balance…or was that to get my head as close as possible to his shoulder and neck, LOL…probably the latter! Like I said, the photographer snapped the picture so fast that I really didn’t even have time to consider how I looked; all I knew in those few seconds was the intense need and desire to nestle myself against Jared as close as I could get while still staying within the boundaries of appropriateness! LOL. And he definitely returned the favor…look at how tight he’s gripping my shoulder with that huge hand of his! LOL. And you know good and well that my own arm is wrapped around him as far as it can go, LOL, my hand having tons of fun pressing against that firm-all-over body of his! LOL. *drools just thinking about it* Also, for the record – and I first experienced this at the EyeCon photo ops but again at this one – he smells SO good! LOLOL. Clean and warm, an alluring spicy scent with a tinge of sweetness to it…I don’t know if it’s his cologne or shampoo or body wash or just something uniquely him, but whatever it is? YUM. LOL.  And then those eyes, that smile, those dimples…*happy sigh*…you can clearly see why my own smile is so big! LOL. And same deal with the Jared and Jensen Sandwich photo op…I love how it came out too! Mmmm, both those muscular arms around me and hands touching me, LOL – though man did they both, especially Jared, have to bend their elbows to an acute degree in order for their hands to actually be on me because I’m so skinny! LOLOL. And of course…you know where my arms and hands are again! LOL. Mmmm-hmm, planted firmly and happily on those broad backs! LOL. And awww, both Jared and Jensen have such nice smiles in that one too! :-D

So, with our photo ops and everything except for Jim’s autograph now thankfully in hand, we talked some more, squeed some more, and waited some more. Then we squeed, waited, and talked. And for a change of pace, after that we waited, talked, and squeed! LOL. And we also had someone snap a group photo of all of us, LOL, that took four tries to get right because different individuals kept accidentally shutting their eyes at the flash! LOLOL. We did all these things and a few others until finally, we came to the realization that it had been nearly three hours since the Jim autograph line had been started, and they weren’t even halfway through the room yet. We also realized that we hadn’t yet had dinner, and since it was late again and Beth, Charissa, and I wanted to go cheap again, it ended up being back to Subway, LOL, where I got the same thing as earlier…nothing wrong with going with the tried and true, LOL. We brought our food back with us once more, only this time we sat back down and ate in the main theatre, since several others had decided to do the same. The wait had gotten so long that one group of people had even had pizza delivered to them! LOLOL. We continued to kill time as best we could through talking to each other, but our group had been slowly but surely dwindling as those who were sitting in the more immediate rows got their autographs and, after fond farewells to us, decided to either head on up to bed or out to eat at a fancier place. By the time the clock hit 11:00PM we had already hugged Amy, Jenna, Sandra, Mary, Immie, and the rest of the gang goodbye, and it was just down to Beth and Charissa and I. We were exhausted in all manners; the wells of conversation had pretty much run dry and we were just plain tired of being in that windowless room and ready to go to bed. Plus to make matters even worse, the shrewish convention manager was up there onstage, yakking away self-importantly, making the rest of the staff actually take turns giving her shoulder massages like she was some sort of queen and acting like she was putting on a show of her own…it wasn’t a very entertaining one. We were all just wishing she’d shut the heck up! LOL. And that the line would move the heck along! But we couldn’t fault Jim, who’d demanded that he be allowed to personalize autographs since he was the final guest and therefore not in any rush. Eventually and finally, after no earlier than nearly 1:00 in the morning, we got in line and got our autographs. It was apparent when we got up to the table that Jim, bless his heart, had been running on caffeine himself, as there were about five or six empty cans of Dr. Pepper piled up beside him! LOLOL. But he was his usual wonderful self nonetheless. I complimented him on his amazing book, Life’s That Way, which is a memoir/diary comprised of a collection of emails sent to his friends and family that unexpectedly became an internet phenomenon through forwarding, chronicling his wife Cecily’s battle with lung cancer and Jim’s struggles and endeavors to raise his young daughter, Madeline, after Cecily’s tragic death at the hands of the disease. If you haven’t yet read it, READ IT…I HIGHLY recommend it. I also told him that reading it helped me to better understand the grief process in my own life, as I’m still at heart dealing with the loss of my grandfather aka “Pops”, who as of October 18^th will have been gone exactly one year now. I could tell he was touched by that, and he kindly signed the inside of the book with his signature and the words “Life’s that way” with a sideways-pointing arrow. What a truly awesome guy he is…again, buy and read that book if you haven’t done so already, it is well worth the time and money spent.

The following moment was the finale in a long list of bittersweet ones. We were glad to have finally gotten our autographs after that painfully long wait, no doubt, but immediately after getting them and sitting back down in the rapidly emptying main theatre to gather up our things, we came to the ultimate harrowing realization that none of us wanted to believe, but that couldn’t be denied nonetheless…that was it. The entire convention was officially over and done. We took a few moments to come to terms with that, then finally hugged Charissa goodbye and proceeded back up to our room one last time. Lessening our burden for the morning, we went ahead and packed as much as we could, reflecting on the awesome time we had and squeeing with what little energy we had left as we worked, before finally collapsing into bed at close to 2:00AM for a grand total of around three hours of sleep, visions and dreams of the boys and the past few days dancing in our heads. Yes, the 2009 Supernatural Vancouver convention had come to an end, as all good things must eventually do. But WOW…what a convention it had certainly been.

Coming within the next couple of days: Part Five, the conclusion, covering post-convention thoughts and occurrences and summarizing the squee. Photos to enhance the above read are below! :-D

Note: See Part One for details.

Part Four: “The Ultimate SQUEE!” – Sunday August 30^th

In hindsight, it’s actually really surprising that we got any sleep at all that Saturday night, I’ve gotta say. Because they say that a lot of times when you’re really excited about some upcoming event – whether it be a party or a date or, in my dad’s case a lot of times, a favorite team’s football game, LOL – sleep is pretty hard to come by the night before because you’re just so keyed up for what it’s almost time for. So yeah, how Beth and I succeeded in drifting off to dreamland that night, I’m not sure…I’ll chalk it up to being just plain tired from Saturday’s events! But make no mistake, just because we had managed to do that, did NOT mean that we weren’t excited…believe you me, we were practically bursting with the emotion, LOL. Because we had made it, it was finally here…JARED AND JENSEN DAY!!!!! :-D

To be honest, we wish we would’ve had to get up a little earlier that morning, actually, because if we’d had to, that would’ve most likely meant that we had tickets to the celebrity breakfast that morning…and MAN DID WE WANT THEM. Unfortunately, that was yet another one of those things exclusive to Gold ticket holders, but unlike the other such events like the dessert party, we were really, REALLY mourning not being able to go to THAT event, LOL. Instead of the glory of having breakfast with Jared, Jensen, and Jim Beaver like some lucky fans were at that moment, we were stuck with the same ol’ same ol’ – well, at least I was – a bagel, LOL. A leftover bagel half that I’d saved from the morning before, to be more precise. Beth had gone down to get something from the Starbucks in the hotel, because she had been first in the shower and therefore was ready quicker. If only that could’ve applied to me…I was NOT ready quickly. Unlike Friday morning, this morning (of course) I could just not seem to get my hair right, and naturally I wanted to look my best for Jared and Jensen and the photo ops. I worked and worked at it until I finally got it looking good – or at least as close to good as it was going to get – but sadly by that time I had missed out on quite a bit of stuff going on downstairs, as Beth later informed me. I don’t like to talk about it much because it still upsets me, but long story short Beth was meeting and talking to the guy who played Doctor Hydecker in the Supernatural episode Something Wicked – he was just there at the convention as an attendee along with his kids, not a celebrity guest – and later on, she was sneak-peeking in on the celebrity breakfast and seeing/hearing the boys and Jim (for about three minutes until she was told to move on by a hotel worker and stop blocking the hallway)…while I was still in the room, looking in the mirror and fighting with my hair. *regretful sigh*

But enough dwelling on that, back to the SQUEE! After getting everything taken care of, we all gathered in the main theatre to get ready for photo ops. These were thankfully NOT called by row; instead, whichever photo op was up was announced – Jensen, J & J Sandwich, Jared – and if you were getting that particular one, you grouped together with the others who were and eventually all of you were called to get in an orderly line…no running. LOL. So Beth and I headed over to the J2 grouping, and when we were called, we proceeded up to the third floor where the photo ops were being held. We were able to find some of our group in the line, including Charissa, and wait with them, which made it more tolerable, and we had our drawings with us of course so people were asking to see those. The amount of squee in the atmosphere of that line was a tangible thing, LOL…already we were starting to be bouncy and giggly and get those, what I like to call, lumps of excitement in our throats, and like I said, we were only just in line! LOL. And it was a pretty long line too, of course…but it was one of those ‘fun lines’, if that makes sense. In the way that the thrill and anticipation of what you and those around you are waiting for eclipses the drudgery of the wait itself. And those feelings only grew as we got closer and closer and closer, as did the lump in my throat! Finally we were in the little hallway that the photo op room was in, and I’m sure it would’ve been quite an amusing sight to an indifferent onlooker to see us all standing on tiptoes and leaning as far to the side as we could trying to get a sneak-peek of the boys, LOLOLOL. But that soon became unnecessary as those attempts ultimately turned into our first full view of the boys…and I’m not exaggerating when I say that they are truly and literally breathtaking! Jensen was closest to the door – ha, like Dean is in motel rooms every time – and turned to the side, looking very handsome in his gray-patterned shirt, cuffs rolled up to a little past his elbows, that was tucked into a pair of dark gray, almost black, denim jeans, with the ensemble finished off by a pair of pretty worn-out looking boots! LOL. And his hair was a bit more grown-out than it had been lately, YAY! *hopes the SPN hairdressers stop scalping him* LOL. Jared’s head, tall as he is, was visible beyond Jensen’s shoulders, and speaking of hair, LOL, dang if my eyes didn’t predictably go right to those luscious locks of his! LOLOL. They were in fine form that morning, shiny and silky, bangs and sides slightly brushed back and the strands at the nape of his neck softly curling like usual and like I love, LOL. Why yes, I do have a bit of an obsession with Jared’s hair…why do you ask? LOLOL. *blush* And then whenever he smiled? DIMPLES! Heehee. Jared’s style that morning was both similar and a little bit different to Jensen’s; he was also wearing a patterned shirt with the cuffs rolled up to the elbows, only his was a plaid pattern in brown, blue, and white, and his shirt wasn’t tucked in. His pants were khakis, a medium shade, and instead of hiking boots he had on tan cowboy boots that actually made him look taller…like he needed that! LOLOL. All in all, both boys unsurprisingly looked gorgeous in every single way. LOL, it’s a wonder that we were even able to get into that room under our own power being that we were already halfway to mush by now, LOLOL! But of course, get in there we did, and once we were in there, I immediately liked the setup better than I had EyeCon’s. At EyeCon, you didn’t even get to glimpse into the photo op room until there were no more than about two to four people in front of you, which didn’t provide much time for gazing lustfully dreamily at Jared, LOL. But this one was set up to where there was a long table in the room where you sat your stuff (also nice, because you could keep an eye on it!) and the line ran behind that long table, giving much more time to stare at the boys and see other people getting their pictures taken with them. And that, let me tell you, is entertaining in its own right!

