Have wing, add prayer.
At last our six-day excursion to Colorado was drawing to close, with one last chance to wander Denver International Airport before our flight home to Indianapolis around 6 p.m. MST. We tried to make the most of it.
A lot of things in my life wouldn’t be possible without my mom. She raised me as a single mom, with extensive assistance from my grandma. She worked her way up from waitressing on roller skates as a teen to our lean food-stamp years of my infancy, from her first office job to her return to college, earning her Finance degree at age 50. She’s now three weeks away from retirement and looking forward to beginning the next chapter in her life, wherever it may lead her.
But some things are not her strong suit. Lawn care is one of them.
At 3:00 p.m. Mountain Standard Time on Friday, November 6, 2015, my wife wrapped up the final shift of her Colorado Springs business trip, jumped in the rental car with me and sighed in relief. Her work week hadn’t been an easy one. The branch appreciated her assistance, but it was clear they needed more help than she could give them in her 40+ hours on the premises. She did her part, but what happened after she left was no longer her concern. At long last she was free. She could finally unwind and enjoy a little Colorado sightseeing before we ended our six-day experience.
The pathway to my precinct’s voting HQ, marked along the way by glimmers of hope and dread.
Today I performed my civic duty as an Indiana voter and participated in our May 3rd primaries despite the options. My wife and I have differing political philosophies, but we were unanimous in our non-enthusiasm for any of the four remaining contenders going into our less-than-super Tuesday. Once upon a time, my wife could walk into any election headquarters, throw the straight-ticket lever, and be out the door before they could finish peeling her “I VOTED!” sticker off its backing paper. Not so much anymore.
Indiana’s voting laws are flexible enough that it doesn’t matter which party you normally identify with — for primaries you simply tell them which party’s ballot you want to use, then you’re off and running. No proof of allegiance, no mandatory party registration, no pop quiz, nothing. Despite that flexibility, Anne and I each deliberated much longer than usual in choosing between the Reality Star, the Clinton dynasty, the Televangelist, and Old Man Cloud-Yeller. And this is just the primaries. We have a lot of thinking to do between now and actual Election Day in November.
But of all the messages I’ve been sifting through on social media tonight in between The Flash live-tweets, one will stick with me longer than any other.
Gimli. Sallah. Treebeard. Professor Arturo. da Vinci. Kingpin. All those names and personalities don’t prepare you for the fact that John Rhys-Davies will tickle you in the middle of your photo op.
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: Friday and Saturday, my wife and I attended the third annual Indiana Comic Con at the Indiana Convention Center in scenic downtown Indianapolis. Previous chapters in this special MCC miniseries:
* Part One: Costumes!
* Part Two: Cosplay!
* Part Three: Cosplayers!
The TL;DR rundown of our weekend experience: this was the best-run Indiana Comic Con to date. The showrunners evidently took notes last time, focused on their weaknesses, streamlined their processes, and exceeded our apprehensive expectations. We came away with a new set of happy memories, several cool books, another gallery of photos, a few minor suggestions for future years, and no sour complaints this time. A fine convention at last, would run through again, 10/10.
Right this way for pics of actors and comic creators we met! And more!
Best headgear of the year: Medusa from Clash of the Titans, giving me flashbacks to when I got scared watching the original at the drive-in.
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: Friday and Saturday, my wife and I attended the third annual Indiana Comic Con at the Indiana Convention Center in scenic downtown Indianapolis. In Part One you saw every viable costume photo we took on Friday, with the emphasis once again leaning toward Deadpool because that’s what we’re running into, other than hordes of intricate anime characters we oldsters don’t recognize. Part Two was a Saturday selection featuring Bat-related characters and, one last time, all the Deadpools fit to print.
