SeaTrek (June 22-29, 2007)

[krn]

Can Conner get any more good looking?

4 months 'till November - sigh. I too hope that I don't just blither like an idiot.

[Jedikatie]

Okay, this is a brief day-by-day report of the con, starting with the first day (June 21), when we were still in Seattle--

After the fun at the Seattle airport (my luggage was almost the last ones to come off the plane) with the guy sending me in the opposite direction of the hotel shuttle buses--he sent me towards regular buses to other cities in the Seattle area, when our hotel was across the street and about two blocks down from the airport--I did finally manage to get to the right spot and then to the hotel. Since by that time it was 1 o'clock, and I figured it was nearly time for the next one in our group (Jinx) to arrive, I stayed awake after I got checked in. NX-Oner was actually the first person in our room, but she had gone sightseeing by the time I'd gotten there so I didn't meet her til later.

While I was in line to get checked in, Ethan Phillips came up to the desk to ask them something about his room and he nodded and said hello to all of us standing in line. And then while I was sitting in the lobby waiting for Jinx to appear, I saw Claudia Christian, Denise Crosby and Robert Picardo as well at various points. I think I must have seen some of the Buffy people as well, but I didn't immediately recognize them when I did see them.

Around 4 pm or so, while I was waiting downstairs for Hoshissis to arrive (since I knew what she looked like and Jinx didn't), I was standing over by the SeaTrek registration desk putting new ringtones on my phone when I heard a familiar voice say "I'm here" and looked up to see Connor standing not three feet from me, wearing an orange t-shirt and lugging a huge bright green suitcase. (Jinx has a picture of the t-shirt.) It was kind of funny that first night because it seemed like every time Jinx left the lobby, the stars would show up. I mean literally, it was within a minute or two of her leaving, so I saw Connor and the rest of the SeaTrek stars a number of times while waiting, and even had Ethan Phillips asking me when the dinner thing was that night at the hotel.

Hoshissis arrived at the hotel at a little after 7 pm, when the cocktail party was getting started, and she and NX-Oner ended up having to sit at a different table than Jinx and I, because two of the empty seats were saved for the star at that table and two were being saved by some of the fans there for others. Jinx and I ended out at Jonathan Woodward's table (I still don't have a clue which character he played on Buffy/Angel, and I watched all seven seasons of Buffy and the first two or so of Angel) and he was a funny guy. Hoshissis and NX-Oner were over at Ethan Phillips' table.

There was much teasing between Robert and Ethan during the banquet while Debbie (the travel agent) gave us instructions about where and when we were to meet to get on the buses for the ship, etc., which had all of us laughing. And then George (one of the Buffy stars, he played Adam) and some of the other Buffy stars would start mock fights, saying stuff like 'my table can take your table'... It was entertaining.

After the banquet was over with, Jinx headed back up to the room, while the rest of us went to the bar and got a drink. Connor stopped and talked to us briefly, telling us about how Jasper was such a little flirt with the ladies, before he headed off to bed (I presume). I ended up being awake for 23 hours that day before I finally got to go to bed, with only 4 hours sleep the night before. Too bad I only got about 4 hours sleep that night as well, but it seemed to be the norm (for me, at any rate) for the entire week I was on the cruise. Good thing I'm used to such weird hours from that one job of mine...

More coming soon...

[Rigil Kent]

I don't even know how to interpret this Omen . . .

[Jedikatie]

More photos:

A random mountain from the various ones we passed while cruising through Alaskan waters...


Three pictures of Connor on the train...






Ethan Phillips and Robert Picardo on the train...


Then some others that I didn't shrink down...
Robert Picardo

Ethan Phillips

Seattle skyline at 6:30 am PDT Fri. June 29, 2007

And this one of all the stars there (plus some guy who was Gene Roddenberry's assistant)--

SeaTrek stars

[Linda]

Cool, Jedikatie. Looking forward to more!

[JadziaKathryn]

Nice pictures!

[Reanok]

Sounds like you had a great time Jedikatie thanks for the pictures.

[Elessar]

Awesome pictures! So ladies... do the aviator glasses do it for you? I have to get some sunglasses for the foreseeable future and I'm dabbling between the aviator look -the mirrored "Highway Patrol" looking glasses, and the total black look like from Men in Black.

I guess you ladies think the gray in his beard is fashionable? hehe. Without the grey, we have like the exact same color facial hair, actually.