The antics were rampant from the moment we finally made it into the room, starting with a girl giving Jared an envelope after the photo was snapped and then walking off, with Jensen power-walking after her mockingly holding his hands out with a look as if to say, “Where’s mine?!” LOL. And Jared with a big grin on his face behind him, LOL. Beth, getting in on the action, then gave Jensen the card she had bought for him to appease his empty hands, and Jensen took it and smiled and waved it in front of Jared’s face, gloating. LOLOLOL. To which Jared’s response was to then walk up to Beth with a mock-hurt look on his face and yes, THE infamous Puppy-Dog Eyes, in full-force! And let me tell you right now that those are some majorly powerful weapons, LOL! A weapon of mass persuasion if there ever was one…I can say with 100% certainty that I’d never be able to deny that man anything! LOL. Not that I’d ever want to, of course…LOL. Upon seeing those sad eyes directed at her, Beth immediately reassured Jared that she had something for him too and was going to give it to him later, then he was happy again and smiled big right back at Jensen, LOL. This sense of friendly, mock-competition was present the whole time we were there, as another funny moment involved them pretending to play tug-of-war with another girl when she was between them for the photo, LOL. The funniest part though, was that after she left, a guy was next in line and teased the boys by running up to them all giddy-fangirl-like, and Jared immediately put his hands up and took a hurried jump back, LOLOLOLOL. No fighting over that one! At one point, Jensen also teased Jared that his pants were falling down, and just as funny as his reaction and the teasing itself I'm sure was the reaction of those of us who were in line at that time - every girl's head, mine and Beth's included, turned in synchronized motion, our gazes expectantly and excitedly zeroed in on Jared's lower half! LOLOL. Sadly for us, Jensen was just kidding though, LOL.There were also some interesting props and poses, an example of the former being two giant baby bottles filled with candy (yes, Jared was thrilled, LOL!) that two Asian girls brought with them for the guys…Jensen accidentally popped his bottle open while trying to hold it between his legs, LOLOL, while Jared was for some reason futilely attempting to stuff his up underneath his shirt, LOLOL, and by the way, brief glimpse of bared midriff there! *glee* An example of the latter was a girl who decided that she was going to reenact the scene of a much reviled Supernatural villainess’s death, the demon Ruby. Effortlessly catching on and playing along, Jared held her against him with an arm wrapped around her throat, and Jensen glowered at her and held a fist to her torso, plunging in the imaginary killing blade! LOLOLOLOL, that was too funny, and very creative on the part of that girl. Then before we knew it, it was our turn!!!

Beth went first, and got a lot of instant attention from Jared because of her T-shirt, which had one of the pictures she had drawn of him on it, from his 2008 TV Guide photo-shoot. Jared had realized that it was a drawing and was complimenting her up and down on it, telling her he loved it…to which Jensen then, since it was a picture of Jared, jokingly replied in a petulant mumble, “I don’t.” LOL! Beth got the humor, and laughed. Then, it was at last my turn. Just like at EyeCon, I again had that higher-pitched-than-usual voice thing going on, thanks to that huge lump of excitement in my throat and the big smile on my face, so in that voice I greeted Jared, telling him that it was so nice to see him again (and like with Gabe, I could tell that he again recognized me, if not by name then by face…squee!!!), and then Jensen, telling him that it was very nice to meet him for the first time! They both smiled at me with likewise greetings, and always adorkable Jared looked out to the people in line while pointing at me and said, “I like her shirt too,” LOLOLOL…which was especially funny because it was just a black T-shirt with a white flower design on it, nothing special! LOL. Then came that long-awaited moment of bliss where I put my arms around both of them as far I could reach, and they squeezed me in between them, hence the name…the J2 Sandwich! LOLOL, filling never had it so good… I knew my smile was huge and I was certainly in heaven…and then it was over, in a literal flash! That guy takes the pictures really quick! LOL. I was told to blink if I could, because that means the photographer has to take another picture which of course means a few seconds more with the boys, LOL, but he snapped it so fast, I didn’t even have time to blink! LOL. So like a good little fan, after thanking the boys, I went on my way…walking as slow as I could get away with out the door, naturally…backwards. LOLOLOL.

Happily, it wasn’t yet over for Beth and I, though. Next we had our individual Jared photo ops, so we headed back down to the main theatre to get right back in line again…after making a quick stop at our room, that is. Because, you see, I took major note of how much attention and time with Jared that Beth’s drawing-shirt had earned her, and immediately decided that even though I had worn my own drawing-shirt the day before, by George I no longer cared! LOL. I was dang sure going to wear it once again, to the Jared photo op…and that I did! More on that later though, heehee. With that important change (of clothes) made, we THEN moseyed on back down to the main theater, LOL. The wait to be called for this one wasn’t long at all, and within a mere minute or two we found ourselves going back up the escalators and following our earlier footsteps to the photo op room! Another lengthy line, of course, but as you would also expect, another one of those ‘fun lines’ as well. And I was already glad I’d switched into my drawing-shirt, as people started complimenting it again. LOL. We’d been getting compliments on our T-shirts all weekend – Beth had two drawing-shirts, I had the one I’d just put on that I’d also worn Saturday, and we both had a T-shirt with a muscle shot of Jared on it and a caption underneath reading, “In my fandom, this is the geek…we win.” LOL – and that was a lot of fun and pretty satisfying for us. Especially seeing as how making – and preserving – those iron-on T-shirts can be a sometimes tough and frustrating process! LOL. But they were of course worth it in the end…especially since Beth’s got a reaction like that from Jared! LOL. I was naturally hoping for the same…again though, more on that later. We assumed our positions once we got into the familiar hallway, leaning on tiptoes, LOL, because hey, every second of viewing counts when the view is THAT gorgeous! LOL. But it’s always nice once you actually get into the room, when the real ogling can begin! ;-)

Jared (and every part and feature of him!) was still in fine, fine form – only difference being that he’d tucked his shirt in since we’d last seen him revealing a tan belt – smiling and giggling and playing right along with the fans, happily making funny faces and poses when asked to, but constantly having to scrunch down to make sure he was getting in the shot by making sure not to tower too much over the shorter people, LOL…and you understand, with 6’4” Jared (that day probably 6”5 due to the heels of those cowboy boots, LOL!), ‘the shorter people’ comprised about 95% of those he was getting his photo with! LOLOLOLOL. Myself definitely included…he’s a whole foot taller than me! Oh well…we could still totally make it work, I’m sure, hehe. Before we knew it again, Beth was up, and this time she had her gift for Jared with her, which was the same drawing that was on her T-shirt, framed. And like he’d been when I’d given him the dog drawings at EyeCon – I had no dog drawings this time, LOL (like I said, lucky enough to get the one drawing done) but did have something else planned for him – he was of course, very touched by the gift and very appreciative of the time Beth took to do it for him…and he told her as much, thanking her for her generosity and calling her by name! Beth would later reveal that she was stunned by this, wondering how the heck he knew her name…and later she would realize that he’d purposefully lifted the lower right-hand corner of the bubble wrap that covered the drawing, in order to obtain her name and make his appreciation that much more personal. We were of course, melting at this…who says that there are no more courteous, considerate guys left in the world today? Those who do obviously haven’t met Jared Tristan Padalecki; we can testify to that much!

Back to the photo op room though…my turn again!!! I gleefully walked up to Jared, telling him that I’d changed shirts for him, LOL, and he’d instantly already noticed! My shirt had my full-body charcoal drawing of him on it, plus a caption underneath that read, “I Heart (the shape, not the word) Jared”. He of course ‘aww’-ed and smiled brightly at that, dimples going deep, and after the photo was taken – again, WAY too fast! LOL – he smiled again and looked me in the eye and told me that he loved the shirt, to which I then replied, “Thanks! Yeah, this is my drawing.” And though I was too busy just loving the sound of Jared’s sudden laugh to show it, I was at first a little confused at that reaction, I have to admit, LOL. But the situation then dawned on me as in the next second he laughed again like he’d just heard a really funny wisecrack and said to everyone in the room in general, “That’s so cute…‘this is my drawing’, I love it!” The conclusion was pretty easy to come to at that point and even further endeared him to me (something I thought was no longer even possible because of how much he had already done that! LOL)…he thought I was kidding, he thought the picture on my shirt was just a photo instead of a drawing and that I was making a joke! LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL, oh Jared…*smishes him endlessly* Which okay, admittedly – and I hate to say this in the way that I’m always afraid it sounds like I’m bragging, LOL, but – he’d not been the first one to make that mistake…again, not bragging but what I was shooting for with that drawing was photo-realism, and I was very pleased with the outcome. So therefore, yes, it looks like a photo, LOL. All in the definition! So, I fully understood Jared’s good-natured laughing then and laughed right back, gently and amusedly setting him straight that it was in fact a drawing…and the change was instantaneous, LOL. He went from grinning with his own amusement to eyes widening and mouth dropping open in awe, LOLOLOL, staring intently at my chest (hee!)…okay, okay, shirt, and asking me for reconfirmation – “This is a drawing?!?!” I again happily told him that yep it was, and that I would show him the real thing later, LOL. He continued to stare at it for a few seconds more while profusely complimenting me the whole time, even right up to when I was (reluctantly!) headed back towards the door, making sure that I knew without a doubt how he felt about – in his words – my ‘awesome talent’! And I thanked him right up to then too, making sure he knew how much I appreciated his compliments, because words really can’t describe how much I did…my heart was already mush! LOL. And I was grinning ear-to-ear and swooning all the way back up to our room, and multiple times afterward for the rest of that day and beyond (I’m doing it now just typing this!)…I’ll tell you that! :-D

The stop at our room was very brief, as immediately after Jared’s photo ops were done he was set to come onstage. We briefly wondered about that as did the girl next to us, surprised that Jared was scheduled to go first as he would have to come straight from the photo ops to his Q&A while Jensen had been on a bit of a break since the J2 photo ops had ended. We sort of thought it would make more sense – and be more merciful to Jared! – to put Jensen on first instead, then both of them, then Jared solo. Apparently though, that had also occurred to the convention managers somewhere along the way, because Jensen did indeed end up coming on first. He too, was in top form the whole way, cracking jokes and talking to fans even with the questions still being asked by the announcer instead of the fans themselves, and just in an all-around very chipper mood that was certainly contagious! The basic questions were asked – questions about his character Dean, questions about where he thought the storyline would be headed next and where he’d like to see it go, if he had anything else coming up career-wise, and of course, questions that led to him making good-natured fun of Jared, LOLOL. As any ‘big brother’ worth his salt will do from time-to-time! And then, speaking of the Sasquatch, LOL, after about a half an hour out popped Jared’s head from between the curtains, moving the session on to the dual panel. Jared pulled up a chair and sprawled across it as he has tendency to do, LOL, greeted us all warmly with that hint of goofiness, LOL, and joined right in on giving his input into the subject/question that was last brought up and being addressed when he made his presence known. And of course, then the antics started, LOL. Individually, both of them are absolutely amazing and tons of fun, no dispute there, but together? They’re the ultimate dynamic duo, effortlessly and seamlessly and, most of all, hilariously playing off of each other at every turn, emphasizing that closeness between with just about everything they do and say, and proving that just like the characters they play on TV, they’re just like brothers in real life as well. It’s an incredible and memorable thing to witness, especially in person!