In today’s gallery: cosplay, cosplay, cosplay! All the other costumes we saw on Saturday that looked great and didn’t evade or outrun us. Obviously this is far from comprehensive and I’m still kicking myself with all my mental strength for missing one lady dressed as someone I recognized from the Authority. At one point I dwelt on this weird idea of renting booth space next year and offering to take free pics of any cosplayers who feel they weren’t photographed often enough, just for free posting here as a fun public service — no judging, no body-shaming, no rejecting just because Anne and I have no idea who they are. But I’m not sure how many cosplayers experience that kind of letdown at such shows anymore. Social media operating as it does today, every con probably now has ten “photographers” in attendance for every cosplayer. My idea was a fun pipe dream for the few minutes it lasted. Ah, well.
Anyway: enjoy!
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Maybe Batwoman could take Deadpool alone, but if Wonder Woman wants to cameo, no one’s gonna tell her no.
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: Friday and Saturday, my wife and I attended the third annual Indiana Comic Con at the Indiana Convention Center in scenic downtown Indianapolis. In Part One you saw every viable costume photo we took on Friday. We caught so many cosplayers in action today that the Saturday results will be split into two (maybe three) entries.
In tonight’s gallery: another batch of Deadpool variants, which we suspect will be a thing for years to come, and heroes and villains from the Batman family, which kept catching our eye more than usual this time around. Enjoy!
Right this way for more fun with Gotham’s most wanted and the Merc with a Mouth!
The wrong cosplayers to mess with: Assassin’s Creedpool hanging out with Harley Quinn and the Red Hood.
This weekend my wife and I are attending the third annual Indiana Comic Con at the Indiana Convention Center in scenic downtown Indianapolis. Though the first two ICCs had more than their share of growing pains, he wrote with diplomacy wrapped in understatement topped with a Jim Halpert pretend-blank expression, Anne and I found a few names on the guest list irresistible and prayed the showrunners had been taking notes, accepting constructive criticism, and borrowing standard crowd-control procedures from other cons. So far, so good — Friday for us was a rousing success in a number of ways, except for the part where we had too much fun and I’m now typing under considerable fatigue.
While we rest and prepare for a ridiculously early Saturday wake-up, please enjoy this collection of cosplayers who brightened our day and improved quality-of-life around the show floor on Friday, the trial run before the rest of the crowds arrive Saturday and the real test of the showrunners’ mettle begins. The actors, comics artists, and nifty object collections will be shared in a forthcoming entry in this special series. Enjoy!
Fun trivia: if you try to pay Facebook to “boost” one of your posts so more than five followers will see it, they’ll refuse your money and deny the request if the post has no images, or if its primary image contains more text than picture. I learned that one firsthand in August 2014. Y’know, for science.
I launched Midlife Crisis Crossover on April 28, 2012, three weeks before my 40th birthday as a means of charting the effects of the aging process and this fallen world’s degrading standards on my impressions of, reactions against, and general experiences with various works of art, commerce, wonder, majesty, and shamelessness. It’s my way of keeping the writing part of my brain alive and active, rather than let it atrophy and die. If you’ve read my “About” page, you know this part already.
With four years and 1,277 entries racked up, I’ve now spent more time and enthusiasm on this long-term project than I did in college, both attempts combined. I’ve learned a few things along the way. Sometimes I put one or more of those lessons to good use. Other days, I just gotta be me, and hope that’s good enough for anyone else outside my own head.
I assume this is called the Treacherous Tower of Tremendous Terror or something.
Fun event here in Indianapolis this week: the NBC reality series American Ninja Warrior is filming an episode on Monument Circle in the very heart of downtown. They’re filming the initial challenges in the wee hours of Wednesday night/Thursday morning from a crowd of thirty competitors, and it’s my understanding semifinalists will continue competing Thursday night/Friday morning. If you’re a local night owl who has no use for crowing roosters or morning-drive DJs, this event was made just for you.
I don’t watch the show. I was just trying to take my weekly walk to the comic shop at lunchtime and their sets were in my way. But I captured a few images for the fans out there.
Right this way for more photos, plus a bonus superfluous political rally pic!
An outtake from our Indiana Comic Con 2015 cosplay photos, starring three Deadpools and a pair of kids who are each probably a foot taller by now.
