Ice Ice Baby!... Its Polar Plunge time!

Seems I forgot to mention my first fund raiser of the year. Im taking to the icy waters again this year for the Nebraska Special Olympics. Be sure to check out and donate to My Polar Plunge page!  I am half way to my goal of $500.  Please consider a donation no matter how small.  Every Little bit helps.

Saturday, 2-16-13, Comes see me and other Star Wars Characters take the plunge into the icy waters of Cunningham Lake, located at 8660 lake Cunningham Road in Omaha! Individual Plunges will start at 11 am and we will be taking photos from 9:30 to 10:30.  Hope to see you there!

Here are some photos from last years plunge.

Celebrity Sighting - AMC's The Walking Dead Zombies

More info at Their Facebook page or Their Web Site.

After Action Report: ACME mini Star Wars Con 6-30-12

Things have been crazy busy around here and I havent had much time for blogging.  I'm going to try and catch everyone up on whats been happening soon.  Let me start with an after action report from the ACME comics Mini Star Wars Convention. Heres some photos with a quick synopsis of the event!  

 Shoot A Trooper was a huge success!

Kids enjoyed The Thermal Detonator Rancor Toss 

 Face Painting was very popular

 Star Wars Trivia tested the knowledge of all the guests

 Kids enjoyed Coloring and were able to get some temporary tatoo's

 We were doing everything for Make-A-Wish!  We raised a little over $360 in the day.  Not to bad considering tickets were 25 cents a piece! 

R2-D2 and R2-TD were on hand 

 Richard LeParmentier - Admiral Motti from the original Star Wars was on signing 

autographs through the day.

 The 501st, Rebel Legion and R2-Builders gave lots of demonstrations through the day. 

The group of volunteers who made the day a smashing success! 

Flashback Friday - ACME Comics Mini Star Wars Con 6-2010

Since we are 22 days away from ACME Comic and Collectibles Star Wars Mini Con where RICHARD LePARMENTIER will be on hand. I thought I'd flash back a few years to the last Star Wars Mini Con I attended also at ACME with DANIEL LOGAN.

TD Stands Guard waiting for the doors to open.

Meeting up With Daniel Logan - Young Boba Fett

Lord Vader was on hand

Kids got to get their face painted

Games, prizes and demonstration filled the parking lot all day.

Flashback Friday - CATCH UP TIME from the last few events

Seems I have been a bit lazy with my blog posts lately. April 26th was the last one and that was when I reported on Huey Lewis and the News of the concert.... (See what I did there... LOL! I crack myself up). I also haven't done a Flashback Friday in forever. This is not as far back as I normally go but still fitting.

Its been a busy few weeks. So busy, I haven't blogged. Meant to a few times but just didnt happen. Lets see... we had Star Wars night with Omaha Royals err Storm Chasers, Free Comic Book Day, The Avengers, and a tiny little bit of R2 work.


May the 4th Be with You - Star Wars Day with the Omaha Storm Chasers. I brushed off the RFT costume and headed out to the Ball Park. After all, How often do you get to go on the field before a baseball game and help Darth Vader throw out the first pitch? I wasn't missing it this year. The troop was fun and relaxed. We got there, threw out the first pitch and than posed for pictures. Pretty relaxed night and always lots of fun. Unfortunately, R2-TD didnt make the trip. He's still down and out getting his system over haul, but more of that in a bit.

Most of the Group who made it out

The Force is strong with this one

Vader always draws the biggest crowd

Luke and Vader play a friendly game of Catch

Free Comic Book Day. I hit 2 of the shops in town and joined in the fun. First I swung by Legend Comics and Coffee to grab my free comic books, check out the sale and to see how the fund raiser for Make-A-Wish Nebraska is going. The store raffled off a issue of Amazing Fantasy 15 which was the very first issue to have Spider Man in it. They also had a dunk tank set up where the you could dunk one of the owners of the store as well as various other happens around the store.

The store was buzzing with excitement of the day

People loading up on the Free Comics

Looks like Dave is about to get wet!

The Lucky winner of the Grand prize for the Nebraska Make a Wish Raffle

I meet up with Beau and Hannah at Legends than we headed out for Lunch after we snagged our free comics.

Lunch with Beau and Hannah

After Lunch it was time to check out Krypton. Adam Baldwin came to town and it was my chance to meet him. I also hung around at the 501st / Rebel legion table for a bit. It was fun to hang out and chat with a few folks I hadn't seen in about a year.

By far the largest crowd I have seen come out to Free Comic Book Day.  The line on the Right is for Free Comics, The line of the left is to Meet Adam Baldwin.

Thumbs up from Adam Baldwin

Finally meeting another of my Big Damn Heroes!  

Local artist Christina Musgrave works on a sketch 

I got to sneak in THE AVENGERS movie. Without giving anything thing away, I'll say it was AWESOME! I've seen it 3 times in 2 weeks. I felt it had everythign a movie needed. It had the right amount of story to action with a bit of comedy to keep things fresh. Can't wait to see what more they do with the story.

Last little thing in there was a build day / armor party with the local 501st. I'm not currently working on any costumes so I worked a little bit on R2. First we trouble shot the Think Geek T-short sound system. Still working on getting that going again. Than I started making R2's feet.

