Lifelist Item Complete: Nerd Out at Comic-Con

At first when Melissa mentioned it at Starbucks one day, I couldn't really gauge her level of seriousness. She very casually mentioned that she'd read my Lifelist (it's a slight head tweak on the lower right side) and wanted to help. Then she gave her caramel macchiato a little swig and looked at me, eyebrows raised.

Little did she know my Lifelist was in a real slump at the time (along with some other things), and I was ecstatic that she offered to lend her effort and resourcefulness. "My husband is a comic book nerd too. In fact, that's where he goes every Tuesday night -- to the comic book store." We laughed. "I would be the best wife ever if I suggested we go to Comic Con." Just minutes before we'd met for coffee, Comic Con was a very distant pipe dream, just another "want" on my wishlist. And there we both were, nonchalantly agreeing to take on this behemoth challenge.

From there, we coordinated efforts to procure tickets, lodging and a car. Melissa isn't a technical nerd per se, but she hears and reads EVERYTHING. She would usually call or email to let me know when tickets would go on sale, or to follow Comic Con on Facebook, and Twitter. The minor details she suggested were so key to getting the right information at the right time, I'm not sure things would have worked out otherwise. Yet again, a godsend.

I recruited several of my nerds to help land tickets online, especially after our first attempt failed and the Comic-Con site crashed. Melissa tried the site from a dedicated T-1 at work, as did several of my Boulder nerds and I tried via three laptops at home via DSL. The second attempt failed as too, though only a few thousand tickets were released for testing purposes. We sent texts back and forth and were in good contact with a good plan, but again, the site crashed. Nerds everywhere were outraged! It was three hours into our third wobbly attempt that I finally latched on to tickets for Thursday and Friday. Coincidentally, these were the two best days on the much later published Comic Con schedule. Score!

Without the photos, I'm pretty sure Comic Con would be a complete blur. It was fun, exciting, fast paced and by and large, the people were genuinely nice. I'll post more about the actual adventure itself along with the panels we got into and USA Today's awesome PopCandy Meetup with Whitney Matheson that Melissa suggested we check out on Saturday. Damn skippy, I've got an amazing friend. And she really is the Best.Wife.Ever. Nerds in waiting, take note.

I feel so very gratified to cross this item off my lifelist, it was a blast, we were prepared (as much as we could be, anyway) and I was in good company all the way. In turn, I need to go help other people with their Lifelists... what's on yours?