JT, doesn't my brother look a lot like Connor? I got the genes

that trip sounded so fun. It's probably unimaginable that one of the Trek ladies would go on something like that... like Jolene... at least, not without 4 body guards with 4 .45's and 16 magazines of 117 grain hyper velocity hollow point ammunition.

I know that I - and every other male here - would be thinking around every bend, "We could live out the rest of our lives in this ice cave... even if it were only 2 hours before we froze to death... WHAT A 2 HOURS IT'D BE!"

Hell, I probably give the ladies far too much credit... they were probably thinking that with Connor anyway.

[justTripn]

JT, doesn't my brother look a lot like Connor? I got the genes

Yes, and yes you do!

I know that I - and every other male here - would be thinking around every bend,

I agree your thinking IS going around the bend . . . OH! Sorry, I guess I read it wrong.

[Jedikatie]

More photos.

Connor and Dizzy:


Connor's table the night of the second formal dinner (the crazy cat lady is the one directly in front of the window sitting next to me):


Robert and Claudia doing their impersonation of Sonny and Cher singing "I've got you, babe" at the karaoke night:


One of the totem poles from the atrium of the Seattle airport Marriott:


Connor, the first night of the cruise:

[Jedikatie]

And here's some photos of Alaska to prove that I did indeed take pictures of something other than the actors on this cruise, --

Alaska

Alaska again

More Alaska

Ghosts and Goodtime Gals Tour Guide

Juneau, Alaska

Sawyer Glacier, Tracy Arm Fjord, Alaska

[Jedikatie]

June 22, 2007:

We had to have our luggage out in the hallways before 10:30 this morning so the hotel's bell hops could collect them and take them out to where our three buses met us. Then it was about a 20 minute ride down to the port, and another 15 minutes or so on average for each of us to work our way through the check-in line and get our room key/SeaPass (which is also what was used to make any purchases on the ship). We also had the lifeboat drill shortly before we left the port of Seattle. Our muster station was #3, on the starboard side of the ship, facing Seattle. It took quite a while for our luggage to show up in our rooms--I think mine didn't make it until shortly before dinner (considering we were on the ship by 1 pm).

The first thing we did once we got on board was not go to our rooms, but up to the spa, where Hoshissis, NX-Oner and I all made appointments for various treatments, because they recommended that you do that first thing because all the good times would fill up fast. After that, we made our way down to our cabin, which was on deck 3, on the inside.

At dinner, we met our four dinner companions whom we would be sharing the table with for the rest of the voyage. Sue, Leigh Ann and Beth were very nice, I liked them. Then there was the crazy cat lady, who had already informed those three (before I ever got to the dining room, and I was the first of our group there that night), that she fully intended to get Connor to donate time or money or something to support her cause. That, of course, turned all of us off of her from the start. Then there was the fact that she just would not stop talking, and talking about things you really shouldn't discuss (a) with strangers or (B) at a dinner table. It's one thing to say, "Oh, I run a pet rescue, and currently have 37 cats that I'm fostering" and leaving it at that unless someone asks you for more information, it's another to keep brinigng it up... or the stuff about her gastric surgery. Um, yeah, not a topic for the dinner table.

Anyway, we had all pretty much decided amongst ourselves that we would let the Joe know about her plans, and hoped that he would deal with her. And Beth had a friend over at Connor's table the first half of the cruise, so she told her about the cat lady so she could give Connor a heads up as well.

That night we had the introduction of the stars again (for those, I think, who weren't at the gala the night before). I was kind of surprised afterwards, when I went looking about the shops on deck 6, and was getting a free taste of some liqueor--Bailey's mint chocolate something or other, if I remember right--and heard someone ask where he could buy cigarettes at from the guy pouring my free sample, and looked up to see it had been Connor standing only two feet from me. Then later Hoshissis, NX-Oner and I went to get drinks (though I only drank a coke that night) and sat and talked a bit, but I had to go to bed because my massage was scheduled for 8 am the next day, and I was still tired from the lack of sleep the previous two nights.

So not too much interaction with the stars on the first day of the voyage, unless you count the meet and greet, and my accidental meeting of Connor at the shops... at least, not for me.

More later...

[Jedikatie]

23 June 2007

After a very relaxing massage and facial first thing in the morning, I checked out the ship a bit. There wasn't much going on this day, unless you're into Buffy and Angel, since all the Q&A stuff was focused on them, and well, Claudia Christian.

