The Trek-gasam continued....

With a little presentation and a meet and greet. I'll reserve my opinion on the J.J. Abrams movie until I see it (assuming it gets made) Pictures and running commentary in the usual place. Ran into some old friends I used to see when I was a full-blown Trekker back in the day. Maricel and I had dinner with them. It was a weird mixture. One dude and his wife are your basic normal people who, like me I hope, just hit these things for fun. There's another fellow who might be a wee bit too intense, but two of the guys... It's their religion. They have all of these ideas about what should and shouldn't get made for film and TV. None of it is remotely related to anything that would every make money or get any viewers. I just feel kind of bad for them. If they put that amount of enthusiasm into their own lives... When Maricel and the other girl went to the ladies room, one of them asked me how much Maricel had cost me. They were absolutely certain that I'd hired a call girl. I said, "Dude that's my girlfriend. You're calling my girlfriend a hooker." The sensible fellow among them asked how the hell you'd find a hooker who was interested in Star Trek. Once they accepted that Maricel was my friend and not my hooker, they wanted to know where they could get Filipina girlfriends. I suggested magic beans.

Maricel and I shared this dessert sampler of five different desserts. Damn good thing I went on a diet before I came out here.

I left Maricel by the pool...

To meet up with some other dealers for drinks. Just what I need, I know, more liquor. But I was already getting lobster-pink in the sunshine. And she just wanted lie in the sun and read some of her new books. 24 solid hours with me is more than anyone should have to deal with. I had a good time although I wondered how wise is was to leave someone that goodlooking out by the pool with so many lonely guys wandering around. I must be confident. Weezer texted me FEBREEZE ROCKS! He's probably huffing it.

Talking with other dealers, I get the feeling my business is in pretty good shape. The market is soft, God knows, especially compared to the early nineties, but I'm feeling more confident than ever that my decision to stay out of debt at the expense of expansion has been a good one. I've felt the pain of not being able to acquire some things acutely, but that's not as bad as the pain of 23% interest.

I actually lied about debt, Grandpa did help me buy the building and I owe a mortgage on my home/business. But he gave me a huge anti-debt lecture and said not to borrow to buy anything that isn't practically guaranteed to go up in value.

Sorry to say, but one of the guys has so much surplus intentory strangling him along with huge credit card balances, that I may be able to get a good deal of good product off him for next to nothing. I can just rent a truck and drive to Indiana. When I said that I pay in cash, his eyes lit up.

I ended up buying the drinks.

See you in the funny papers...
Simon Wolfe

The pool is more than a pool....

It's a beach. With a mini-ocean. Usually I try to stay as pale and sickly looking as possible, just so my customers feel comfortable, but I took my blanco behind out there and stuck it in a beach chair. I took a dip in some SPF 1,000,000 and tried to remember the last time I had a tan. I even bought some swim trunks. Nothing riduclous, just some basic solid color baggy swim trunks. Nothing funnier than a guy the color of rice wearing obvioiusly brand new swimwear. I wish it had not been so easy to spot the people from Comic-Con at the pool But it was. Dear Lord, it was. I was tempted to take some pictures, but then I realized that someone could be taking pictures of me. Maricel's suit was new, too. She said she needed this style cause she's got a bit of a stomach. I guess so, in that there's actually a stomach and not just ribs and a concave place. She even got me in the pool. Nobody tried to harpoon me, thank goodness. Truthfully looking at some of the other guys hanging around. I'm not so bad and at least I've got sense enough not to wear a Speedo, you know.

Sometimes I like to pretend that I'm really not a fanboy...

That went totally out the window. I paid big bucks to pose with Star Trek sets, I was completely and totally thrilled to overpay for food and drink at a bar set up to look like Quark's from DS9. I am happy and relieved to have photographic proof that Maricel is a bigger dork than me. That's a pretty big dork. If occurs to me that I'm out doing exactly what my family imagines I do in my free time. So I snapped some shots on the cell phone and sent them to my sister and to my grandfather.

Then back to the hotel to revel in all things Marvel Comics. Maricel is an X-Men fanatic as anyone who as been following the twisted tale of my intercontinental romance will know. It's interesting where an on-line discussion about Wolverine's adamantium skeleton will get you. I plan on writing this up in detail on the Wolfe's Den page while sitting by the pool...