Day One of DragonCon 2001 ended last night. Was a long day of course! Drove to the airport to pick up Brandy and her friends, Jan and Karilyn, yesterday morning. I was late and, of course, their plane was early, but it worked out that I got there just a few minutes before they got off, so surprisingly for my normal luck, it worked out well!

We circled the area of the Marriott for probably 20 minutes trying to find the street that ran in front of it so I could drop them off. If you’ve never driven through downtown Atlanta before, you have no idea why this would happen. Imagine a sea of one way streets that aren’t on a grid and then maybe you’ll have some idea why navigation in Atlanta can be difficult. I think I memorized enough of the area last night. I hope!

Afterwards, we all got our badges and had a quick lunch in Peachtree Center’s food court. Brandy and I caught a little of the dealer room and I saw where her art was on display this year. Prime location! And the art room is much more a part of this year’s con not being stuck off in a different building.

Then we had to go back onto the streets as Brandy had to drop off some paperwork for her application to Emory for this January for her PhD! Best of luck, Brandy! After mucking through the traffic and getting that done, I wanted to show Brandy my new house, purchased since her last visit up here. The traffic to get out of the city by that time of a day on the Friday before labor day was staggeringly awful. It took us a good hour just to breach the perimeter. After we finally got a ways up GA 141, we were finally making good time. We only spent around 30 minutes out here, but it was fun.

Then we went back into the traffic fracas and got back to the hotel in time to go grab dinner at Planet Hollywood, which even has a banner out this year supporting DragonCon! Inside we saw people dressed up as Cyclops and Mystique from X-Men, Batman, Nightwing, and Poison Ivy from DC comics. Maybe others, but those were the ones I caught! I had seen Batman, Nightwing, and Cyclops earlier posing for photos in the Hyatt lobby and had told Brandy about them. She agreed the costumes were awesome!

After that we went to a Ghosthunting 101 panel. They were picking three people to go on a ghost hunt in an old cemetery in Lawrenceville. Wanted to go, but if it involves a lottery, I’m sure to lose! There’s a second ghost hunting panel Sunday night where they’ll report back their findings. The guy doing the panel said that he’s starting a local ghost hunt group, similar to Brandy’s in FL, I suppose. I left my e-mail address as I might be interested in getting involved in that.

Well, time for some breakfast and to prepare to storm DragonCon again. I’ve already highlighted the grids and now I have to decide what I’m actually going to see and what I can’t see because it conflicts with other stuff! Wahhhhh!!