The Big LA Catch Up Post
Fresh when it gets here from
Julie Barrett
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Dang it, I just realized I hadn't really recapped my trip out to LA for The Leap Back 2009.
Thursday I was up at dark thirty to make the trek to the airport. Missed the exit and looped around a couple of times, nearly getting flattened by a pickup truck whose driver thought nothing of going 60 on the shoulder. Yield to oncoming traffic? What's that? Security was a breeze, which meant I had over an hour to wait for boarding. I did buy a book for the flight, but couldn't bring myself to buy it at the FOX News store. *shudder*
In a seat next to Overscented Guy Whose Personal Space Included My Face. He moved once the plane took off - to the seat directly in front of me, whereupon he spent the rest of the flight with his seat all the way back, banging my knees every time he changed position with a violence that might have gotten him arrested on the ground. Sigh.
I hate flying.
I made it on time, though, and got settled into my room, then met fellow scribe Mindy Peterman for the trip down to Hollywood Blvd., which is a worse tourist trap than ever. Holy crap, it was bad.
Of course, I had to pay my homage to Blazing Saddles:
Then we went bowling:
Friday was the first day of the convention. Deborah Pratt had the first slot. That evening was the first party, with the QL book authors as guests of honor. That was cool.
Saturday was a whirlwind busy day. We had a good panel, during which I mentioned that I could be goaded into taking up the unfinished QL novel. Then we signed for close to three hours, which just about killed the convention day, but it was fun. I nearly lost my voice from all the talking.
The Enterprise Blues Band played at Saturday night's party. I've blogged about that already.
Sunday. Wow! As I mentioned before, Scott Bakula sang "Somewhere in the Night" for the crowd. (For those unfamiliar with his career, he had a long background in musical theatre before his move to television, and still does some stage work. The man can sing.) Then he and his publicist Jay Schwartz faced off for a QL trivia contest. Jay showed up ready to go. Note the smaller book in his left hand:
And what does Ziggy say?
Paul made this handlink for Jay back in 1994, and so it was cool to see that it was still working.
Then series creator Don Bellisario arrived, and Dean Stockwell called in from New Mexico for a phone conversation. Clearly, he can still crack Scott Bakula up:
Then Scott and Don answered questions from the audience.
After the con shut down I had dinner with emcee Marc B. Lee and many fans. Then a bunch of us headed to the bar for more conversation.
I headed back on Monday with Melissa. We found out the day before we left that we were on the same flight, but couldn't get seats together. Sigh. She was a lot of fun to be around.
That's essentially it. I have a Flickr set with all of the photos.
Tags: Leap Back 2009
Filed under: Leap Back 2009 Pictures
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