Along with Jared’s arrival, there came a change in the Q&A format, it should be noted. He was a little confused when he heard the announcer asking questions instead of fans, and apparently wasn’t told before he came out that this was the way they were running this particular convention. Nor was he apparently a big fan of the impersonal feel of this method, so he requested that it go back to fans asking the questions instead for the time he was there…and most of us were very happy about that! It had happened once already with Misha, who rejected the random-drawing/announcer-doing-the-asking question method as well for the same reason…hence that jerk girl (unfortunately) being able to ask him that inappropriate question. At the back of our minds, I think some of us did fear that this meant the same thing might happen to Jared and Jensen, but at the time, again, most of us were too glad about being able to actually ask our own questions to the boys to really dwell on it. And I was especially ecstatic because of what I had planned for Jared later on during his solo Q&A… So upon this new wrinkle, as you can imagine, hands went up all over the place as several people had questions for Jared and Jensen, both myself and Beth included! Meanwhile the antics and usual hilarity went on, as Jared and Jensen faked being repulsed toward each other when asked if they could move their seats closer together for those taking pictures, LOL, scooting their chairs closer inch by inch by inch with mock-reluctance and when they finally got within inches of each other, Jared twisting his chair around and sitting in it with his back to Jensen! LOLOLOL. They’re just too cute. They ‘teamed back up’ though, LOL, to read the letter from the Ghostfacers that was left for them backstage, which was basically an unsurprisingly funnily written statement ultimately declaring the Winchester brothers to be ‘alright’ to them and to be acceptable partners for the occasional mission, LOL, and an invitation for Sam and Dean to come hang out with them anytime…and learn from them. LOL, because you must remember, the brothers are the ‘amateurs’, after all. LOLOL. And another of Saturday’s Q&A subjects was also resurrected, LOLOLOL, as the conversation at one point inevitably prompted Jensen to fervently attest to Jared’s uh…other ‘talent’, LOLOLOLOLOLOL…and naturally multiple people in the audience then shouted out “FARTACUS!” LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL, oh my… And surprisingly, I think our giggly chatterbox Jared was a little stunned speechless that we somehow knew about that, because he really didn’t have a lot to say on the subject – i.e. either confirming or denying Fartacus’s existence, LOL – although he did smirk knowingly a couple of times, LOLOLOLOL.

At the same time we were enjoying the show though, Beth and I were raising our hands as high as we could, hoping like crazy that person running the microphone around would pick us already! Unfortunately though, it was that woman who ran the convention, the shrewish one…and she gave me even more reason to dislike her because DANG IT she never picked us! In fact, to add insult to injury, she had been on our side of the room for a few minutes picking everyone AROUND us and then when she finally walked up to us, it was only to tell Beth and I directly that our side had already had its turn and she was going over to the other side now…which she did. UGH!!!!! Did I mention that I did NOT like that woman the whole time we were there?! Hmph! And, at least if you ask me, Beth and I had some much better questions than some of the ones that did get asked. I forget exactly how Beth’s went, but I think it was something along the lines of asking both Jared and Jensen to describe each others’ best personality trait, which would’ve been a very interesting and touching (and probably, at first, funny) answer I’m sure! My question was also a little chick-flicky, LOL, asking both Jared and Jensen – since the brothers are so protective of each other in the show and since they themselves are so like brothers to me in real life – if there had ever been any specific moments where they felt protective of the other, and if so, to elaborate on them. I was really hoping with that question to get a better account of the time when a group of guys in a bar mistook Jensen for someone they were angry with and jumped both him and Jared outside of the bar…according to the brief account I’d read before of this, apparently Jensen had taken care of the guys fighting him and could’ve walked away, but he saw that Jared hadn’t quite made it out of his end of the brawl yet and was in trouble, and he went back in to the rescue. My heart just about burst when I first read that story because it was so VERY Sam and Dean, and it just further confirmed my view that Jared and Jensen may not be brothers in blood, but they are brothers in heart and soul. And I was sure there were more examples like that, so whether that brawl situation was brought up or not, whatever answers to that question that the boys gave… I really, REALLY wanted to hear them! *sigh*

Well, little did I know that, as it turned out, I would get an example of the boys’ protective attitudes towards one another on display right before my eyes before their session was over. It sadly didn’t come without a price though, of course, and the instigator was surprisingly not that same girl who put Misha and Alona on the spot this time. Obviously she wasn’t the only rude jerk in the audience as a new one made herself known…and this one had a hot-button subject – PETA. And for any who don’t know, Jared, huge supporter of animal rights that he is, had once done an ad for PETA, which consisted of a very cute and sweet picture of him with his dogs beside him and a caption reading, “If you wouldn’t wear your dog, don’t wear fur.” Now I am pretty big on animal rights myself, so I was and still am in full support of this ad and the no-fur concept, even though I don’t support everything that PETA does or says because they can get a little too eccentric and extreme for me sometimes. This girl, though, was clearly VERY anti-PETA and she wanted everyone to know it, to which I say, first off, it was SO NOT the time and place to get on a soapbox, to the point where the fact that she did it at all is completely ridiculous on its own…but that was definitely not her worst offense. Her worst offense was undisputedly how she came in the guise of peace, asking for confirmation from Jared that he had worked with PETA before to which he of course said yes, and then viciously turned around and started berating him over that, stating various negative PETA statistics and blah, blah, blah, BLAH. I think just about everybody in the audience EXCEPT her and possibly her friends, IF she had any which I think is a legitimate uncertainty, wanted to walk over and smack her in her big mouth. But Jared…dang it I was SO PROUD of him. He obviously didn’t need any of us to go to those extremes, because he handled the issue himself…with grace, with intelligence, and with CLASS. I think that because we’re so used to Jared being the quintessential lovable goofball and prankster – constantly making mischief and jokes and going into uncontrollable giggle-fits and overall just being a giant, bouncy puppy and a big little kid in so much that he does and says – it’s at times easy to overlook just how freaking SMART he is. He is adorkable, no doubt, but he’s also very introspective and imaginative, well-educated and intelligent, well-mannered with a strong sense of values and character, and all in all just absolutely sharp as a tack when the situation calls for it…and really, if you look, the examples of this are just as abundant and evident as the examples of his sillier side are, if not more so. And this fact clearly came across when he gave his response to the PETA criticism. He at first tried to cut the girl off with an “okay, next question”, but when she continued to ramble on, he ultimately took a stand, telling her that while those negative things may be what PETA meant to her, for him, the organization stood for something different. He stated the specific PETA-covered causes that he supported – which if I remember correctly were opposition to animal abuse, opposition to wearing fur, a desire for better-kept animal shelters, and high support of adoption and spaying/neutering as the superlative methods for keeping shelters from being overcrowded…I know at least that all the causes were ones that I too believe in – and again reiterated that these things were what he supported in PETA and what that meant to him, and that while he was sorry that girl saw PETA in such a negative light because of all the good progress they had made for animal rights over their years, he was NOT going to apologize for how he felt or what he stood for.

And when Jared was done saying his piece, the atmosphere of love and admiration toward him along with outrage and disgust toward that girl for having apparently solely come to that convention just to put Jared down, was palpable…and we later heard, by the way, that that girl was seen outside just after the Q&A had ended throwing herself a big ol’ teary pity-party…sorry, but what a loser. *shakes head* But we were whistling and applauding Jared like mad, and Jensen’s firm and sincere, “Good answer, Jared,” just cemented the feeling and closed the book on that idiot girl’s audacity perfectly and permanently. There it had been and still was, that brotherly protection and bolstering – as I had mentioned – playing out right in front of us all during and after that incident. Naturally we were mesmerized by Jared as he was taking his stand and therefore keeping our eyes mostly on him, but we also couldn’t help but notice Jensen too…and the expression on his face as that girl spouted her crap and Jared got increasingly upset was ANGER. Indignation, revulsion…all the same things we were feeling, only possibly magnified tenfold because this was his best friend that girl was verbally attacking and emotionally hurting. Jensen looked like he wanted to march right down into that row, yank her out of her seat, and punch her in the face! For which none of us could blame him, of course. And the way he said “Good answer, Jared,” so decisively and earnestly…WOW. That protective attitude is quite a sight to see in person, a very powerful sight and a very moving sight as well. I have even read since, that according to some backstage accounts, Jensen actually needed calming down because he was so livid about that incident on Jared’s behalf…and knowing these two and how much they care about each other, I have no problems believing it! It was pretty apparent when they left the stage, as that was almost at the end of their session, that both boys were still somewhat shaken and flustered by the whole thing, as their exit was an unusually quick and quiet one. And THAT brings me to the one part of the convention that I admit to having gotten a bit livid over…the cutting of Jared’s solo Q&A.

Let me reiterate, I was NOT happy, not at all. I remember Beth and I, and others around us, being confused as to why Jared had left the stage along with Jensen, and I also recall a brief look of that same confusion passing over Jared’s face – even in the midst of his remaining disconcertment over the PETA incident – when the announcer informed us that he was going to have to take the boys away from us. Boys…PLURAL. And after about five minutes or so of ultimately futile hope that they’d bring Jared back out, we realized what had happened. Long story short, photo ops had run overtime. The boys had been reportedly upset over how things went at the Asylum convention in England with their photo sessions, where the process was very jarringly quick, impersonal, and much less enjoyable than all other photo op sessions had been because there was no physical contact allowed. Now it was all over the internet that this originated at the convention held in Australia that had taken place right before Asylum, when a woman (and I use the term loosely) getting her photo taken with Jared decided that it would be a fun and perfectly appropriate idea to grab Jared between his legs, and understandably, he was quite rattled and upset by that and was wary of anymore physical contact during photo ops for the rest of that convention. I don’t claim to know the exact story, but that seems to be the prevailing summary everywhere I’ve read and heard about it. I’m even less sure, really, of what went on at Asylum, whether the no-touching rule was a result of Jared’s lingering unease, or if it was actually the convention managers that instituted it. From recent things I’ve read though, it seems that it was automatically and commonly mistaken to be the former but was in reality the latter, and that apparently the boys really pushed for a more relaxed pace and atmosphere with the fans for the Vancouver con photo ops, and of course – to our immense joy and relief since we went in having our doubts – physical contact was very much allowed. But as much as we loved and appreciated that more relaxed pace, its price was that the photo ops took almost an hour longer than scheduled, and as a consequence, something had to be cut from the day’s agenda. I just don’t know why it had to be Jared’s solo Q&A.

First off, we were definitely deprived, because Jared ALWAYS puts on fantastic and fun sessions, and second off, Jared himself was deprived, because – as he has said before and as I think would’ve still been true that day despite the PETA incident – he loves to interact with fans. And third off…Jared and Jensen, even with Misha there, were still indisputably the top draw, the reason that most people there came out to the convention, and therefore all the things involving the Js were obviously at the top of the must-see list for all those people, myself definitely included. So to rob us of Jared’s individual Q&A panel was a million different kinds of NOT COOL. They could’ve spared twenty minutes to a half hour more – which was about how long Jensen’s solo session lasted – for the sake of Jared and for the sake of his fans, I don’t care what they say. OR, as Charissa intelligently proposed, they could’ve let both boys be onstage together for the entire time instead of leaving it unbalanced like that. And please nobody take that as a slight to Jensen, because I would’ve also been upset if it had been vice-versa on the cutting and was very glad that they did NOT cut his solo panel. I was (and still kind of am) just very MAD that they cut Jared’s, because of the imbalance and because I didn’t get a chance to carry out my ‘gift’ for him, which was to be me (hopefully) leading the audience in a round of applause for the awesome job he did in the episode When the Levee Breaks…an episode he had expressed worry over in interviews, saying that the filming of it had physically and emotionally wiped him out and that he wasn’t sure how he’d done with the more intense scenes. I wanted to ease that worry and concretely show him how we felt about his talent, like he had done for me in the past with all those compliments on my artwork and my own talent, and I was VERY disappointed that I didn’t get a chance to carry out what I had planned.

