the big day

The alarm went off way too early, and after a snooze, the husband kicked me out of bed.  I got ready, ate breakfast, and packed up the rest of my things.  (I do take longer to get ready for the day, it was necessary for me to be kicked out of bed in order for us to stay on schedule.)

We made sure the bear was ready for his debut, checked out of the hotel, and took the ferry into the city.  We got to the convention center at 8:20 just to find that they wouldn’t let us line up till 10.

As we sat on the floor with the bear in my lap, we met one of the husband’s website friends who was looking for a couple of freaks carrying a stuffed animal.  And she found us!  We gave her a strahotski.com sticker, and as we were chatting, a professional photographer with a crazy nice camera and a pro badge (that gave him access to the good seats) came over to see what all the hubbub was about.

We met a nice man wearing the Buy More Jacket I contemplated buying from the NBC store a few days before.  When he saw me eyeing his jacket, he worried that I was looking at it to mock it – I assured him I had nothing but admiration for it, and I whipped out the ‘Nerd Herd’ hat to put it on.

Once the convention staff realized that a critical mass was forming, they created a pre-line so that there would be order when they finally let us get in the real line.  We met up with another one of the husband’s website friends, who, again, found us because we were hauling the bear around.

They finally let us stand in the real line, where we stood in anticipation of seeing the creators of Chuck (Chris Fedak and Josh cranky-pants Schwartz) and of course, Yvonne Strahovski.  When the doors opened, we rushed in, and thanks to the quick-thinking of one of our new friends, snagged seats on the aisle right by the mic.  You know, in case they had a Q&A session.

We caught a 5-minute trailer of what we have to look forward to in the rest of the second season – and boy, was it INTENSE!  Sarah gets it on in a serious way with somebody who is not Chuck (I hope it’s for real, and not just spy bizniss, Chuck’s been having most of the ‘fun’ so far), Sarah and Chuck get to move in together in a nice house in the suburbs, Morgan’s mom gets busy with Big Mike, Anna finally comes back!

The panelists finally entered, and I have to say, WOW, Yvonne Strahovski is GORGEOUS.  Like in a way that I didn’t even know was possible.  I like to think I’m pretty, but after seeing Yvonne, I’ve had to re-evaluate.  On a scale of 1 to 10, she’s a 10, and the rest of the population is down at 1 and 2.  Except maybe for Brangelina, I’ve never seen them in person …

After some introductions and quick chatter, they opened it up for questions, so I stood up and took a step to my left – and, voila!  I was second in line.  I let the husband slide in right in front of me and handed him the bear.

When his turn at the mic came, the husband introduced himself as the webmaster of strahotski.com, and the room erupted in cheers.  Clearly, many of the thousand people in that room were aware of his site.  He asked if he could give his bear to Yvonne, and after a few moments of confusion, Chris Fedak said to ‘throw it up’.  The husband tossed the bear to Chris, and he handed it to Yvonne.

Yvonne was nothing but smiles as she accepted the bear, and she placed it on the table in front of her, by her nameplate.

My turn at the mic came, and I asked a quick and silly question that got some laughs, and prompted a funny discussion about how the creators had suggested Yvonne change her last name to ‘Smith’ or ‘Striker’.

One of the last questions was about who Yvonne’s craziest fan was, and she gave that honor to the husband for creating his website, and gifting her the bear.  That was the true highlight of the husband’s weekend, he is ecstatic to have made it onto Ms. Strahovski’s radar.

When the panel was over, Yvonne, Josh, and Chris were ushered off somewhere and quickly disappeared.

We hit the Joss Whedon and Josh Jackson (oops, I mean Fringe) panels after that with some of our new friends.  Since that meant we all missed lunch, I passed out snacks that I carried in my handy-dandy carry-all bag.  They weren’t very substantial, but it was enough to tide me over.

After the Fringe panel ended, we bid farewell, and the husband and I headed home with fond memories of the day we got to sit in the same room as Yvonne Strahovski.