SDCC 2010

Unlike most people I read about on Twitter and such, I don't get invited to parties or what have you during San Diego's Comic-Con. This is largely because I'm just one of those regular guys who doesn't know anyone in the media or what have you. Instead, I like to make my own fun. All the pictures I took this year turned out pretty great, so I've included a number of them in this post.

Items of note excluding the panels and exhibit hall themselves included a fantastic Italian

restaurant where they toss your pasta table service IN A PECORINO CHEESE BOWL.

Let that sink in. I watched the waiter put the pasta in the hollowed out cheese wheel, then scraped off a bit of the cheese, then added the basil, then finally the olive oil. And he tossed the mixture around in the bowl. It was nuts. But it was also delicious. I also had a great pinot noir with it too.

I also did the Machete event where I got served a taco from Danny Trejo. This is the same guy I remember from Dusk til Dawn. It was totally bad ass. And I got free beer

too. That Tecate was so much better than Corona. While I went this year with a good friend, next year I'll be going alone and still looking forward to it.

Even if I don't ever get that much sleep (I think 6 hours was the maximum amount I got during the five days I was in San Diego). Even on my own I really don't think I'd be upset because there is always something to do in San Diego.

Hell, I even went to see Patton Oswalt do a set at the House of Blues on Saturday too. Like I said, I make my own fun. And I am always up for other people's fun too. If you want to meet, have a beer or discuss the day's events (even though I admit the size of Hall H scares the heebiejeebies out of me), I am available.

Last year I was with my brother and his family; this included my brother, his wife and their two children. This year I spent my money on a non SDCC-affiliated hotel that used to be the YMCA. It was nothing to write home about, but it was $99 a night, it had a comfortable bed, a closet and a television. That's all I really needed.

Next time, however, I think I'm going to try my luck through SDCC and get a room at the Bristol or Sofia. They looked awfully funky when I walked past them in the morning.

The panels ran from absolutely fantastic to boring and dreadful. I'm not a huge fan of Seth MacFarlane, so most of his panels were dreadfully boring. On the other hand, Big Bang Theory, True Blood and Chuck had fantastic panels. I'll admit to having somehow amassed a number of photos of Deborah Ann Woll and Blair Brown (from Fringe) during their respective panels.

I even managed to hit the exhibit hall on Thursday for a longer period than I did last year. I seemed to figure out that if I did a run-through of the exhibit hall on one day, I wouldn't have to keep coming back to see what I missed.

Coming back to work this morning wasn't that bad even though I don't think I was running at 100% at the time. Anyways, I hope you like the photos, I'm rather happy with my Canon G10.

Really, the last image says it all: NERD.

Pictures of Better Times in India

So there are actual bright spots in my trip to India: seeing the Lotus Temple, going to the Qutb Minar complex in Delhi, the train ride to and from Varanasi and my time spent with the Thai Monks of the Chinese Buddhist Temple in Sarnath. The picture is yours truly with the Mausoleum of Iltumish in the Qutb Minar complex in the background.

Want to know how to get pictures taken of yourself when you're on your own? Ask people with cameras of their own to take a picture of you using your own camera. Guaranteed they won't run away with your camera.

When there are pictures of me in them, I don't look great. Really, if you think I'm wrong, you should see the picture on my Nexus pass. Oh my god. It's seriously bad, like Sloth from The Goonies bad. However, this picture isn't that bad. The story behind this picture is that there were two old aunties that made the mausoleum their own (food, water, backpacks were every where) and they asked if they could take my picture. They took a few, including one in front of the Tomb of Iltumish.

Here's a picture of the actual minar in 'Qutb Minar'. The minaret is huge. I mean, enormous. It's amazing they were able to build it as high as they did back in 1193. I can't tell you how many photos I took of this minaret. I mean, I took shots of it at every angle you could imagine. I'd add all of them if I could, but this one here is probably one of the better shots I took that included the entire minaret with an idea of the sheer scale of it. And before Alai-uddin died, he was going to build a minaret twice as big. You can still see its beginning stage in another part of the complex.

I'll add just one more picture of the Qutb Minar complex. It's another shot of the minaret, but, if I do say so myself, it's one of my favourite shots of it. I took about ten different angles from that spot alone, and I could never get away from it looking crooked.