Trying to shake it off as best we could – and it took me a little longer than everyone else, I’ll admit! - we headed out for lunch, Charissa accompanying us, finally finding the Subway we had been looking for the day before, where I got a pizza sub and milk…now THAT lunch was more like it for me! LOL. And apparently Jim Beaver thought the same thing…we turned around as soon as we had gotten our food and there he was, LOL, just getting into line! We greeted him and he greeted us back, another case where I could tell he recognized our faces, and then we decided to take our lunch back to the hotel and eat it down at the window-tables they had at the Starbucks. We chatted while down there, me slowly letting go of my anger over the cutting of Jared’s solo Q&A and coaching myself back into squee mode, and Beth swearing that she saw Jason Gedrick, the guy who played corrupt detective Pete Sheridan in the episode The Usual Suspects, walk past the window pushing a baby carriage! LOL. It’s a good possibility…lots of stars in Vancouver, apparently! After finishing up, we briefly stopped back in the room to get our drawings again – we would finally NEED them this time after all! – and then went on back down to the main theatre to get ready for our final huge moment of Jared and Jensen squee…the autograph session. And what squee it would turn out to be! LOL.

And the account of that, plus two more stars’ Q&A/autograph sessions and the final moments of the convention, will be coming to you this weekend...along with the pictures to go with! Stay tuned! :-D

To be continued…

Note: See Part One for details.

 
Part Three: “The SQUEE Continues!” – Saturday August 29^th

So, we had to get up a little earlier on Saturday morning, but seeing as how we were in bed earlier too the night before, that wasn’t a problem. And besides, with the schedule being as busy as it was supposed to be this day, there’s no way all the events could’ve started anytime past noon anyway!

The first guest, Aldis Hodge, was set to go onstage a little after 11:00AM, and the convention would be rolling on from there all afternoon. As for Beth and I, once we rolled out of bed and got ready, we went down to the same little café we’d gone to the morning before, and got pretty much the same breakfast, LOL. What can we say, it was a sure thing. Can’t go wrong with a bagel! Fortunately there was no pre-registration to go through today, so once we were done with breakfast and made a quick stop in our room to get our stuff, we were able to come right down to the main theatre and get ready for Aldis to make his appearance. He did, and was a lot of fun. Almost immediately, there was some audience participation involved in Aldis’s session…I believe it went that he had received either a call or text message from his girlfriend, and when he’d tried to call her back, she hadn’t picked up. So Aldis decided to get all of us to leave a little message for her, LOL…he held up the phone to the audience, and we all shouted a friendly greeting to his girlfriend, LOL. That was cute. As for the questions, I’d say the majority of them were split between the subjects of his Supernatural role, traitorous super-strong psychic kid Jake Talley – who became quite the love-to-hate character for the short time he was on the show when he stabbed/killed Sam in All Hell Breaks Loose 1 – and his regular role on the popular TV series Leverage…or at least its popular amongst Supernatural fans, I know! LOL. He had quite a few amusing yarns to tell, including one where the cast of Leverage had made up a cheer for the show, only during the cheer, Aldis had accidentally spelled ‘Leverage’ without the second ‘E’…so apparently now, their official cheer is jokingly, “L-E-V-R-A-G-E! Lev-rah-gay, oo, oo, Lev-rah-gay!” LOLOLOL. That cracked me up. He was also asked the standard questions…what was next for his career, what was next for his Leverage character, if he’d like to come back to Supernatural if he could – answer to that was ‘yes’, by the way, because he’d had fun on the set…and I can see them working Jake in as angry spirit maybe, in a future episode – and of course, that old chestnut, ‘did Jared and Jensen pull any pranks on you’…answer to that was ‘no’, he wasn’t on the set long enough, LOL. (I think I’m remembering all this stuff right anyway…LOL) So far he’d been the first guest other than Traci Dinwiddie that I’d not yet seen before at the EyeCon conventions, and I really enjoyed his session.

Next up was another guest that I’d not yet seen before…in fact, NO ONE had seen him before because this was his first ever Supernatural convention. But despite that fact, Jake Abel, who played the long-lost – and as it turned out, tragically ghoul-consumed – third Winchester brother Adam Milligan in the Season 4 episode Jump the Shark, handled it like a natural. Whereas you’d think that all convention newbies would have some reservations and nervousness during their debut, Jake really had neither of those things. He was a riot, telling us some of the most hilarious anecdotes we’d heard yet…but more on those later. He was also asked some pretty good questions, to which he gave good answers. One such question involved the big twist that his character Adam had been a ghoul in disguise throughout the whole episode, and the reveal that the REAL Adam Milligan had been killed by said ghoul before we or the brothers Winchester even got to know him. Jake was asked if, with the pre-knowledge of this plot twist, he’d consciously chosen to play ‘Adam’ as a little shifty at any point, giving us glimpses of the ghoul hidden beneath his veneer…his answer was no, that he’d not wanted to give it away to any degree; when he was playing ‘Adam’, he was nothing but…all a part of the plan to completely fool Sam and Dean. And as an acting choice, that of course worked…sure fooled me! LOL.  A more grimly amusing inquiry concerned what it was like to ‘play dead’ in the scene where the real Adam’s mangled body was discovered…Jake said it was an experience! LOL. He had lain in the wooden box and the makeup people had then applied the blood and gore…he told us of how his mom had called him after seeing that, saying that’s something she never wanted to see again on her son! Can’t blame her there…that was some really disgusting stuff! LOL. He also told us that during his ghoul scenes, he was amazed at how trusting Jared – who was really COMPLETELY tied down immobile – was of him, especially when he really got into character and slammed a knife just above Jared’s head! LOL. We got a pretty good laugh out of that. And then there was the REALLY funny stuff, one of those things being Jake’s imitation of Jared and Jensen’s voices, LOLOLOL. He said it was a good thing he’d never really had to play their real brother because he couldn’t get his voice to go as deep as theirs, LOL…but if you ask me, when he tried, he did a pretty good and hilarious job! LOL. His biggest fascination was the ‘my brother is in trouble’ tone, so he mimicked a deep, forceful “SAMMY!”…”Dean!”…”SAMMY!” with a serious, stern expression on his face, LOLOLOLOL…it was hysterical. Especially because he kept doing it at random intervals throughout his session, LOLOLOL.

And all of that brings me to the story that I nearly died laughing over…I found it so freaking hilarious it gets its own paragraph! LOLOLOL. I think it started when Jake was asked that same old song and dance of whether or not Jared and Jensen had pulled any pranks on him while he was on the set. He too said no, they hadn’t, also not enough time on the set…but he told us of something else that had happened to someone else while he was there. It’s not hard to guess the guilty party even before you hear about the ‘incident’, LOL – Sasquatch-sized, puppy-dog eyes, luscious locks…and the humor of a grade school kid sometimes, LOLOLOLOL. As the season DVD gag reels have attested to over the years, our dear Jared obviously gets a big kick out of certain, err uh…bodily functions, LOLOLOL (and he’d fit right in with some of my family, let me tell you that! LOL. *facepalm*) Well, I don’t think any of us realized just how big of a kick until Jake told the tale of the infamous, the dreaded…“Fartacus”. LOLOLOLOL! According to Jake, one day they were filming, and little did a poor hapless crewman know that Jared had been…building up for the occasion, shall we say, LOLOL. Before the victim knew what hit him (literally), Jared’s, um…alter-ego, I guess you could call it...had taken over, putting his diabolical plan into action, trapping the defenseless crewman between an immovable surface and his own immovable massive frame…and letting it rip, LOLOLOLOLOL. Then to top that off, apparently after the foul deed was done, LOL, Jared pumped his fist high into the air and gave a resounding, celebratory shout of “I…AM…FARTACUS!” LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL, OMG, I was DYING laughing, LOLOLOLOLOL. And apparently, also according to Jake, this is a recurring thing on the set! I guess this must be Jared’s personal made-up ‘character’, LOLOLOLOLOL. Oh my, that boy…*smishes him for his hysterical dorkiness while wearing a nose-plug* And for the record, congratulations Jake Abel, you win the award for most hilarious anecdote EVER. LOLOLOLOL. And it was only your first convention! ;-)

So after the laughter had finally died down and Jake had left the stage, there was another Supernatural trivia competition…and I couldn’t get up the nerve to volunteer for this one either. But unlike with the last one, in the case of this one, I ended up being glad of that! The format for this one was that three so-called ‘experts’ on anything and everything Supernatural, were chosen from the audience and went up onstage, where they were deemed a team. The competition was the whole rest of the audience, some members of which lined up to ask the three ‘experts’ any trivia question they could come up with, as long as the answer had no numbers in it. Well, as you can imagine, the audience came up with some doozies, LOL. Some of them I knew the answer to, some I didn’t. Quite a few times I raised my hand though, because the rules also went that if the three ‘experts’ couldn’t come up with the correct answer to a question, they lost their chance and anyone in the audience who knew could then answer, if they were selected to do so. Unsurprisingly, the three ‘experts’ lost the competition, LOL, but they still got a couple of prizes just for playing, as did anyone in the audience who’d either asked a question no one was able to answer, or had answered one correctly that the ‘experts’ couldn’t get. I was never called on, by the way, LOL. After that was over, Beth and I chose to go back up to our room and chill out there for a bit before coming back down for the next Q&A session, which we knew from previous EyeCon experience, was also guaranteed to be another riot.

Enter Travis Wester and A.J. Buckley, better known to Supernatural fans as those two goofy guys from Season 1’s Hell House, Harry Spangler and Ed Zeddmore, that later got a Season 3 episode named after them…The Ghostfacers. LOL. As before, they were certainly a dynamic duo and a laugh a minute, bringing back a couple of the most hilarious things they did and stories they told from previous conventions such as EyeCon, and doing and telling some new things and stories as well. Like their experience with meeting The Ghost Hunters, Jason and Grant, from the popular Sci-Fi Channel—oops, sorry, SyFy­ Channel, that is *eyeroll*, reality series while at this year’s Comic-Con. A thrilling experience that apparently included…a friendly nod and a wave as they walked past. LOLOLOL. Travis and A.J., fully in their ‘Facer’ mode, joked (at least, I think it was a joke) that they were going to send the Ghost Hunters ‘Ghostfacer’ t-shirts to wear during an episode of their show, LOLOLOLOL. Now THAT would be hysterical to see. Still in ‘Facer-mode, they also told us of interesting ‘hunts’ that they’d been on or would like to go on, what could be in store for them and their team next, and of course, what they really thought of Sam and Dean Winchester, LOL. It seems that the bitter rivalry, LOL, has begun to die down over the months and turned more into a sense of friendly competition instead, with, naturally, them still being the experts and the Winchester boys still being the amateurs, LOL. They proposed that Sam and Dean could come and hang out with them anytime…they’d show the brothers the ropes. LOL. And they also wrote them a letter which they left backstage for Jared and Jensen to read later, with instructions for the audience to inform them of the letter’s existence, LOL. When Travis and A.J. were being themselves, however, well…actually, they were just as goofy. LOL! Travis seemed to have a major fascination, as I remember he did at EyeCon as well, with the sound the microphone made when tapped against his or A.J.’s chest, so that was a consistent source of humor, LOL. And speaking of chests, they retold one of my favorite past stories, complete with both vocal and physical imitations which are always a must with these two, LOL, of the classic Ghostfacers! one-liner “chisel-chest”. According to them, this was completely ad-libbed and therefore unexpected, so when Travis as Harry (I think it was) first blurted it out at Jensen as Dean, they had to stop rolling film for a good while because Jared had apparently started rolling instead…on the floor…with laughter. LOLOLOLOLOLOL! LITERALLY, they emphasized, Jared was writhing around on the floor in a fit of hysterics, and to bring home the point, Travis did his own physical and vocal impression of this moment, LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL. Freaking HILARIOUS every time, LOL. He also did the reenactment of when he and A.J. first met Jared and Jensen, recalling how they were so in awe of the Js’ tall and intimidating physiques, LOL, and how Jared unwittingly furthered that feeling by casually picking up a crew member in front of them, one-armed, and ‘giving him a ride’ on his shoulder, LOLOLOLOL… and then how later on Jared also effortlessly picked THEM up, LOLOLOL. You can tell that Travis and A.J. are still sort of reeling from that to this day! LOL. As always, they made for a very fun and funny panel.