Large-scale geek conventions weren’t a thing in Indianapolis when I was a kid. We had tiny comic shows in hotel ballrooms, but nothing requiring the spacious accommodations of the Indiana Convention Center. My young-adult years saw the advent of an annual Star Trek convention that brought great joy on several occasions and would become beloved by many, though their fortunes have ebbed and flowed over the past two decades. In 2003 Gen Con became the first super-sized company to believe in the considerable forces of local geek dollars, and they’ve been rewarded handsomely ever since for their benevolence by tens of thousands of Midwest gamers as well as folks like me who weren’t strictly gamers but were content to enjoy any sort of hobbyist gathering validation. We took what we could get, and we liked it.
Another full decade passed before other convention companies and wannabe startups noticed we’re here and began bringing their medicine wagons to town in hopes of finagling our approval and our wads of cash, and not necessarily in that order. Over the past four years we here at Midlife Crisis Crossover have shared our photos and our experiences — the good, the bad, the distressingly inept — as we’ve explored these new contenders in hopes that sooner or later, someone would establish the Greatest Indianapolis Comic Convention of All Time. My wife and I still find ourselves driving to Chicago twice per year for geek satisfaction, but it’s nice to know folks are trying to save us some gas money. And they’re welcome to keep trying.
Anne and I are now preparing for our next con this coming weekend, for which we’re mostly excited but reserving the right to retain our qualms after the rockiness of the showrunners’ last two events, each of which ran more like dry-run learning experiences than like professional expositions. While we’re selecting our personal artifacts for autographing and deciding what camping gear is most suitable for an unsupervised photo-op line, let’s take stock of the cons that have been courting us Hoosiers, praise those who did right by us, bury those who aren’t coming back, and look ahead to what’s on the Circle City calendar so far for 2016.
Queen Anne dons her royal attire at Mardi Gras World. Photo by her humbled consort.
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: we guided you through our annual road trip in fifty episodes, driven July 11-17, 2015, from Indianapolis to Louisville to Birmingham to New Orleans to Biloxi to Mobile to Monroeville to Montgomery to Nashville to home again. Our previous outtake gallery gave you one last look at our Alabama explorations. Here, then, in our grand finale: outtakes from everywhere and everything else we saw, with an emphasis on New Orleans, the ostensible centerpiece of our vacation. A few were alternate versions of previously shared pics; a few were skipped by dumb oversight; and a few were left behind due to insufficient pizzazz.
My favorite shot of the top deck of the USS Alabama…starring some complete stranger who wandered in the way.
With each year’s travelogue we like to conclude with a second-chance review through the hundreds of photos we took to see which photos were unfairly cut from the final roster, which ones didn’t fit into the narrative but possess their own merit, and/or which ones slipped through the cracks for no valid reason. The twelve pics in this first of two outtake sets were all taken in Alabama, arguably the state where we spent the most time this week, racked up the most driving mileage, and learned the most about through historical immersion.
(As always, photos are clickable for enlargement and resolution and such.)
One last time in the shadow of Pikes Peak.
The week was winding down before we knew it. Anne got off work so late on Thursday that we had time only for dinner and an all-new Sleepy Hollow before she faced one last earl bedtime and one last shift in Colorado Springs. Friday is usually a time for rejoicing in the work week’s end, but this one would prove bittersweet. We loved the mountains and the culinary forays, but we missed our home and our dog, and I’d crossed all the high-ranking attractions off my to-do list. The remaining options ranged in curiosity level from “maybe” to “meh”. Colorado Springs and the surrounding areas have a lot to see and do for a variety of interests and tourists. Not all of them were for me, but I tried to keep an open mind.
I spent the morning of Day Six as a lot of normal travelers might: I lounged around the hotel room for a few hours and did virtually nothing. I procrastinated the MCC Sleepy Hollow recap in favor of reading, relaxing, and catching reruns of Supernatural on TNT. I’d never watched a single episode before, and perhaps it was a bizarre choice to begin my viewership with the season-7 finale and the season-8 premiere, but that’s the beauty of vacation: you get to have fun and break some rules no matter what kind of looks people give you for it.
