Summer Vacation - Fort Myers Beach

I continued my summer vacation after doing nothing, going to see the Cure, and then went to Fort Myers Beach. I was able to take the dogs with me on a vacation for the first time in a while. They liked visiting Lake Havasu, AZ and staying at the dog hotel while we visited San Diego, CA. I don't like giving them a barrage of vaccinations just to pay lots more money to put them in a boarding facility.


Fort Myers Beach was nice for pets and they are allowed on the beach. We liked the powdery sand. There were a bunch of bars on the beach and both the bars and restaurants didn't care what you were wearing: no shirt, no shoes, no problem. It was a real beach bum community. We stayed in a small room just off of the beach. The location was great.


This update will be all about the photos.

Where we stayed.

Dog Beach at Lover's Key State Park. The whole beach was for off-leash dogs. The tide washed the beach twice a day. Toby couldn't fetch enough.

Sparky swam just fine but got scared in 3 inches of water

Another day, another beach. This was on Fort Myers Beach behind the hotel. I took the paddle board out for the first time.

Not many waves in the Gulf of Mexico. The water was murky because there was dredging nearby. Normally it is clearer.

I guess you'll have to enlarge this photo to see me and the para-sailer in the background 

Sitting down, taking a break

I got blown around a lot so I had to walk back to where I started a few times

Standing

Kneeling

So I was paddle-boarding like this when a wave hit me on the side and knocked me off in 2 feet of water. I landed wrong and sprained my ankle. Yes, I sprained my ankle in the water.

It's an 11 foot board

I'm struggling not to get blown away holding the board in the wind

Board washed and deflated

Roll it up for easy transportation

The rest of the vacation was eating junk food at the beach. We stayed four days and three nights. Just had to get out of the house for a few days. There was also a hangover involved in this trip so there was a good amount of time spent in bed. 

The Cure at Miami Bayfront Park

I began my summer vacation. This time I think I did it better than usual. I took more time off and planned extra days to relax before doing something. After I got off work, I took a few days to sleep, watch movies, go shopping and play video games.


The first thing I really did worth mentioning was going to see The Cure with The Twilight Sad at Miami Bayfront Park. You may remember from one of my original posts that the last concert I saw there was Pitbull on New Year's Eve 2015 during the fireworks. It was better this time.

I've been to many, many concerts. Mostly punk and metal but I haven't seen the Cure. It's one of those timeless bands that spans decades and genres. They were goth before goth was a style and "New Wave" because they were from England and had hits in the '80s. While not in my normal rotation of music because this isn't your typical workout music or driving during rush hour music, I still like the music for the mood it sets. This was really a once in a decade chance to see the band perform so I took it. In fact, I could only get tickets for the second show. The Sunday show sold out so fast, they booked a Monday show.

We sat about eight rows from the stage on the right and never left the seats during the three hour performance. I wondered why they started playing in the daylight but then learned that curfew was at 11:00 pm and they had to get in 34 songs!

Here is a good article about the show:

http://bocamag.com/blog/2016/06/27/concert-review-the-cure-in-miami/

  

 

MegaCon 2016

Ok, so it seems that I am doing last month's posts at the beginning of the next month. The saying is overused but, it is what it is.


I went to MegaCon in Orlando this year. So in case you didn't know, MegaCon is a nerd...comic/pop-culture convention. It's probably the third or fourth biggest comic book convention. I didn't check the numbers but let's just say its a top tier convention but not as big as San Diego Comic Con (largest in the world) or New York Comic Con. Those of course being the hub of the movie industry and comic industry, respectively.


Of the four days it was held, I went on Saturday, the busiest day of the convention. It was a bad start. I've been several times since I've lived in Florida so I knew the convention center and how to get there. The problem was that I had bought tickets in advance. Why was this a problem?  Apparently, the new organizers of the convention were not logistically ready to admit everyone with tickets. The wait to get in with pre-purchased tickets was two hours. The wait to buy tickets and get in was 45 minutes. This was ridiculous. When we were walking to get to the line to get in, I thought I was walking past lines waiting to get autographs from the Walking Dead cast (usually the longest line in any convention). No, it was the line to get in.


Knowing that I would miss most of the show waiting in line, I went to demand a refund as kind of a way to skip the line. Long story short, it worked. I was waiting in front of a woman from Broward County and we were complaining about having to pay for tickets, tolls, gas, and parking and not being able to see the show. Her husband had a press pass and the organizers knew it. I think he pulled some strings and got a group of about 10 of  us to the front of the line and I made it in without waiting through the whole thing.


Last year it only took 15 minutes to get in. WTF?


First thing I did was drop some books off at the CBCS booth. Then I made my way to the Stan Lee signature line. I brought an Amazing Spider-Man 40 to get it signed. Stan Lee will sign anything but I wanted to get him to sign a book that he actually wrote the story for. Of course, the ticket to get a signature was cash only so I had to wait in the ATM line to then go to the signature ticket line to then wait in the signature line.

Stan Lee Signing

While waiting, I was standing behind a 10 year old getting his F/VF Peter Parker Spectacular Spider-Man 100 signed by Stan Lee. His mother explained that he was able to purchase the book with his own money and she bought him the ticket for the Stan Lee signature. It was more for the chance to meet Stan. He also had a 16-17 year old brother who gave his little brother a homemade Stan Lee paper mache mask to wear that he had made when he was the same age as his little brother. We all convinced the kid to ask Stan for a bonus signature on the sunglasses of the mask. Who can turn down a 10 year old right? This was his chance to get a freebie.

When we got up to the signing the kid was wearing the mask as Stan signed his book, I said, "Hey look it's little Stan Lee!" Stan looked up and smiled. The kid asked to get his signature on the mask but Stan's handlers said he already got his signature so Stan said, "Get me the silver pen." Stan signed the mask for him as well as his book and the handlers kept trying to move the line. So Stan said, "Take a picture." "OK, Stan." the handler replied. "Send that to me, would you?" The handler nodded and reminded him of the line. 

The Mask

So we finally got to meet Stan Lee and the kid and his brother have a great Stan Lee story to tell.

After that, I looked around the booths. It seems that I have seen everything before. I hadn't been to a convention since I started selling comics online so I wanted to find a deal on some books to flip. Everything must have been picked through because it all seemed to be priced at fair market value - that is what you pay on eBay plus shipping.

I ended up finding a section of $2 books and bought three. I later sold them during my monthly auctions and made $1.50, $4.50, and $14.50 off them (minus eBay fees, minus PayPal fees, minus the $6 to buy them). I also bought an Amazing Spider-Man vol. 2 #30 CGC 9.8 in the old slab for about $15 less than recent eBay auctions so I saved $15 on the price and another $15 on shipping. It needs a new slab ($10 plus shipping both ways) so that's how I got a good deal. I already had another copy signed at home, I guess I just wanted something to show for my trip.

My ASM 40 came back as CGC SS 7.0. I was disappointed, I thought it was a better grade but I missed a stain (OK two stains) on the back which dropped it down to Fine. It's been a year and a half since I graded it and have learned a lot about grading since then.

This is probably my last convention for a while. Time to take a break so it will be interesting the next time I go.  

I think this was a professional Cos Player (aspiring model who dresses in costumes to get recognized). They're all over these conventions