C2E2 Kicks Off Our 2016 Convention Season in Style

SuperAnne!

Longtime MCC readers may or may not remember last year’s C2E2 experience, in which Anne and I met Gene Ha, a fine comics artist who’s worked on past books I’ve collected such as Alan Moore’s Top 10, Fables, Starman, Global Frequency, and guest spots on assorted DC super-hero projects. In 2015 he was at C2E2 to promote his Kickstarter project for the hardcover graphic novel Mae. My Kickstarter moratorium was still in effect, but I bought another item from him instead and wished him well.

Thankfully the Kickstarter was a rousing success and Ha had copies of Mae for sale today at C2E2. Buyers at the show (e.g., me ) were also entitled to a “small doodle” inside the front cover. The above photo is his idea of a “small doodle” — a drawing of my very own wife as Supergirl. Her one-time art-modeling role was his idea. When he suggested turning her into a super-hero, Supergirl’s was the first name that popped into my head. Anne is a lifelong Superman fan, and we’ve both been watching and enjoying the show. No-brainer.

This is many, many light-years above and beyond my expectations and may literally be the greatest purchase I’ve ever made at a con. I spent the next ten minutes just walking around with the book still open to sketch of the woman I love by the Gene Ha.

So our 2016 convention season is off to a stellar start. I’m betting that sketch will be the pinnacle, but the next-best is yet to come!

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The Springs in Fall — 2015 Photos #20: Three Cities, Much Rock

Castle Rock!

Castle Rock, a 37-story butte sitting next to the town of Castle Rock, Colorado. No relation to the Stephen King Literary Universe.

Day Four was a busy driving day for me, trying to cover as much ground as I could before we had to fly home on Day Six. I spent the first half up in Denver and the late afternoon back in Colorado Springs, with a stopover in between to stare for a while at the formidable formation above. Works of God and of Man were each the order of the day.

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More Than Flowers at the Indiana Flower & Patio Show 2016

Dramatic Modern!

A variety of patio design options included this stark, eye-popping Dramatic Modern setup that can be part of your backyard for the high, high price of don’t-even-ask.

In our previous installment, you saw flowers and nothing but flowers from the 2016 Indiana Flower and Patio Show. But the exhibition, sprawled across two buildings at the Indiana State Fairgrounds, has so much more to offer than pretty flower displays. Various vendors offer gardening implements, flower and vegetable seeds, digging advice, contest drawings/telemarketing signups, garage finishing services, gutter-cleaning inventions, non-stick cookware, liquor, chocolate, nuts, coffee cakes, summer sausage, massages, eyelashes, poor abandoned pets, Indianapolis Star subscriptions, and more more more. And if you love aggressive sales pitches, DirecTV bought five separate booths specifically to irritate me, because the four booths they had last year didn’t do the job thoroughly enough, according to their anti-me tone-deaf focus groups.

But enough about marketing peeves. Let the pageantry and shopping begin!

Right this way for candy, characters, patio ideas, animals, and the little old lady who loved every minute of it!

4 Flowers 4 Pretty: Another Flower & Patio Show

Indiana Flower & Patio Show!

It’s that time yet again! Spring is imminent if not premature here in Indiana, and my wife and I compiled a new assortment starring nature’s most colorful objects that rhyme with “powers”. Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Twice per year my wife and I escort her grandmother to one of two special events at the Indiana State Fairgrounds. Each November we visit the Indiana Christmas Gift and Hobby Show. Each March the highlight of her month is the Indiana Flower & Patio Show, which features numerous displays of colorful flora, booths where gardeners and homeowners can peruse and pick out their new seeds, plants, implements, and accoutrements for tending and cultivating their yards in the forthcoming spring and summer. Assorted horticulturists and lawn care companies show off bouquets, sample gardens, and ostentatious flowers you’ll wish you owned.

We brought you pretty flower photos in 2013, in 2014, and in 2015, and the sequels will continue until they don’t. Once again I’ll be stepping aside and letting the flowers show themselves off and demonstrate what they contribute to Creation and property values. Not only would I get half the names wrong, but here in America tonight it’s the annual Daylight Savings changeover, the one where clocks spring forward, everyone loses an hour of sleep, and we all spend Sunday grumpy and mumbling. It’s in that mindset that I’m letting easy-to-glance-at pictures outnumber all those thinking words that usually occupy this space.