Im trying something different here. Normally a lot of the guys use styrene but it seems to break easy since thats a high impact area when you run into something. Keeping that in mind, I looked for something a little cheaper and less damaging. I decided to give foam board a try. This was a first attempt, Now I know I can get it fairly close to looking the way it should, I can start with a more accurate and detailed foot. More to come on that as I get it done.

Now I have issues....

So I have to confess something. I have never bought a comic book for myself until today. Sure, I've bought a book here and there but it was always because either because I could turn it for a profit quickly or I was meeting one of the creators and I could have it signed to again, turn it for a profit quickly. I don't recall ever buying one to read. The only ones I had read, were the ones I picked up at Free Comic Book day over the last several years.

Anyways, a few weeks ago, I was given a gift card to Legend Comics and Coffee. I've been to the shop several times since it had opened but usually it was for business purposes. So on a whim, after getting their e-mail stating Avengers vs X-men 0 was on sale today half off, I thought maybe I'd check it out. They have recently moved into a freshly remodeled store and I had yet to visit and check it out. Also, I'd seen the buzz around the release off issue #1 next week all over. Several stores are having release parties and huge sales just for this issue coming out. I was to guess it's a big deal... So I jumped on the bandwagon. While in the neighborhood of the comic shop today, I swung by and picked up my copy of issue 0. It been a fun read so far. I can see myself getting into comics very easily but had fought the urge for a long time.

So what took long? Why get in now? It just feels right. See, I grew up a small Nebraska town. When I say small, I mean really small. Worms NE... population 19 was my home. You can guess we didnt have a comic store. The only public places in town was the local church and the local bar. The town I went to high school in, Palmer NE, wasn't much better at 500 people. The closest place to get a comic was in Grand Island NE but you had to get lucky and find them at a grocery store or gas station. I'm not aware of a comic shop in town even today. You'd have to drive to Kearney NE to find a decent shop in the area.

Anywho, when I went to college in Wayne NE, again... not comic shop. needless to say I wasn't into sci-fi much than either. That did change somewhere around my junior year. The original Star Wars Trilogy was re-released and the local Pizza Hut was given out coupons for micro machines at Toys-R-US. Sure, we had to drive to Sioux City to use them them, but it sparked an interest in sci-fi for me again which I hadn't had since my child hood. Between that and a Fraternity brother giving me Timothy Zahn's 'Thrawn Trilogy' (thanks Frater Jamison!) to read one day when I was bored, I was starting to get back into the Galaxy far far away I had known so fondly as a child.

After college, I moved to Lincoln NE where I read every Star Wars book I could get my hands on minus the comics. I started collecting the toys and soon autographs as the prequels started to come out. Comics still never crossed my mind. I couldn't even tell you if Lincoln has a comic book store. In fact, anything outside of Star Wars didn't cross my mind. It wasn't until I moved to Omaha, and even at that, many years after I moved to Omaha, did I begin to expand my sci-fi world. Still, rarely even a visit to a comic shop. I only knew one shop and their prices were so marked up past normal retail on the stuff I would buy, I refused to shop there regularly. I know the guys who buy the toys for the shop as I would see them in the toy isles. We all jockeyed to get the new hottest toys and that may of even pushed me farther from comics. Who knows. It just didn't interest me.

You would think as I talk about going to Free Comic book Day and one of the larger comic book convention in the area, Planet Comicon... Comics would of been a natural fit for me. But, I didn't go to those things for the comics. I went for autographs, costuming and to see friends I've met over the years. Sometimes, thats the only time I get to see some of those friends. Comics were far from my mind. Still, something clicked recently and made wonder what I'm missing. Could comics fill a void? We'll see. Either way.... it should be fun getting into them. At least I hope it will be... :)

Planet Comicon 2012 re-cap

Just getting home from Planet Comicon. What a rush! The place was PACKED full of awesomeness. When I say packed... I mean packed!

We arrived at the show a little later than normal. Doors opened at 10 and usually I'm there by 8 helping set up and getting ready for the show. This year, we ran behind and came in about 11:30. I thought, not a big deal. In years past, the main crowd would be in and we could walk right in. Not the case this year. At 11:30, there was still a line severial hundred deep waiting to get tickets and get in. Thank goodness, said line didnt apply to people who pre-reg so we got to walk right past all those people and get in. R2-TD didnt make the trip this year and I'm kinda glad he didnt . It was wall to wall people. I started the show by working our way to the autograph area. Once there I got a few Jake Llyod and Adrienne Wilkinson autographs for a few friends.

Than we jumped on over to the Billy Dee Williams line which had just started to form. We were maybe 30 people back from the front and were told he would be signing from 1:30 to 4 pm. The time, Noon. So wait we do. Finally, Billy Dee comes in at 1pm. he does a photo op first and started signing about 1:15.

After, we met Billy Dee, we left for a bit for Lunch. We took our time and enjoyed the 82 degree weather unheard of for Kansas in March. We than went back to find a much less crowded show. It was still hopping, by you could actually move now. I took the opportunity to shop and catch some costumes.

Overall, the show was great. I thought it was well run and the staff did a great job getting lines to move and making sure people knew where to go. The show utilized its space much better this year than in years past. I wouldn't be surprised if they move to a bigger venue next year. I had heard the attendance double to tripled last year judging by the parking lot. In fact, The biggest thing that sucked was parking. You had to walk, most likely around the building to get in.

While writing this, this popped up in my timeline on Facebook. The video isnt mine but it shows the convention much better than I explain. :)