Eventually I snapped out of my lazy doldrums and came up with a plan. I checked out of the hotel, leaving behind ten of the twenty-four bottled waters that I’d picked up on my way to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo and taking three with me for the road. Just as the previous guests had left us a fresh half-gallon of milk and a box of breakfast Hot Pockets that neither of us could bear to touch, so did we pay it forward to the next guests in our own way.
Then I launched myself on a side quest of sorts to cross a few items off Anne’s own to-do list. This wouldn’t just be a time-killer or selfish indulgence: it would be an act of service for someone I loved, frivolous though the targeted treasures might be.
And that’s how I wound up once again in Manitou Springs for my final close-ups of the Rocky Mountains.
On Earth Day 2015 as a fun perk, my employer marked the occasion by giving out free tiny potted palms to every home office employee. They were three inches tall, probably the kind that professional greenhouses give out to kids visiting on field trips. Most of them were probably dead within a week.
Just for kicks, I decided to conduct an experiment by seeing what would happen if I actually tried to take care of it. One year later, behold the results.
For today only, the cookie cost me more than the sub did.
Today in one-time wacky sales gimmicks: American submarine sandwich chain Jimmy John’s announced a Customer Appreciation day in which they’re selling eight-inch sub sandwiches from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. And I was there. I wasn’t even supposed to be here today.
…or Marvel’s Punisher Season 1, or even Marvel’s Karen Page, Ace Reporter Season 1, depending on which arc you thought was a keeper.
I will never finish binge-watching any series at the same time as the rest of the world. Never. TV has to wait its turn in line for my attention along with internet, writing, moviegoing, gaming, full-time day-jobbing, homeowning, husbanding, and whatever other errands and obligations lure me away from home. I get to things when I get to them even if it means I miss out on all the really cool chat circles.
I’m actually proud I finished season 2 of Netflix’s Marvel’s Daredevil this early, to be honest. I’d expected it to take weeks and more weeks, but my schedule found a way. And I’m already one whole episode into season 2 of The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, which was just uploaded last Friday. For me, this counts as “on a roll”.
Right this way for spoiler-tastic thoughts about Daredevil, The Man Without Cheer…
The New Orleans business district skyline as viewed from the fourth floor of the National WWII Museum’s Boeing Center. At left, one of the exhibit halls; at right, the theater where we watched Beyond All Boundaries.
Throughout our drive from Indianapolis to New Orleans and back again, my wife took pics of each major metropolis as we passed through them. During our walks and our detours we found a few other neat vantage points that let us gaze upon these cities and wonder if the life bustling along their streets is that much different from our own. In most cases probably, but it was fun to contemplate.
Right this way for a few shots on the road and the sight that greeted us at home!
If you refuse to see it in theaters, the “sloth trailer” alone is a hoot. I can only imagine how excruciating that scene probably was to animate using, like, a hundred times as many frames per movement.
The worldwide phenomenon about two unique individuals from very different worlds — one who’s itching for justice, one who’s given some thought to law enforcement — passed $300 million this weekend at the U.S. box office and proved major studios are still capable of putting out product that can contemplate serious topics even while reveling in visual flair and not shying away from moments of intensity or even a few tears.
No, not the one with the angry costumed guys in it.
Usually when an airplane is lodged halfway inside a building, it’s called a disaster. The Airplane Restaurant proves they can achieve peaceful symbiosis.
As with our July road trip to the South, I was determined to find places to eat in Colorado Springs that we didn’t have back home in Indianapolis. Here we backtrack a bit to recap a couple of culinary experiences we had in the margins between the last several chapters in this series. Not all of them were trendsetting, but two of them were more creative than anyplace I’ve seen in Indianapolis.
For one of those establishments, the creativity was in the structure itself. Pictured above is my lunch option for Day 5 — the Airplane Restaurant, a perfect companion to the National Museum of WWII Aviation down the street. This 13-year-old eatery is attached to a Radisson Hotel, housed partly inside a normal building, and partly inside a Boeing KC-97. Once a refueling tanker for other planes, now it refuels people.
Midlife Crisis Crossover! 