…that’s too many words already. I’ll stop. Relax and enjoy!

Right this way to scroll through pretty flower photos, Like, and then go back to bed!

2015 Road Trip Photos #44: A Very Special “Chopped” Anniversary

Kashmiri Spiced Braised Lamb Shank!

Our feature for the entree round: Kashmiri Spiced Braised Lamb Shank.

Our eleventh wedding anniversary fell on Day Seven, but scheduling needs and fannish impatience dictated that we celebrate on Day Six. Longtime MCC readers know Anne and I are big fans of the Food Network’s fun, addictive cooking competition series Chopped. Most of its judges are restaurateurs and chefs who call NYC their home, but we were surprised during our vacation research to discover one judge owns a restaurant within 500 miles of our house and right along our path. We agreed it was a mandatory dinner stop.

Right this way for a look at the house that Maneet built!

The Springs in Fall — 2015 Photos #19: The Denver Museum of Nature & Science on $0.00 a Day

Fossil!

Remember, kids: if it isn’t packed with eighty-six tons of dinosaur fossils, it isn’t a real science museum and you should report it to your local science authorities right away.

After lunch and conversation with an old friend in Denver, I spent a bit more of Day Four wandering a few other locations over the next two hours. Halfway through our week, though, a bit of budget consciousness was tampering my mood, leading me to think carefully how else I spent my remaining time and personal funds in Colorado. That’s what happens when you can’t normally afford two vacations a year but can’t resist a good deal on a second one.

Not far from the Denver Biscuit Company and All in a Dream is the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, five hundred thousand square feet of Smithsonian-affiliated exhibits, experiments, and special presentations about all the niftiest sciences ever. For visitors in a cheapskate position like me, a few points of interest stand on the path leading from the free parking lot to the ticket counter, a.k.a. the point of no return.

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2015 Road Trip Photos #43: Jefferson Davis Rules

Jefferson Davis Statue!

Oh, we know we are in Dixie. Hooray. Hooray?

Presidential sites are a common go-to on our road trips. We’ve done Presidential homes, Presidential gravesites, places where Presidential events occurred, statues of Presidential Presidents, paintings of Presidential winners and wannabes, and so on. Our drive through southern Mississippi on Day Five had given us a closer look at the post-term life of a very different leader — Jefferson Davis, the first and last President of the Confederate States of America, who spent his final years writing his memoirs at Beauvoir. Davis would’ve reigned the entirety of his scheduled six-year term if it hadn’t been for that darn Civil War and all those meddlesome Yankee kids. To his credit, he lasted a lot longer in office than William Henry Harrison and six other full-fledged American Presidents did.

Maybe Davis’ endurance is one of the reasons Montgomery, Alabama, still holds a place in its collective heart for him, as we found on the morning of Day Six. Hence the large statue shown above, which stands tall on the grounds of the Alabama State Capitol. Our long walk around this mostly deserted metropolis had turned up a significant number of great moments in civil rights history, among other various commemorative images and places up and down its streets. But Davis and his legacy occupied far more square footage on the official Capitol grounds than any other personage or movement.

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The Springs in Fall — 2015 Photos #18: Colorado Comics Cavalcade

Mile High Comics!

Captain Woodchuck, the official mascot of Mile High Comics, welcomes you to the wonderful world of graphic storytelling!

On our annual road trips I usually hold off on my weekly comics fix until after we return home. It’s a selfish impulse I’m fine with deferring for the sake of family quality time, because a few of my least favorite travel memories involve shops in other states. It doesn’t help that some cities we’ve visited simply had no decent comic shops near any of the points of interest on our to-do list. Between the late-’90s Heroes World debacle and the late-’00s recession, America has several thousand fewer comic shops than it used to when I was a kid. (Examples of both extremes: when we took Manhattan in 2011, you can bet I swung us by Midtown Comics’ two-story location in the city with the mostest. On the other hand, our 2015 journey to New Orleans found exactly zero shops in the French Quarter or in the CBD/downtown district to the south.)

