I'm Going:
For a few months now, I've been going back and forth on San Diego. When I realized that we were going to sell the house and that meant actually having the money to attend San Diego without dipping into savings as usual, it was way past time to find a hotel room. When I asked around, most of my friends that I hang out with weren't going, so I didn't have anyone who I could hang around with for most of the weekend. This, plus my general disinterest in a lot of the mainstream comics right now, led me to decide that, much as I feared I might regret it, I thought I'd skip San Diego for the first time in eight years.

Little things have been chipping away at me ever since. Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse announcing on the Lost podcast that they were going to have a big Lost panel in San Diego. Finding out they're going to show the Heroes pilot in San Diego. Hearing about cool sketchbooks from guys like Steve Rude, or a new book release (and book release party) from Steve Lafler. And so I kept checking the hotel site for the Con, and kept coming up empty. Nobody had Wednesday - Saturday. I called a couple hotels about waiting lists, and the answers I got weren't optimistic. I had no idea what the trolley/bus routes were like, so I couldn't look too far afield for alternate hotels.

I had pretty much decided, as of a couple days ago, that I wasn't going. I'll save the money, I figured, for the massive flow of books coming out in July, feel less guilty spending that money for a while. And then. My pro registration packet came in the mail, reminding me that I was pretty much registered and good to go. Final straw, I checked one more time, and found that the Holiday Inn on the Bay (my hotel of choice) had Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday free. No Friday. So... I decided to gamble. I booked those nights, and booked my flight, and started making dinner and other friendly meet-up arrangements. I have nowhere to stay on Friday, but I'm hoping for one of three things:

1) Ideally, the Holiday Inn will have a room open up and I can just extend my stay there

2) Some kind soul will let me split a room with them on Friday night in exchange for me chipping on the room rate for the night

3) Worst case, I grab my bags and a taxi a little deeper into San Diego and get a room at a Motel 6 or something several miles away, then catch another cab back early Saturday morning. Sounds like a giant pain in the ass, but I've decided it's worth it.

So I guess I'll see some of you in San Diego. If you've got any party invites, bar drink-ups, feel like grabbing dinner or inviting me in to an already-established group dinners, please drop me a line. This is the first time I'm in San Diego without roommates at all, and I do have a slight fear that I'm going to wind up eating dinner alone most nights. Which I can handle, especially as it still means good seafood, but since the after-Con discussions and casual chats are a big part of San Diego for me, I'm hoping won't be the case.