The next item officially on the agenda was a ‘lunch break’, LOL, and, appropriately enough, Beth and I decided to head out for lunch at that point! I was kind of having a hard time finding something I liked in the little cafés and bistros, as I didn’t much feel like deli food that afternoon, so I made a quick stop in a nearby convenience store and bought myself two packs of Handi-Snacks – those little tiny breadsticks – with cheese dip! LOL. Beth had gotten something from our breakfast café, and then we sat down with Amy and the gang who were already eating at one of the little tables outside. We chatted there, made a quick stop in our room to re-retrieve our bags after we were done, then went on back to the Q&A room where another merchandise auction was going on, sitting with our Plurk/TSTSNBN crew in the front again and showing off our drawings some more by request. Gotta tell you, LOL, of course the huge wall banners of various Supernatural characters/actors went for prices way beyond my budget in the end, LOL, but there towards the beginning and middle of the biddings, I found myself having to kind of sit on my hands for one of the Jared/Sam ones, LOLOL. Being that it would’ve taken up an entire bedroom wall of mine, I have no idea what I would’ve done with it (covered my ceiling, maybe? LOL), but dang…it sure was pretty and tempting! LOL. Even when that was over we still had quite a bit of time left before the next guest, so we did a lot of talking before finally returning to our own seats to get ready for Supernatural’s favorite angel.

But in real life, it’s clear that Misha Collins is no angel, LOL. In a hilarious way, of course. The first of the antics he wrought upon the place was actually not of his own doing, though, but rather that of his so-called “Minions”, LOLOLOL. Well, no, to be accurate…it actually was he who started it, LOL. Apparently the night before, he had instructed his Minions through his favorite communication line of Twitter to bring three items to the convention with them – an egg, a piece of black construction paper, and a writing utensil. Random, yes…but never let it be said that Misha’s Minions aren’t obedient little soldiers! LOL. Only a few minutes into his session he started noticing the items in the hands of several audience members, and finally he asked for everyone who brought said items to hold them up…the result was impressive! LOL. Now all that was left to figure out was just what to do with these items, and not even Misha himself knew the answer to that! LOL. It’s almost like he wasn’t really expecting people to bring that stuff, but of course, he should’ve known better! LOL. A lot of the subjects addressed in Misha’s Q&A involved various ‘instructions’ and ‘summonses’ and even ‘land/property dealings’, LOL, associated with his Minions, along with his crazy world-travel ‘adventures’ as chronicled on his Twitter page, and the pictures that went along with them. It’s not every day you get to ask someone what it was like to be held prisoner by the Queen of England, after all…LOLOLOLOL. And of course there were more serious questions asked – questions on his career, questions on his wildly popular Supernatural character, the angel Castiel, and questions about his life in general. Then to all our chagrin, the same girl that asked that rude question of Alona Tal struck again, showing that her lack of tact hadn’t changed one bit, asking Misha that if he was ever to be in a horrible accident where both legs had to be amputated and his face was horribly disfigured, what would his career be instead of acting…see what I mean about this girl?! But Misha, to HER chagrin – and from what we later heard, outrage – wasn’t afraid to strike right back, smartly and smoothly (after a period of being understandably stunned and not knowing what the heck to say, at first) turning the question back around on her (I forget exactly how, but it was awesome), punctuating it with a statement to her when she was too flustered to answer that it “isn’t fun to be put on the spot, is it?” and soundly putting her in her place. We all gave him a big round of applause for that, LOL. I guess you could say that that girl got smote by an angel! LOL! Or at least a guy who plays one! And by the way, no, no one ever did figure out what to do with all the eggs and black construction paper…LOL.

After Misha’s Q&A was over, Beth and I decided to make the most of our long break time by first going back up to the room and taking a much-needed nap, LOL. Very much refreshed by that, we then headed back down to the main theater at around 6:00 for the start of our next autographing session with Misha, Jake, and Travis and A.J. Upon a fair amount of time into this though, they’d barely gotten past Row B, and Beth and I realized that we were pretty much wasting time just sitting in there waiting for all the way to Row P to be called, LOL. Plus, I’m not sure how everyone else felt about her, but to me, the woman who ran the convention was getting REALLY annoying, LOL. I was just tired of hearing her voice, because for one thing, it was a common occurrence for her to smile out at us and then turn around and tell us things that we either didn’t want to hear or didn’t need to hear – such as, “There will be NO autograph personalization on Sunday, no exceptions!” or “You people need to move through that line faster, come on!” (yelling this at us people that were still freakin’ waiting in our seats so how can WE move faster when we’re not even IN line yet?!) – and then she’d smile again! Like she enjoyed it, enjoyed the power trip it gave her. Shrew. LOL. So anyway, yeah, Beth and I decided to go ahead and get ourselves some dinner, especially since we weren’t sure where we were going to eat yet and therefore needed some extra time. No one accompanied us this time, and after what was probably a good half hour of walking up and down the nearby streets looking for a place that was both in our budget and had something I liked (picky eater here, LOL), we decided to go back to the Pacific Pizza Kitchen since it was a sure bet, and get something other than pizza this time. That ended up being a big plate of pasta, with angel hair noodles and Alfredo sauce, which we split between us. In a funny coincidence, we ended up being seated at the same table we’d been at the night before! LOL. Different waiter (waitress, actually) though, darn. LOL. The food was good again though, with the same pretty reasonable price. We then went back up to the room for our bags and drawings again and came back down to the Q&A room, where we once more settled in at the front with the rest of our gang and chatted some more. This was also when one of the more friendly convention handlers came by, one that Amy nearly ordered to come over and see our drawings, LOL, which we gladly showed her. I took that opportunity to ask her if she thought there would be a chance with autograph personalization at all come tomorrow with my Jared drawings, and she assured me that if it was Jared, I had nothing to worry about, because once he saw those he’d take as much time with me as he was allowed to. That definitely made me feel good! LOL. And I knew from previous EyeCon experience of course, how much Jared does appreciate and love to see artwork, so I believed her!

Finally, after a substantially long wait, it was Row P’s turn, thank goodness. First up were Travis and A.J….I told them that it was nice to see them again and that I really enjoyed their Q&A session, and then made a comment in support of the “’Facer Nation”, as they called it, LOL, which they of course were amused by and, slipping briefly into their characters’ personas, gloated over. LOL. Next up was Jake Abel, and I told him he did a really great job for his first ever Supernatural convention, which he appreciated, and that his was another character I was sad to see go even though we never really got to know him! LOL. Turns out he’s already got the standard response of just about every actor whose character has died on Supernatural down pat…that we never know, he could be back one day! LOL. Because it is Supernatural, after all! And he’s really quite a cute guy in person, if I do say so myself…a good choice to have played a third Winchester brother! And finally, there was Misha. I told him he was doing a great job in the role of Castiel, for which he thanked me kindly…and then he offered me a small, thin object wrapped in brown paper out of a box…he called it an “After Five”. And I will embarrassedly admit to having absolutely no knowledge as to what an After Five was at that moment, LOLOLOL. *facepalm* He must’ve realized that too, after a few seconds of my hesitation as I tried to figure out what it was, because he then smiled and chuckled and promised me it wouldn’t bite, LOLOL. And I FINALLY figured out that it was a mint, LOL, an after-dinner mint and “After Five” was the either the brand name or just what they were commonly called, LOL. I then accepted the mint with a blush and a laugh, and he laughed too, not at me but with me, LOL. Very funny and memorable. And the mint was pretty good too…LOL.

For Beth and I, that was the end of the night. There was a dessert party going on at 10:00, but unfortunately that was another one of those things we didn’t have access to with our Silver tickets, so we just headed on up to our room, stopping briefly on the third floor first to grab some Q&A forms to fill out for Jared and Jensen. We spent around an hour thinking of and composing our questions – I FINALLY got the one I was planning to ask Jared to flow just right, after much laboring, LOL – and with that done, we officially hit the sack. For we knew that tomorrow was the big day, and we wanted to be wide awake – as if we ever couldn’t, LOL – for our beloved boys come morning! :-D

Coming tomorrow: Part Four, covering the final day of the convention, Sunday August 30^th.

Note: See Part One for details.

Part Two: “The SQUEE Officially Begins!” - Friday August 28^th

With the way we got in bed so late Thursday night (well, what was formerly Thursday night, anyway) thanks to the set excursion – or, what we jokingly referred to as our ‘drive-by shooting’, LOL – we were pretty dang lucky that we didn’t have to get up all that early Friday morning.

It’s a thought that maybe the convention organizers expected everyone to accidentally – or intentionally – stay up and out all that night, because the con’s first guest, Gabriel Tigerman, wasn’t set to hit the stage until 1:20PM, according to the schedule…and that was all well and fine with us! Beth and I slept in for as long as we could, then were able to take our time getting ready, which I very much appreciated since I definitely don’t hold the speed record for that task…particularly doing my hair! LOL. For breakfast, we walked down to a little bistro/café place that was right on the corner of the hotel’s own Burrard Street, where I had a bagel with lots of cream cheese. After chilling out for a bit there and finishing, we then headed up to the North Tower third floor and got into the long pre-registration line to get our lanyards and our little plastic bracelets that, as they told us, weren’t to be taken off until the convention was over, not even in the shower! LOL. It’s a good thing we had so much time to spare, because the line was very slow-moving to the point where you questioned just what the heck the people behind the table were doing up there! We spotted Amy, Charissa, and Jenna somewhere along the way and chatted with them for a bit, then after finally getting our lanyards and bracelets, we headed on down to the ground floor where the Q&As would be taking place to get settled in. Our seats were in the P Row, numbers 34 and 35. The P Row, as you can probably guess, was not all that close to the stage, LOL, and seats 34 and 35 were pretty far over toward the right side of the room, but it was still manageable, and there were still plenty of rows behind us who had it worse. Amy and Jenna, lucky people that they were, got themselves some Gold tickets before they sold out, so they were substantially further up. Charissa, on the other hand, was stuck in the P Row like us, only her seat was more towards the middle-left side of the room. When it got close to time for things to officially start, there were several chairs still vacant that were closer to the stage than ours, and I admit that we were tempted to move! LOL. But we decided that we’d better not chance it that early in the game, LOL.