But this wasn’t our usual trip. With Anne’s business matters keeping her preoccupied and frazzled, I was free to plan my one-man sightseeing as I saw fit, to drive wherever I wanted to drive, to indulge in whatever flights of fancy came to mind without any companions to bore. So when I woke up on Day Four, a Wednesday as it so happened, I had two major events coded as Priority One, and one of them was a very special out-of-town New Comic Day.

Right this way for pics and shopping list for my one-day three-shop experience!

2015 Road Trip Photos #42: Walking, Not Marching, to the Alabama State Capitol

Lister Hill!

Lister Hill was a WWI veteran and a 45-year Congressman whose works favored medical progress and expanding modern amenities into rural areas, but didn’t exactly have a favorable civil rights record.

Anne and I decided to structure the morning of Day Six pretty much the same as we had the morning of Day Two. Whereas the latter was spent walking around downtown Birmingham, this time we’d try doing the same with the state capital of Montgomery. One major Alabama city kind of looked like the other on our maps, so we expected a simple, breezy morning of walking from the hotel to the Alabama State Capitol.

We erred in failing to account for scale and structure. If only we’d known that Montgomery’s city blocks are five times as large as Birmingham’s, and if only we’d known Montgomery somehow abolished all forms of cool, relaxing shade from within city limits, we might’ve taken a different exploratory approach. Say, driving around the city instead of walking its miles and nearly killing ourselves. Advantage: Birmingham.

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The Springs in Fall — 2015 Photos #17: Bowling for Fish

Shark Ball Return!

Just when you thought it was safe to go bowling…

After our tour of the Air Force Academy we declared suppertime. On the other side of I-25 we found a place in Colorado Springs where seafood meets sports, tenpins meet pin bones, and you can bring your own ball but not your own bait.

Welcome to Uncle Buck’s FishBowl & Grill.

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2015 Road Trip Photos #41: Black History on Montgomery Streets

Rosa Parks Stop.

A marker for the most life-changing bus stop in America.

Like our stroll around Birmingham on the morning of Day Two, we spent the morning of Day Six walking up and down the much wider, more gleaming, less shaded streets of Montgomery, Alabama. I’m terrible about remembering to check maps for scale and was unprepared for the fact that the state capital’s city blocks were two or three times larger than those of Birmingham’s comparatively claustrophobic downtown. Our walk was consequently longer and more draining, but no less dotted by indelible moments in state and national history.

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The Springs in Fall — 2015 Photos #16: The Air Force Academy Is…

Thunderbolt!

A tiny Thunderbolt is one of several statues on display in the Honor Court next to the Cadet Chapel.

While the distinctive Cadet Chapel is one of the most impressive architectural features of the U.S. Air Force Academy, it’s not the only sight to see. Visitor access is limited to select areas within their 18,500-acre campus, but in all honesty, the fact that we civilians are allowed within a thousand yards of the place is generous in itself.

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2015 Road Trip Photos #40: Southern Cooking Showdown, Round 4

Beignet!

Remember that time we took you on a tour of New Orleans’ own Cafe Beignet — on Day Three and the morning of Day Five, in fact — and failed to show you a photo of a single beignet? That was a rude oversight on my part. Here, have some virtual beignet. I promise it ruled. SUCK IT, Cafe du Monde.

Beyond the French Quarter, we knew Day Five would be one of the most taxing days, a combination of hundreds of miles to travel and several places we wanted to check out. If we’d driven through all the same cities nonstop, it would’ve been six hours’ minimum boredom. With stops, more fun but much longer and a bit more grueling. Day Six held its own set of challenges and fumbles. We tried to make the most of our deep-South mealtimes anyway. I’m proud to say we never settled for McDonald’s or Subway either day.

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The Valentine’s Day Gift of Dessert

Strawberry Cheesecake!

Behold history in the making: the first cheesecake I’ve ever made myself. ‘Twas the holiday season, so I figured why not.

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The Springs in Fall — 2015 Photos #14: Colorado Cookery

Oysters on the Bay!