I took a lot of pictures while I was in that complex. I was there for three hours or so and I ended up taking over 200 pictures. I didn't included it here, but I even have a few shots of the famous mettalurgical mystery known as the Iron Pillar. In fact, when the Iron Pillar was mentioned during an episode of Fringe, I had to take another look at them. That being said, I still say that this is one of my favourite pictures I took in my three hour journey around the enormous complex. I took


So, those are my favourite photos of one of the better experiences I had while I was in Delhi, India. Like I said, with as much crap that happened while I was in the subcontintent, there were definitely a few bright spots. Being able to explore the entire complex without really worrying about time constraints was relaxing for me. It didn't hurt that there weren't very many people there either.

Living La Dolce Vita, a Blog about Travel

With the Internet, it is so easy for someone to create a journal of their travels and share it with everyone else willing (or bored enough) to read it. I am hoping that it will allow me to post a few entries while I'm on vacation (particularly during my trip to Italy this year). So therein lies my blog's mission statement: to share my love for travel with others.

Last year my vacations consisted of going to San Diego (I went to the Comic-Con for the first time) and India (for the first time). As such, my attentions were divided between the two travel plans (one was in July while the other was in November). This year, my attentions have been divided between the San Diego Comic-Con (for the second time) and Italy (for the first time).

Here's a little background information regarding my trip to Italy: my second cousin sent out an e-mail blast in December explaining that he was getting married in a small town in the Dolomites of Italy (the very north of the country that is close to the Austrian border). Under the impetus of going to the family wedding and seeing the rest of the German side of the family I had yet to meet, I began arranging my first trip to Italy.

Honestly, if they had decided to get married in Switzerland (where the couple is currently living) or Dortmund (where the German side of the family is actually from), I would have gone there. As it happens, my cousin's getting married to an amazing Italian woman so the wedding is being planned in a town just south of Bolzano.

After many discussions with co-workers who had been to Italy and perusing a number of books (most of which are on loan from said co-workers) I managed to come up with a viable itinerary that worked around the September 11 wedding in the north. Unlike last year, however, I am not getting bogged down on the details.

Frankly, I believe my problems with my trip to India stemmed not only from the nightmarish lack of security but also my extremely detailed planning. I planned each day by the hour for each city I was travelling to in India. In retrospect, it was absolutely ridiculous of me to do months ahead of time.

Needless to say, I learned the hard way that I was too much of a control freak. As such, I immediately got bogged down emotionally and mentally when something didn't go the way I wanted it to in India. And by being bogged down, it left me figuratively paralyzed. Of course, the fact that some person tried to break into my room twice in the middle of my first night in New Delhi did not help either.

This time, however, I hope to be looser and take a few tours to connect with other tourists (something I never really did in India). In fact, I've already got tickets for a walking tour of Rome in the early evening, a trip to the Vatican (with the same company), and finally a day tour around Tuscany. Again, I really don't want to plan everything out with the exception of just how long I want to stay in each city (as it happens I'll be going to Rome, Venice, the Dolomites and Florence). It has left me feeling more excited about what will come rather than feeling more regimented like India last year.

India aside, I have a lot of fond memories of travelling. Off the top of my head I can remember loving our family trips to Cholla Bay from Tucson; the family tour of Switzerland and France in the mid-80s; the incredible journey my dad and I took through southern Colorado when we were still living in Denver; and, if I had to pick one more, I'd add the personally defining moment of going to Thailand in the early 90s (when we were still living in Indonesia).

A lot of that fondness boils down to the immersing oneself in the culture and geography of the city. At least, that's the way it is for me. And that's perhaps why, with regard to India, my favourite experience was being on the train to and from Varanasi. I love being in transit while still being able to see the countryside. Like the train trip from Cairns to Kuranda in eastern Australia, seeing the waterfalls and the flora get progressively greener as the train went north to Kuranda.

That being said, I must admit that I travelled a lot more between the ages of 1 to 19 than in my 20s and 30s. It is true that, here I am turning 33 on Sunday and I haven’t travelled as much as I did before hitting 30. I decided last year that my 30s would be different. I have definitely made good on that promise by going to San Diego, India, Ontario and Quebec in the past year. This year it’ll be San Diego and Italy. Next year I am really hoping to either go to Berlin or Scotland. I really haven’t made my mind up about that yet. Just the fact that options for travelling exist in the first place is wonderful.

I’m not a writer by any stretch of the imagination, but I am certainly happy to describe my journeys with whoever wants to read about them so that I may maintain this blog’s mission statement.