To kick things off, a few fan-made music videos were shown on the pair of huge projector screens to both sides of the stage. Then our first guest, Gabriel Tigerman, came out to always well-deserved applause and did his thing. Beth and I already knew, from previous EyeCon experience, a simple fact: Gabe. Is. Adorable. And SO fan-friendly. Being that he’s not as high-profile as Jared or Jensen, he’s one of those stars that can just walk around, bodyguard-free, for the most part without being mobbed or jumped on or grabbed or insert-crazy-fan-action-here, so there had been quite a few occasions where we’d just randomly run into him at past cons. In the lobby, in the hallways, in the elevators…he gets around! LOL. We had in fact, already said hi to him in the Sheraton lobby the day before, when we were coming down to meet Amy there…we just looked a few feet from us and there he was! LOL. It was pretty clear he recognized us too, maybe not by name but definitely by face…there was that definite look and tone of recollection in his eyes and voice when he looked at and spoke to us. Very cool! Most of the questions Gabe were asked during his session unsurprisingly revolved around the late Andy Gallagher, his lovable stoner psychic kid character on Supernatural. Several were similar to those asked at the EyeCon conventions – queries about Andy’s mind-control powers, Andy’s tricked-out van, whether Gabe would like to have both those things for himself…and so on. And of course, there’s still high disappointment amongst the majority that Andy’s character was killed off the show, and high demand for him to be brought back in some way, sooner or later. For the record, I agree with both! I miss poor Andy, and Gabe is just so awesome himself, that I want Andy back for his sake as well! Other subjects included his soon-to-be-released movie “Skills Like This”, future projects he was going to be involved in, and various other acting career questions. As before, he made for an all-around great guest and was a wonderful choice to get the ball rolling on the convention.

About ten minutes after Gabe left the stage and signed the huge banners on each side of it, the next event began, which was a Supernatural trivia contest, with all the questions having yes or no answers. About thirty fans, if I remember correctly, were chosen through volunteering and called up onto the stage, where they were given a blue piece of paper labeled ‘NO’, and a neon green piece labeled ‘YES’. Questions were asked – some easy, some medium-easy, none of them hard, IMO – and the participants held up what they thought to be the corresponding paper for each one. Those who were correct stayed on the stage, while those who were incorrect were told to return to their seats. Pretty simple concept. Believe me, if I would’ve known just how simple it was going to be, I would’ve volunteered as well! I was sitting in my seat mentally answering all the questions right – “The Impala’s original license plate read ‘KAZ625’ (or some such inaccurate number)” …NO. “Dean is afraid of flying”…YES. “Sam went to college at Harvard”…NO. And so on. It got down to about ten to fifteen people, and then the question was “Sam’s date of birth is May 2, 1983.” YES, duh, my mind was saying…and then to my shock, everyone left the stage in one fell swoop, except for one girl, because they had all held up their ‘NO’ papers! I couldn’t believe it…how quickly people forget! I can only hope that the people who got it wrong were just getting Sam’s date of birth confused with Jared’s – July 19, 1982 – especially the year since it’s just one earlier, and that that many fans haven’t fallen that far out of touch with the character of Sam!

Or…maybe I’m just used to hanging out with people that are really GOOD at Supernatural trivia, LOL. Although all those that went up onto the stage claimed to be ‘experts’…uhh…not so much! And I was then mad at myself for not having volunteered, because dang it I was all over ALL those questions, including the last one! LOL. Lessons learned…

After that was done at a little after 2:00, we had a pretty substantial break, and Beth and I decided to head outside and just across the street from the hotel to the St. Andrew’s Cathedral, which was not only a beautiful building in itself, but was also the church that was used in the filming of the Supernatural episode, Houses of the Holy. The main building was open to the public, providing some great photo fodder with its elaborate architecture and gorgeous stained glass windows. There was a smaller building that was part of the church as well just across the way from the bigger one, which supposedly housed the iconic angel statue prop from the memorable scene where Sam first sees Father Gregory’s spirit, but unfortunately that smaller building was closed due to painting renovations. Slightly disappointed about that, but satisfied that we at least got to see inside of the main cathedral, we stood outside for a little while longer and took pictures of the hotel, the fountain outside of it, and various nearby places and things of interest. We then made a quick stop at our room before returning to the Q&A room around a bit before 3:30. An auction for various merchandise and the huge banners on the walls was still going on, so we sat down in the Gold section with Amy and crew for the time instead of going back to our own seats. We had brought our drawings down with us after numerous requests, so a large amount of that time was spent showing those to various people and receiving lots of compliments, which we of course appreciated. Then we returned to our Row P seats for the next Q&A…which actually consisted of three guests in one session.

The “Ladies of Supernatural”, as they were called, were made up of Alona Tal, Julie McNiven, and Traci Dinwiddie, who played characters hunter Jo Harvelle, conflicted angel Anna Milton, and late psychic Pamela Barnes, respectively. I commented that it looked like some sort of hair commercial when they first came out, LOL…they have very similar hairstyles – medium-long length, slightly wavy – but Alona’s hair is blonde, Julie’s is red, and Traci’s is dark brown, LOL. And they made an interesting combination onstage not only in looks, but also in personality…an interesting and majorly fun one. Traci, much like her character Pamela, was definitely quite the flirt, and dressed like one too, LOL. Quite a few of her comments called for what we over on the website plurk.com, call ‘the lascivious grin smiley’, LOL, and it was pretty hilarious, especially because it recalled Pamela so much. She’s another character that a lot of fans were sad to see go, and again, I agree. Pamela had what was probably one of my favorite lines of Season 4, about Sam’s rear end being so perky that “you could bounce a nickel off that thing”, LOLOLOLOLOL. If I would’ve been thinking the day before, I would’ve definitely asked Traci if that was true in regards to Jared, LOL…though we’ve recently gotten further confirmation from Samantha Ferris on her website that it very likely is! LOL. It was too bad we just couldn’t raise our hands and ask questions or I would’ve just done that, but at this convention, there was a new rule that you had to write your question to a guest down in a form, and get said form into a box a few hours (at the latest) before that particular guest was set to appear. The questions were then drawn randomly from the box and read aloud by the stage announcer, with your only acknowledgement being to make yourself recognized if your name was called.

This method was sadly a bit impersonal and not as much fun, but it had its advantages, as proved by one question asked to Alona Tal that was…rude, to say the least. In the way that it put her on the spot, to answer a question that no one would really WANT to answer. And I have no idea why it was even asked to begin with because filtering the questions was the whole point of that new rule! But she handled it well, turning it into humor instead of giving an answer as morbid as the question itself. She too, invoked her character Jo in a few mannerisms, and I feel bad for her, being that Jo was at first poorly written in the eyes of many, and therefore at first poorly received. It didn’t do Alona justice and I think, from some of the things she says, that she still feels the sting of that, though she admirably never takes it out on the fans…she’s still coming to these conventions, after all, and has been a very good sport at all of them. I was glad to see her getting a lot of questions (except for that rude one!) and a nice amount of attention…interest shown in her, in what could be next for the character of Jo – who has gotten a much better reception ever since they dropped the silly, forced ‘romance’ between her and Dean – and in what was next with her acting career. The same can be said for Julie, who’s angel-character Anna didn’t immediately fall into some fans’ good graces either, myself included, admittedly. But ever since seeing Julie first at the March EyeCon and again at this con, my stance on that has changed. I’m still hoping that the writers can make a little more meaningful use of Anna than has been so far, but whether they do or not, I’m fine with continuing to see Julie McNiven in the show. Following in the footsteps of the other two ladies she shared the stage with, Julie called to mind her character…she was the angel between the three of them, but like Anna, she didn’t always stay entirely innocent! LOL. She also got a fair amount of questions concerning what may be in store for her character, and what’s in store for her as an actress, with quite a few of the latter having to do with her recurring role in the TV series Mad Men. The three ladies’ individual demeanors, plus the dynamic they had together even though the only solid thing they had in common between them was Supernatural, made the aptly named “Ladies of Supernatural” one enjoyable and entertaining panel!

After it was over, we had another long break before we came back to get autographs, but luckily Beth and I were presented with a great opportunity to kill time during it. We had been trying to get online the previous day in order to check in at Plurk, LOL, but the community computers all had either been down or been in use when we’d checked, and it was the same situation Friday afternoon. But we had the good fortune to run into a girl who’d been part of the gang that had went on the set excursion Thursday night with us…and she had access to the private club suite parts of the hotel. I apologize profusely right now in advance, because for the life of me I cannot remember her name right now…my mind has completely blanked on it, and I feel bad about that because she did us a very kind favor! In this fancier part of the hotel, there was another computer room that could only be accessed by those staying in that section…she let us into that, and we were finally able to Plurk! After we were done doing that, the three of us went to another room in the club suite area where there was a buffet of free finger-foods (fruit, crackers, dip, etc) laid out…and thank goodness, because we were hungry! LOL. I gathered myself a pretty generous amount of pieces of cheese and crackers to go with them, in hopes to tide myself over until dinner. We then left the suite floors after thanking our kind hostess/tour guide, and returned to the room to freshen up a bit and rest.

Then it was time to head back down to the main theatre to get ready for autographs – Traci and Julie on one end of the room, Alona, Gabe, and Aldis Hodge on the other, behind the curtain. I was still nibbling on my cheese and crackers, LOL, as we chatted with various people, Amy and Jenna, Charissa, the girl we were sitting beside of in Row P, and a few others. As we learned, it took quite a long time to get to Row P! LOL. The guests behind the curtain were the first stop, with Aldis at the first table. He was very cool, I told him that even though I pretty much hated his character, the literal backstabber Jake, for what he did to Sam in All Hell Breaks Loose 1, I still loved him! LOL. He got a kick out of that, being the easygoing guy that he is, and signed the 8X10 of him I had purchased. Next was Alona, whom I told it was great to see again (I’d seen her before at EyeCon) and that I was looking forward to seeing Jo return in Season 5. She smiled and thanked me and signed the 11X14 mini-version of the convention banner I’d also purchased (I already had a signed 8X10 of her from EyeCon) under her character’s picture, and she has a very cool signature…signs her name not only in English but also in Hebrew, very interesting and unique. And last, but definitely not least, there was Gabe. Beth and I had already gotten quite a few autographs from him, as he was a staple of the EyeCon convention, so we wanted to get him to do something different with this signature. He didn’t disappoint. Beth brought up the icon from his movie “Skills Like This” which is a head with sunglasses and a huge Afro, or, as Gabe calls it, the ‘Jew-fro’, LOLOLOLOL, and wondered if he could draw that underneath his/Andy’s picture on the convention poster. Well, he took it a HILARIOUS step further, and instead drew the ‘fro and the sunglasses not underneath his picture, but ON his picture, LOLOLOLOLOLOL. He did it for both of us, so now we know what Andy would look like in sunglasses and a ‘fro, LOLOL. And it was clear that Gabe got as big a kick out of doing that as we do every time we look at it! LOL. Hysterical and so much fun.