Two. Two! TWO meals in one entry!

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. One was very much Of Colorado, while the other gave us a mostly happy case of vacation déjà vu.

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2015 Road Trip Photos #39: Scout’s Honor

Scout Finch!

Jean Louise Finch might gladly welcome you, but she’s busy reading.

By the time we finished our exhausting tour of the U.S.S. Alabama on Day 5, rush hour was on and we were still over two hours away from our hotel. We had one more stop on our itinerary that I was tempted to cut because it required a sizable digression off I-65 and I figured all the businesses would be closed by the time we arrived. Getting to our hotel in Montgomery before nightfall would’ve been a plus, but unlikely regardless of whether or not we stopped on the way. On the other hand, it’s not as though we’re in the area all the time and will have multiple opportunities to drop in. The more attractions we postpone to some other future theoretical vacation, the more of those attractions we’ll probably never see.

So by a unanimous vote of 2-0 we threw scheduling comfort to the wind, temporarily abandoned the interstate, and drove the 30-odd miles out of our way to a brief stopover in Monroeville, hometown of author Harper Lee. You may remember her name from headlines last year.

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Six Plates, No Bowl: Our First Time with Tapas

Solomillo con Cabrales!

Solomillo con Cabrales! Tiny yet fantastic. And this wasn’t even our favorite course.

Each year my wife Anne and I have indulged our own special Super Bowl tradition: while the rest of the world is watching football and swapping snacks and beers with best friends and chatting about The Sports, the two of us have dinner at a fancy restaurant we’ve never tried before. Between 6 p.m. and 10 p.m., anyplace without a large-screen TV is usually deserted and totally ours for the taking.

The last few years have also seen Super Bowl Sunday coincide with a local event called Devour Downtown, in which dozens of upscale establishments in downtown Indianapolis offer a limited-time sort of blue-plate special that allows plebes like us to come in and sample their cuisine from a specially selected discount menu. It’s still a bit pricier than five-dollar footlongs, but in our experience the quality has always been immeasurably higher, no matter where we’ve gone.

This year we decided to check out the wonderful world of tapas. First-timers, us.

Right this way for tonight’s specials!

The Springs in Fall — 2015 Photos #13: The Will Rogers Fan Site

Will Rogers Shrine of the Sun!

If you visit the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado Springs and read your brochure front-to-back, you’ll notice your admission includes an unusual mountainside bonus that requires some extra effort to check out. It’s nothing to do with animals, but it’s an interesting tangent in the Zoo’s historical and literal background even if you’re too young to know anything about actor/humorist Will Rogers. Ask your grandparents if they remember their parents ever mentioning him.

Right this way for a high tower tour!

2015 Road Trip Photos #38: Battleship!

USS Alabama!

In game, you sink Battleship. In real life, battleship sink YOU.

After lunch, Day 5 saw us heading east along the Gulf Coast, back into the state of Alabama, slowly through the city of Mobile in congested traffic, and down to the shore of Mobile Bay, where they’ve docked the kind of enormous boat that would’ve been a big help against Jaws if it would’ve fit anywhere near Amity’s beaches.

Welcome aboard the U.S.S. Alabama.

Right this way for the scenic tour!

The Springs in Fall — 2015 Photos #15: A Most Vibrant House of Worship

Cadet Chapel!

After lunch on Day Three, I headed back to the hotel to rendezvous with Anne, who had reported to work hours early by request in exchange for an earlier departure. They would’ve been more than happy to let her work ten or twelve hours, but excess overtime hadn’t been part of trip planning. She also really liked the idea of having time to rejoin me on the sightseeing before all the best places closed. She’d missed out on nearly everything I did Monday. In my book, she deserved to see more of what Colorado Springs had to offer.

We did our best to make it count. Next stop: the U.S. Air Force Academy, one of the few military installations in the city that allows civilians inside. We’re not allowed access to all 18,500 acres, but of all the permissible parts, the most fascinating is the Cadet Chapel.

Most of these photos were shot inside the nave during early sundown. Above: the view toward the altar. Below: straight-up shot of the vaulted, pointed ceiling.

Cadet Chapel Ceiling!

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