The Geekend That Was, 9/2

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Thank heaven for long weekends. Friday passed in a haze of not-as-much-catch-up-sleep-as-I-would-have-liked, with liberal doses of I-am-relaxing-and-getting-nothing-whatsoever-done. But at least there was no work!

We had planned to go to DragonCon either Saturday or Sunday, but Michael got called in to do sound, so that blew both days right out of the water. We did go to the parade before running to rehearsal. I immediately scored a shot with a Spartan.

 

After rehearsal, we headed back to wander around the four hotel lobbies and see all the awesome costumes up close. Unfortunately, they made a change this year, and you could only get in the hotel lobbies if you had a pass. BOO!! So although I have literally hundreds of pictures from the parade (auto-advance FTW!) I only have a few closeups (we accidentally snuck past security before we realized there was any). Though one of them is me in a Captain America sandwich...

Saturday evening we went for a glass-making experience. This is one of the best Groupons I've gotten! Now, when I signed up for this "studio" glass-making experience, I had a certain picture in my head. "Studio" conjured up visions of us sitting at stylish heavy wood tables, on high stools, with our cute little Bunsen burner things in front of us, goggles on, as we worked with teensy glass blobs. You know, like at the glass blowers' shop at Disney.

I was not prepared for a 2,000 degree F (1100 C) furnace and 6 foot (2 meter) blow pipes! But BOY, was it fun! I'll have to do a full post on this once we get our pieces back (this weekend), but here are a couple teaser pictures...

Me waiting to make glass into a flower...I love the look on my face...like, "Wait 'til I get my tongs on you!" (They're actually GIANT tweezers.)

 

(In the background you can see the glowing reheating furnace, which is teeny compared to the furnace housing the molten glass.)

And here's the instructor helping me form my paperweight into something resembling a globe shape.

 

Sunday passed in a haze of not being over my fatigue, and Monday was pretty well devoted to trying to catch up on everything I'd let go for the past two weeks. I still haven't gotten to all the email, though....

JiffNotes
Long weekend still wasn't long enough. I did, however, manage to not get horribly burned or captured by aliens. So, that's something.