Mini Olympics and Comic-Con

This week's Mr. Teacher column over on education.com is my own little celebration of the Olympics, going on as we speak over in Berlin. Mine is perhaps a bit more on the wordy side, and less on the feats of physical ability side, but hey, at least there will be no controversy over underage Chinese gymnasts with my column...

OK, so it's been long enough since I posted about my trip to Comic-Con, so I figured it's about time for me to finish the story. I've posted about every day there except for the final day, Sunday (and of course there's no reason for me to post about Monday, the day spent in the San Diego airport -- of course, if I had been there on Tuesday, I could have posted about my experience during an earthquake), so here's the conclusion to the story.

Sunday was a pretty lazy day actually. Most of the big events and presenters had come and gone on Friday and Saturday. My buddy and I slept in a little later than usual, and we got to the convention center around 10:30. I was going to try to get in and see the boys from Supernatural -- Jensen Ackles and Jared Padelecki. Turns out, I'm not the only one who likes that show. The line to get into that room wound around and around and around the hallways, and by the time I found the end of the line, they had capped it off. Oh well. Of course, if the boys had been joined by Bella from that show, I would have gotten there hours earlier...

So my friend and I just spent a couple of hours wandering around the exhibition hall one last time. Over at one of the collectibles booths, we found the opportunity for one last fantastic photo opportunity, with a guy in a really realistic Predator outfit.

The closing event of the weekend was a screening of Once More with Feeling, the musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I am a big fan of that show, and that was a truly great episode, so I convinced my buddy to go with me. Thankfully, it didn't turn into The Rocky Horror Picture Show. It was a fun event to watch, and I think my friend enjoyed it, even though he didn't know who all of the characters were.

After that, there wasn't much else to do except head back to the hotel and start trying to pack up all of the freebies we had gotten. THAT took an hour or two, since I had to figure out what I was going to check and what I was going to try to carry onto the plane.

Overall, Comic-Con was a fantastic experience. If you're into that sort of thing, I HIGHLY recommend it. I don't know that I'm going to go again next year, but I will definitely consider it again in the future.