There was the photo op with the actors (and that Richard Arnold guy) in the early afternoon. I don't know if some of the others might have gone to Q&As this day or not. The actors were having a good time up on the stage, laughing and joking and making silly faces during people's pictures. For example, during mine, Jonathan Woodward has his tongue pushing out his cheek while George Hertzberg is busy doing a Mr. Spock eyebrow...

It was also the day of the captain's dinner, and first formal night. So several of the others had sent their dresses off to be cleaned up and were hoping they'd get them back in time for the dinner that night. I didn't send mine off, though, and was ready around 4 pm (though dinner wasn't til after 6 pm). But I wanted to get my picture with the captain of the ship in the dress, mostly because I had promised a lady from bingo that she'd get to see photos of me all dressed up in that dress.

After dinner there was Dizzy's improv, which, while lacking in any stars, was nevertheless highly entertaining. One of the ladies from our table, Beth, volunteered to do one of the improvs--it was a "conversation" between two people, and if the first sentence started with a word that began, for example, with the letter "a", like say, "Anyway, I saw you kissing Fred," then the other person would respond with a sentence that starts with the letter "b", like "But you're mistaken, that wasn't Fred, it was George." and so on like that until one of them messes up. She did quite good, too. She managed to win her round and got Dizzy to mess up.

Another of the improvs involved 4 people--one of whom was the 'host' of a party, and the other three had weird behaviors that she was supposed to figure out. The other three 'guests' couldn't directly say what it was, they had to act it out, though. So one guest was acting like a pirate's parrot, another was totally obsessed with Dizzy, and the third lady was deathly afraid of Dizzy. Which was absolutely hilarious because that lady really sold her part on being scared to death of him...

The last improv they did involved two guys who were supposed to be vying for a promotion at a German company. Anyway, we'd all written down a line from either Buffy/Angel or Star Trek and the two guys were supposed to pick out a slip of paper and that would be their response to whatever question Dizzy (the boss) was asking them. The two guys were holding it together pretty well, up until the guy pulled out the slip of paper with the line I'd written on it. He was cracking up and losing it just from reading it to himself, and then totally lost it when he went to repeat it to Dizzy.

What was the line, you might wonder, that I'd written down? "You'd look good in Triaxian Silk." Anyway that got lots of laughter (even if it did end that improv and the night...)

[Jedikatie]

24 June 2007

Today was the day we arrived at Juneau, Alaska. That was around 10 am or so. We didn't dock, but instead tendered our way to shore. Because so many people had early excursions, there was quite a crowd trying to get on the tender boats (which held about 150 people each, and there were only a few of them operating at the time). So there was quite a back up in the ship of people trying to get to the tenders.

Hoshissis and I, who were supposed to leave the ship at 11:30 am, didn't actually leave til nearly noon. And we didn't actually get to Mendenhall glacier (the first part of our excursion) until 1 pm. So we had only an hour at the glacier, which was not enough time to actually watch the movie they had playing at the glacier about it. So we took pictures of the glacier, looked at some of the trees and plants in the immediate vicinity, and went to the gift shop. I bought a DVD postcard (never heard of one of those before, but it's a good idea) of Juneau which also covers Mendenhall glacier in its 10 minutes of video.

Even though we were only there an hour, it was still a spectacular view. The glacier was magnificent (even if it is a retreating glacier), and there was a waterfall just off to the right which was just as breathtaking. While we were at the glacier, we ran into Classic4 from the House of Tucker, so we introduced ourselves and talked briefly before having to head back to the bus to go to the second part of our excursion, which was the salmon bake.

Now I'm not particularly fond of baked fish. So sue me, I prefer Long John Silver's. But the salmon was pretty good, and they cooked it over an open fire and served it up. There was also corn bread, baked beans and assorted other picnic type foods. And a lady who was singing folk songs about Alaska while playing her guitar while we ate.

After the salmon bake, we rode back into town, where we did some shopping. I bought a nice little purple, red and black colored jacket (the black are the trees, and the purple and red are supposed to represent the Northern Lights), and got various gifts for my relatives and friends. We then split up, because it was almost time for my second excursion of the day, the gold panning adventure, and I think Hoshissis went back to the ship, though I'm not positive.

On the gold panning trip, we went to "Last Chance Basin," driven there by our tour guide who was dressed as an old prospector. And he certainly looked the part. I could easily picture him there 100 years ago, trying to find gold. It was hard to get any gold. I did end up with some--not a lot, and it was only tiny, tiny flakes--which took me nearly 45 minutes to get. I can't imagine doing that day after day after day, standing in the cold water, swirling the sand and rocks our of the gold pan, hoping to find enough to make it worthwhile...

