Bonus Content

The bicycle accident:

While riding home from class one evening in September, I apparently was unable to brake while heading down one side of an overpass. A jeep was turning into traffic just as I was going through the intersection and we collided. I woke up the next day with a concussion, lacerations on my face, and a busted tooth. I was also left with busted glasses, a broken bike and cut-up clothes. I was out of work for a week or so until I could recover. Being at the beginning of the school year and leaving me without transport for who knows how long, resulted in me not returning to my classes and I have yet to go back to school since.

The first Time I went to D23:

The first time I went to D23 was pretty bittersweet for me in that I didn't plan very well and spent most of the trip tired and hungry.

I had only managed to pay for my round trip plane ticket and my 1 day pass before the date of my departure. The hotel was booked but I had neglected to make sure there was enough funds in the account to cover the hotel stay, prior to leaving.

When I arrived in LA I took public transit to the area where the hotel was (Mostly because I am cheap, but partly because it did not look like it would take as long as it did to get to the hotel from the airport.), and got to the hotel at like 10pm. I go to check-in and the card is declined. Uh-oh. So I change my reservation for the room down from 7 nights to just 1 and decided I will figure it out in the morning.

Next morning I call around looking for help and, After hours of walking around waiting for people to reply, a relative loans me the cash to get by on until I get paid in a couple days. I take that and get some fleabag motel room until my payday on friday. Now the only problem is that the convention day that I attending is also Friday and I have to change motels which means that (with checkout at 11am and checkin isn't until 3pm) I have to ask the motel that I am checking into, if I can check in early, which they only allow if you pay some $30 fee. Obviously I don't have that and, to make matters worse, this motel is really far from the convention center so going and coming back is not really feasible, especially with my luggage that I CANNOT take into the convention center.

SO, I head back to the convention center and see that there is a camp that has been set up outside of the center for those waiting overnight for the main events stage stuff to open. I put my stuff in with everyone else's, pray no one steals my stuff, and head inside.

The rest of the day goes fine I even get to meet some amazing people. The rest of the weekend however is a bit worse. I have at this point, spent basically all of my money and the money loaned to me (and no I had not bought anything besides food.), and now am out of food with 3 days until I get on the plane home. I spend the 2 or so bucks to buy a few things from the local grocer and hunker down in my hotel room until Tuesday.

The morning of the flight, I head to the city of Orange, CA to take some pictures and kill time since I don't have to be at the airport until 7pm While waiting I get another $40 gifted to me from another Family member who finally got back to me from before. I took that and walked Disneyland Bus depot thinking there would be a bus that picks up heading back to the airport area like the one I got off of at the beginning of the trip. Turns out that, either I had missed it, or it was not running, but either way if I waited there much longer I would have missed my flight. Luckily Uber exists and I got a ride to the airport with only a few minutes to spare.