I then got in line for Traci and Julie’s table, for which the line was thankfully not as long since they signed onto the convention late and their autographs weren’t included in the purchase of the Gold or Silver tickets. Recalling the question I wished I would’ve been able to ask Traci during the Q&A, I asked her when it was my turn to get her autograph, mentioning that I had been sad to see her character Pamela go and that she’d had one of my favorite lines of Season 4, LOL, and BTW…was it true? Her answer – an emphatic “YES”, that you really CAN bounce a nickel off of Jared’s derriere, LOLOLOL. I giggled and told her that Samantha Ferris had said something similar on her website, that Jared had THE tightest butt muscles of any man she’s ever known or seen. Traci’s response was a laugh and a hearty “Samantha is SO RIGHT.” LOLOLOLOL. I then got up to Julie’s table and told her it was nice seeing her again, and just like at EyeCon she was very nice, smiled and greeted me back. Then I walked back over to Beth and we were soon discussing with the rest of the gang what to do for dinner. While the majority of them ended up going a little too expensive for our tastes, she and I, along with Charissa, decided to do pizza that night. We asked the desk receptionist for some recommendations on good nearby pizza places, and he told us about a small restaurant that was only a few blocks down the street called Pacific Pizza Kitchen…or at least I think that’s what it was called. I know it had the word, ‘Pacific’ in it, at least! LOL. It was a nice little place, the food was good and not too pricey, and we had a pretty cute waiter I thought, LOL. Always helps! ;-)

We spent about an hour there, then we headed up to our room for a bit before making our way down to the last event of the evening that we had access to, which was a ‘surprise’ karaoke party. This was Creation’s consolation gift to those of us who got screwed over on the Supernatural set tour/visit that was supposed to happen the following day, but, as we found out mere weeks before the convention, was NOT going to happen after all. From what we were told, Creation came up with this idea and automatically assumed they would get permission from the Supernatural set to bring tour buses full of fans and have them shown around at intervals throughout Saturday morning. Well, you know what they say about assuming…and Creation assumed wrong. Saturday was apparently set to be a very busy filming day, and the request, when they finally actually brought it up to the set people, was denied. And unfortunately, the tickets for the set visit had been on sale long before this, with several people having bought one at a high price of 349 dollars, Beth and myself included. Excitement and anticipation was EXTREMELY high for this event, so when it was announced that it was cancelled, or more accurately, never even got off the ground to begin with, disappointment and frustration amongst those of us who had bought tickets was also just as high, as you can imagine. Plus, for me it brought back bad echoes of the third EyeCon, not only the false advertising that occurred with Jared’s non-appearance, but also what occurred with Misha Collins’ cancellation. Long story short, it was announced at EyeCon late Saturday that Misha had had to cancel his appearance due to filming, but according to a couple of handlers we talked to, the EyeCon staff actually were informed of this Friday night, which wouldn’t have been anything bad…had they not continued to sell Misha photo ops and autograph tickets come Saturday morning and afternoon. Not good form, not at all… BUT, the one thing I will say about Creation that I absolutely will not and CANNOT say about EyeCon, is that they refunded our money quickly. So that was appreciated, at least. I of course, have to be honest here, though – this karaoke party didn’t even come close to making up for what would have been the sheer awesomeness of a crew-guided Supernatural set tour and visit, but then, few things would, you understand.

Otherwise, it was a pretty fun time. Beth and I hung out with the usual crowd – Amy, Jenna, Charissa, and others, and chatted above the loud music when we could. One thing that wasn’t so much fun was the tiny size of the room they decided to hold the event in…we were all crammed into that room like sardines, practically nowhere to move, and whenever we weren’t able to squirm our way toward the ‘stage’ of the room, or had been up there and were somehow gradually pushed back, it was pretty hard to see. Not that there was much of anything to see at first – fans dancing (who really can’t dance) and singing karaoke…not all that exciting. LOL. The only participant we were really interested in seeing was our very own Mary aka “BardicVoice”, who did a fun performance of Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit”, a song used in the Supernatural episode Hunted. And there were of course also a few other show favorites done by fans, including the consummate Supernatural song of all time, “Carry On Wayward Son”, which everyone naturally sang along to. But then it DID get pretty interesting and much more fun…because out came the celebrities! Traci, Julie, Alona, Gabe, and Aldis, squeezing in as best they could to come hang out with the fans a bit. Now of course, once the stars arrived, it was pretty much impossible to get over to where they were if you happened to be on the wrong side of the room, which we were, LOL, so we didn’t get to talk them while in there…but we did get to see them and (those who had half-decent cameras!) got to take pictures of them, and also? We got to hear some of them sing! LOL. All three ladies did at least one song, and Traci did more than one, including a Patsy Cline song as she is set to play the singer in an upcoming film, and they were all three pretty good! Gabe also tried his hand – or his voice, rather – at it, and it was quite amusing because he had to keep looking back at the words on the screen, LOL, but once again, he was just so adorable! Aldis apparently was just tagging along to chat it up with fans…can’t blame him there! LOL. I may have had the guts to get up in front of my church and make fun of myself in our “American Idol” skit during this year’s Vacation Bible School, but I sure as heck didn’t have the guts to get up in front of a room full of mostly strangers and a few celebrities and do it! LOL.

After the stars left, the action predictably died down, and with that, how tired we all were really started to set in, LOL. So Beth and I decided to call it a night after watching a few more fans sing, getting to bed thankfully a little earlier than the night before, and conking out pretty quick. And this was a good thing…as we had an even busier schedule awaiting us for Saturday! -o-

Coming tomorrow: Part Three, covering Day Two of the convention, Saturday, August 29^th.

Note: Some content and references contained within this blog is/are likely only understandable if you are a SnOb (Supernatural Obesessive) formerly of the website tvguide.com and the site’s now defunct Community Blogs, and presently of the website plurk.com…anyone who doesn’t fall into this category though and happens across this blog, please don’t let this deter you from reading! Feel free to ask questions even, if you like. :-)


Part One: "The Road to SQUEE!"
 

It started sometime in April of 2009, if I remember correctly.

That was when my good friend Beth, aka “ShutterBugs”, aka “PadaPuppy”, first proposed to me over the phone the possibility of going to the 2009 Supernatural convention held in Vancouver, BC Canada, and my first reaction to it…was to burst out laughing. Why? Because, come on, it’s Vancouver! Vancouver, which, first off, is up near freaking Seattle, Washington, when I haven’t been any further out West than Kentucky! Vancouver – the very city that our show films in, in other words…a city that I’d only ever dreamed of getting to visit, never expected to visit! But despite that rather discouraging reaction, Beth soldiered on, informing me that it was indeed possible. How? Well, for one thing, her dear old dad – and I mean that term of affection just as that, affection – had accumulated quite a few free flight miles over the years - enough, she informed me, to pull off the Vancouver trip, there and back. Generous soul that he is, he was happy to give them to us since he wasn’t going to use them anyway, and from the way it sounded, he and her mom wanted Beth and I to be able to go on this trip. Well, one pair of parents on board is all well and good, but mine were going to be a much harder challenge.

Or so I thought.

Okay, so in hindsight, maybe I should’ve given them a little more credit than that. I mean, back in early 2008 I was all ready to do battle with them for my first ever Supernatural convention, EyeCon, held April 4-6. Because you see, my LLS (long-lost sister), aka “Pengy” and I had some drawings to give Jared of his dogs…she was doing Harley and I was doing Sadie. Living in Orlando, where EyeCon was being held, Pengy’s being able to go was a sure thing, but mine? Surely not. Until one day I’d decided that I’d lamented my not being able to go long enough, and got up the guts to actually ask my parents about it. Yeah, it took some convincing, but to my surprise and utter joy, not nearly as much as I’d thought it would...and thank goodness, because the plans Pengy and I were coming up with to get my drawing to her on the sly were getting more and more outlandish! LOL. It also helped that a member of TVG—oops, I mean, TSTSNBN (traitorous ‘The Site That Shall Not Be Named’), that I’d been talking to for about a couple of years had coincidentally ended up being assigned the seat right beside of me. Beth and I met face-to-face for the first time that weekend, and had a blast. We got to meet Jared and our squee over that was endless. Pengy and I got to give him our dog drawings ONSTAGE and got big hugs in return! It was definitely the most amazing weekend ever…and then it was over. And I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a bit of sadness amongst the post-con squee, because I was sure my first convention was going to be my last. I’d imagine Beth thought the same.

But we were both wrong, because along came EyeCon for September 26-28 of 2008, announced very shortly after we got back from the April EyeCon. Beth wanted to go back, and being another one of those gals who lives in Orlando, she was practically already there. I wanted to go back, but being a gal who lives in West Virginia, I was not already there, LOL. However, when the convention dates rolled around…I was there. And it took even less convincing my parents than the first time. It was another absolutely amazing weekend – met Jared again, got another huge onstage hug after giving him another drawing of his dogs (both dogs together, this time), and experienced lots of other squee-worthy stuff. By the time the third EyeCon was announced for March of 2009, I was, I suppose what you would call, a convention-junkie, and so was Beth. We were ready to go for the March convention soon enough, excited to see Jared for a third time…and then we got bad news. Worse, we later found out that we got conned…no pun intended. Because it was announced that Jared, five days before the convention started, had had to cancel. Devastating enough, but after the convention was said and done (and not nearly as much fun as the other two), we learned that it was impossible for him to have cancelled because, as Jared himself confusedly revealed at another con when told he’d been missed at the last EyeCon…he’d never even been signed up in the first place. Turns out Kenny, the shady organizer of the event, had literally put the ‘con’ in EyeCon, through multiple lies and false advertising, the biggest example involving Jared’s appearance or lack thereof, and others involving Misha Collins’ appearance, which had to be cancelled due to filming. When Kenny’s dishonesty was eventually fully exposed, he petulantly declared Supernatural EyeCons to be a thing of the past. Beth and I really thought we had attended our last convention then.

But again, we were wrong. Because Beth’s dad had those free flight miles, and then, because my parents once more proved to be not as tough of a sell as I was sure they’d be. Like Beth’s parents, once everything was fully laid on the table, they wanted me to be able to go, and they did a lot to help provide me with the necessary resources, as did my grandmother (aka MawMaw) and Aunt Ellen. Thanks, family! :-D

So soon enough, we had our tickets for the Creation Vancouver convention. Gold had already sold out, so we bought Silver, along with a Jared photo op and a J2 photo op, and an extra Jared autograph for each of us. I had two drawings to bring this time, a charcoal portrait of Jared that I of course hadn’t gotten to have autographed at the March EyeCon, and the one I’d done for this convention, another charcoal portrait of him, close-up this time, from the same photo-shoot. I’d finished it just in time thanks to my new job, which allowed me five uninterrupted hours per weekday to work on it (since my only responsibility during the job is sitting there at the desk in the hospital’s fitness center and making sure people sign in, LOL), and was very pleased with how it turned out. I unfortunately didn’t even get to start, much less complete, the J2 drawing that I wanted to do, but it had been a busy past two months, and I was lucky enough to get the one drawing done! Working on it in the car on the way to Myrtle Beach, anyone? LOL.

Probably due to all this activity, the summer went by quickly, and before I knew it, it was Wednesday, August 26^th, and I was packed and ready to go, then sitting in Yeager Airport in Charleston soon after getting off work, waiting for the now-familiar flight from Charleston, WV to Charlotte, NC, and then Charlotte to Orlando, FL. The flights were smooth and quick; I arrived at Orlando International around 6:00PM, and Beth was waiting there to pick me up. We spent the evening at her house having macaroni and cheese for dinner (my favorite! LOL *is 12*) and making T-shirts to wear to the convention, T-shirts with our drawings of Jared on them, heehee. We tried to go to bed early, but didn’t quite succeed, LOL. Not such a good thing, since we had to get up VERY early to catch our first flight out to Dallas/Fort-Worth airport! We were sure though that we’d get some sleep on the plane…didn’t happen, LOL. But despite that, it was a pretty smooth flight and we landed in Dallas around 10:00 in the morning. 10:00 in the morning their time that is, Central Time. It was the first time I’d ever been out of the Eastern Time zone…pretty wild! Guess that’s what they call jet lag, though it wasn’t anything bad…just interesting. And a little confusing, when I talked to my parents back home, LOL. We took a very long shuttle ride – what a huge airport! – to get to our concourse (D), which at one point we thought they’d passed because it somehow went from C to E! But we got there, and when we did we ate breakfast; I had some Auntie Anne’s cinnamon/sugar pretzel sticks and they were pretty dang good, LOL. And milk, of course. Not long after we finished eating we were then boarding the plane to Vancouver, and I was full of squee, because I never thought I’d be on a plane to Vancouver! I also took a moment when we took off, to look at the land below and hold it in reverence…after all, Jared and Jensen were born and raised in this state! LOL.