I ended out missing dinner on board the ship, though I knew that would happen. Apparently a lot of people missed dinner on this night, from what the others told me later on. I don't recall anything in particular convention related going on this day, or if there was something, it was something I didn't attend at any rate.

[Jedikatie]

25 June 2007

Today we arrived in Skagway, Alaska. I had an early excursion, which was a walking tour of the town called "Ghosts and Goodtime Girls". Jinx was supposed to be on this tour as well, but decided apparently that she didn't want to do it (though she didn't tell me, so we stood around waiting for her to show up for about 10 minutes or so after we were supposed to leave).

It was an interesting tour, because it told the story of the town from the perspective of the local prostitutes. There were three kinds--the streetwalkers were the lowest rung and only got a dollar per customer, those with "cribs" (which were extremely small buildings, literally just big enough for a bed and room to stand up and go out the door) and pimps were paid $2 a customer, and the highest rung were those who worked out of the saloons and the like, who had madams and bouncers, were paid $5 per customer. Though of course, part of that money went to the madam and the bouncer so the girl actually got less than $2 for each customer out of that $5.

The guide also explained the origin of the term "red-light district"--pretty much it had to do with the railroad workers. It seemed when they took off to have a good time, and then it came time for the train to leave, the workers couldn't be found, so they made it so that the workers had to leave their red lanterns outside of wherever they were at, so they could be gathered up and the trains could depart. And that's how the term came about.

She also went into the sadder aspects of the life of a prostitute--how, for example, they took care of unwanted pregnancies (which often resulted in death) or syphillis (cracking open mercury thermometers to swallow the mercury to cure it, having only heard part of what the doctors in the lower 48 states were actually doing to treat it, and thereby poisoning themselves to death). Or about the poor Asian girls who were forced to work as prostitutes at the age of 10, who were sold for less than a penny apiece, and were chained to their beds, unable to clean themselves up between customers, and being made to service over a 100 customers a day... very, very sad.

But overall it was an interesting way to learn about the town's history and not one that you usually get. The ghosts part of the tour had to do with a couple of different places we stopped--one was where a hotel used to be (though only the chimney remains now) in a wooded area, which is supposed to be haunted at night by the sound of a child crying, and the other was in the brothel museum at the end of the tour, where people have reported the image of a lady hanging herself above one of the beds in their developed photos, even though you don't see anything when you're in the room. I didn't get a photo of the ghost, maybe she doesn't like digital cameras. Though it might be on the videotape, I haven't watched that closely yet.

But after the tour was over (and I did a bit of shopping), I headed back to the pier for the main event of the day... namely, the train trip with Connor and the rest of the stars. I was thrilled when Hoshissis and I ended out with Connor and his brother Matt sitting directly in front of us, for which we have to give thanks to Sue, one of the ladies at our dinner table, who volunteered to give up her seat there so that Connor and his brother could sit together. So, after discussing my earlier tour with Connor before the train left to start the trip (during which he was teasing me about the existence of ghosts), we left him alone for the most part going up the mountain until we were about half an hour or so from the top I'd say. We'd started talking to his brother, and then Connor joined in, and after we switched seats for the trip back down (so the people on the right side of the train could see the sights as we headed back down), we (Hoshissis, NX-Oner and I) talked the entire time back down the mountain with Connor and Matt.

We talked about all sorts of things--Harry Potter (everyone in their family are fans of Harry Potter), the new Doctor Who (and which Doctor we liked best--Eccleston or Tennant), Britian's new interim PM Gordon Brown, etc. Connor recommends the book, The Golden Spruce. And while I was sitting there, I suddenly remembered the 1886 Morgan dollar I'd had stowed in my belt pouch, so I gave Connor that, for which he was very grateful, and he told us how when he was a kid and had learned that all these old dimes and quarters from before 1964 were made of silver that he'd search and search for some but could never find one. This was also when Connor looked about the train car and said "I've been warned" to us, and one of us said, "About what?" and he gave us this look and said, "I think you already know." I made the connection and said "Yes," and then we left it at that (he was referring to the crazy cat lady).

At the end of the trip, Connor told us how much he appreciated us talking to him about the world at large, because that's his hobby and what he was interested in, "the world at large." I think he also liked the fact that we didn't sit there and pepper him with questions about Enterprise and Atlantis, which I have little doubt that he was afraid was what was going to happen on the trip... We told Connor that we'd see him the next night, when the table switch took place, and he left the train with his brother.