The flight to Vancouver was long, but also pretty smooth, considering the length. We flew over the patchwork quilt-looking lands of Oklahoma and part of Kansas (I mentally waved down to the city of Lawrence, birthplace of Sam and Dean Winchester, LOL.), then started seeing some very different and truly awesome scenery when we entered Rocky Mountain territory. We flew over Colorado, Wyoming, and parts of Montana and Idaho, then on into Washington State, seeing notable landmarks below us such as Yellowstone Lake, Mount Rainier (actually, it was the people on the other side of the plane who saw that one), and a big snow-covered peak out our own window called Mount Baker. I was already fascinated enough just seeing the Rocky Mountains and other such ranges. Granted, mountains are definitely not an alien sight for me, seeing as how I was born and raised and still live in West Virginia, aka The Mountain State! LOL. Believe me, once you’re a couple of minutes away from landing at Yeager Airport, it looks like you’re about to meet the mountains here up close and personal since the airport is on top of a mountain…it’s actually quite amusing to hear the anxious reactions of those who’ve never landed at our tiny airport before, LOL. But those are the West Virginia mountains. These…were the Rocky Mountains. One of the main differences is right there in the name! Whereas mountains here are tree-covered and curvy, the Rockies are snow-covered and more jagged and pointy. And…they’re bigger. Taller, wider, more expansive, the whole shebang. In fact, some of West Virginia’s mountains could more accurately be deemed really big hills, LOL. But the Rockies are some major mountains, and really awesome to see from high above. Mount Baker was also an awesome sight, rising up from the clouds in all its white-capped glory. I kind of wondered if it was a volcano at first like Mount Rainier, but I don’t think it is. And I really didn’t have much time to ponder the matter, because shortly after Mount Baker had come into our view, it was announced that we were beginning our descent into Vancouver…and upon that announcement, something did erupt, but it wasn’t a volcano. It was my SQUEE!!!

In a matter of minutes, the city of Vancouver came into our sight, and what a beautiful, amazing city and sight it is! The city itself is massive and sprawling, skyscrapers clearly visible on both sides of the large body of water, Burrard Inlet, that splits it in two, long bridges spanning it, with the even larger English Bay visible further west. There were numerous boats out and about, many of them pleasure boats, many of them work boats containing lumber and other such cargo. Mount Baker was still distantly visible behind us, and all around us, there were other mountains, tall and wide and snow-capped. Between the bay and the inlet, the mountains, and the huge city itself, it was like nothing I’d ever seen before. And much like how it is at Yeager Airport with the mountains, it looked for a few seconds like we were about to land in the water instead of on a runway, but hit the runway we did, and I think at that moment I was literally squeaking with excitement, with a grin so wide it almost hurt, because we had just landed in VANCOUVER! We were there, the dream had come true! We walked through the decent-sized and beautifully decorated airport – it had lots of Native American art, a few simulated nature backdrops complete with trees, plant life, ponds, and stuffed animals, and coolest of all, a waterfall running parallel to a big staircase…really neat. We claimed our baggage without any trouble, and got through customs relatively quickly, then waited a bit outside and caught a cab to the Sheraton Wall Centre in downtown Vancouver. On the way, we passed through a neighborhood with large, gorgeous houses and tall shrubbery, and I couldn’t help but wonder if Jared and Jensen lived there. (Later we’d learn from some more knowledgeable con-goers that Jared’s house in fact overlooks the Pacific Ocean – and boy would I love to see it, BTW – so the answer to that was no!)

The first thing we noted upon arriving at the Sheraton Wall Centre on Burrard Street is that it is a tall building. VERY tall. There are actually two buildings, a North Tower and a South Tower. Our room was located on the 16^th floor in the North Tower, which was cool, because that tower was where all the convention activities would be taking place. Getting checked in was easy, and we found our room to be very nice – comfortable, clean, and well-furnished.  After unpacking a bit, first thing was first…we needed a nap! LOL. We took one that was about two hours long, woke up at around 5:00PM (Pacific Time), much more refreshed, and then decided to get in touch with our TSTSNBN/Plurk buddies that had also come to the convention – Amy aka “Metalligirl”, Charissa aka “Patronus”, and Jenna aka “Sarie”. I called Amy from the hotel phone – unfortunately my cell phone had no service this far West – and we arranged to meet with her down in the lobby and catch up to Charissa and Jenna, who had already gone out to search for more Supernatural filming location sites. When we did, the five of us ventured over to Hastings Street, where we spotted two locations that were used in the episode Nightshifter – the jewelry store where Dean posed as an FBI agent and flirted, and the bank where all the main action took place. Amy informed us that located further down Hastings Street was the Laundromat that had been used in the filming of The Monster at the End of This Book, which they had already gotten pictures of along with the manhole cover that was used for the episode Skin. But they chose not to go that far again, as Hastings Street was a notoriously dangerous area in the city, and we were fine with that. On the way back up the street, we joked with each other that people back home would be expecting pictures of landmarks and scenery and such, and instead they’d be getting pictures of Laundromats and manhole covers! ;-)

We stopped on the way to scouting somewhere to eat to look out at the Waterfront and also check out the iconic landmark of The Sails of Canada Place, an architectural structure overlooking Burrard Inlet that’s built to resemble the huge sails of a boat coming in. That was pretty cool and had a great view, and we were taking it in and continuing to ponder where to eat when Amy’s cell phone rang. We figured it was just another routine call and left her to it, snapping pictures (except for idiot me, who accidentally left her camera in the hotel room!) and taking in more scenery…until we started overhearing loud exclamations from Amy. Excited, shocked exclamations such as, “Oh my God!” and “Are you serious?” and, most intriguingly, “Where?! When?!” That’s when we knew something was up, and though my skeptical side said that there was no way it was what I thought it was, that we just wouldn’t get that lucky, the rest of me? KNEW what it was…just knew, deep down. And sure enough, Amy’s gleeful revelation came – we now had confirmation of where the show would be filming part of the upcoming Season 5 episode "Fallen Idols" that night. And getting food and sightseeing, as you can imagine, became forgotten concerns. We power-walked back to the hotel where we freshened up and met with other con-goers who would be joining us on the excursion, including Sandra aka “SJCCM”, and “immie_8”. The only option for food at that point was snacks, so we picked up some of those at the small gift shop located in the lobby and waited outside for those who were driving us to bring their rented cars around. It was Beth, Amy, Charissa and I in one car, with Jenna at the wheel, and the rest of the gang in another. We got in a lot of talking on the drive down, concerning various subjects from jobs and pets to, of course, convention talk and show/guy talk. And thanks to our passing through several Asian sections of the outskirts of Vancouver, and the peculiar, unwittingly hilarious names they often give their places of business, we engaged in a bit of gutter talk, too. It’s hard to avoid, as Amy said, when you a see a car place called “Mr. Lube” located right next to a restaurant called “Mr. Ho”! We actually ended up spending the rest of the drive discussing various badly named places and people, thanks to that! LOL.

After probably a bit over a half an hour in the car, laughing it up, we arrived at the filming site in the area of New Westminster, which consisted of what looked like a warehouse, a garage, and one other old, creepy-looking building. We had parked in a nearby lot and began the walk up, pausing, thinking, and then pushing our luck a little bit more each time, getting closer and closer to where we could see all the trucks and equipment set out. Looking to the left on down the street perpendicular to the one we were walking down, we could even make out trailers! And we looked to the right on up that same street, and we saw…her. Nope, not an actress, nope, not a crew member, but the third main character in the show herself…the Impala. There were collective gasps and sounds of multiple cameras being broken out and snapping shots (I remembered mine this time!), and best of all, we had already gotten permission to hang out for a while upon finally getting close enough to be noticed, thanks to a kind crew member. We weren’t allowed to actually walk up and touch the Impala of course, but we were allowed to ogle and take pictures and ask questions. She was our main focus until we heard the shout of “Cut!” and then the doors of the garage opened…the boys were supposedly in that garage. Our eyes were glued to the spot, waiting for one or both of them to emerge, and after a few minutes, one of them did. And I missed it! I don’t know where the heck I was looking - because I was still looking in the garage, I’m pretty sure! – and moreover, I don’t know how the heck I missed seeing a six-foot-four giant like Jared walking out, even if he only appeared for the few seconds it took for him to walk to and get in the car that pulled up right to the door to pick him up…but somehow, I did. I had to live vicariously for the moment through those squeeing around me, those who saw Jared smile at our group and then lean over once he got in the backseat and wave at us, and while that was still exciting…dang it I wish I could’ve seen it! LOL. Then we got quiet again while filming resumed, asked some more questions, took some more pictures of the Impala (sadly none of mine turned out, BTW…too dark, and too crappy of a camera! But, Beth did take my picture in front of it with her camera!), and talked to some more nice crew members. And then filming was cut again, the garage door opening back up…and then Jensen came out. Now him, thankfully I did see. He was noticeable even way back in the garage, oddly enough, because he had suspenders on! LOL. Plus, I guess unlike Jared with his super-long stride, he took a little more time to get to the car that was also waiting at the door for him. He too, smiled and waved at us. Wasn’t fast enough to snap a picture, but hey, I still saw it! Squee was rampant among us…we had been on a Supernatural set, and the boys had smiled and waved at us! :-D

We talked a little bit more to the crew after the boys were gone, and one of the men gave us some information that I find so unfortunate and sad, both for sane fans and for the boys themselves. According to this crew member, Jared and Jensen used to actually come out and talk to groups of fans like us that were watching them film, after they were done filming and before going to their trailers. That stopped when, after one such session, they came back to their trailers to find three crazy girls that had broken in waiting for them. He told us that the boys had been really shaken up by that, even to the point where Jared went through a period of having trouble falling asleep at night because of it, and we totally understood why they no longer came out to talk and got in those cars so quickly, even while we mentally cursed those stupid girls who had the gall to take advantage of them like that. Now of course, stories such as this can only be proven 100% true if they come from the mouths of Jared and Jensen themselves, but since this guy was a crew member and as such probably knows a little somethin’-somethin’ about set goings-on, I believe it. Because happily, while I fully believe Jared and Jensen are that generous and kind to have once talked to fans outside of the set, sadly, I also fully believe that some so-called ‘fans’ are crazy and awful enough to have done something like break into their trailers and wait for them. And the latter, I find a really big shame.

After some last rounds of picture-taking and question-asking, we finally left the set as the action died down and cleanup began. We were still post-excursion excited and happy and giggly on the drive back of course, but we are also starting to tire out and, most of all? We. Were. STARVING. And after passing Asian restaurant after Asian restaurant – no way were we eating at Mr. Ho’s! – and closed restaurant after closed restaurant since it was well past 10:00PM, we decided that we should just get back to the hotel and go from there. It was nearing midnight when we got back, but we were informed by the desk receptionist that thankfully, there was a place nearby that stayed open late – a restaurant just down the street called Joey’s. It was a little expensive, but pretty good, and hey…it was food! LOL. I had a burger and fries, enough to quell my growling stomach for the night. We talked as we ate, so we were there for probably about an hour, and then it was finally off to bed, at close to 2:00 in the morning! LOL. But it was worth it, we’d definitely had a full and exciting day…and the convention hadn’t even officially started yet! -o-

Coming tomorrow: Part 2, covering the first day of the convention, Friday, August 28^th.