Ryan's Prologue and Review of Day 1 at Taiyou Con (Sky's The Limit)

Prologue


I was going to wake up at 2am to travel to Sacramento but thanks to some inconsiderate roommates, I was wide awake at 1:00; to be honest, I couldn't sleep no matter how hard I tried, even going to sleep at 10pm the previous day. I got packed and drove myself 3 and 1/2 hrs to about Sacramento when I nearly got stuck in some nasty fog, mind you the fog would follow us all day. Luckily, Matthew was nearby to guide me through the fog. Once I got to his house and established myself as we waited for the fog to burn off (which never did), we were on our way back to what I called home - SoCal via Huntington Beach and Long Beach - to see old but great friends like James, Amanda, and my new potential love interest Kathy. For those who aren't in the loop, Amanda and I are no longer together and I'll leave it at that. Nothing but good times ensued as Matthew and I saw fellow friend Erwin (Sora) on a pit stop in Lakewood at Round 1 Arcade and Lanes. I was going to play ID8 (Intial D Arcade Stage 8) but most of them were hogged all night by the "regulars" and there were no cards as to be expected from the popular arcade chain. So instead I played some SSF4, 3rd Strike, and Gundam Extreme Vs Full Boost against Sora and would own the night as Wing Gundam as he would continue to swipe his card and eventually beat me once at the end of night; the tally was 20-1. The night would end at Buffalo Wild Wings (B-Dubs for short) with some nice wings and conversation with the Huntington crew. Considering I did this leg of the trip with NO sleep, it would best us to be back in Long Beach but despite the "lack of sleep," we were good to go come 6am.

Travel/Day 1

Not much excitement would happen on my end as I would pass out on drive halfway to the Arizona line but when woke up as we continued across the desert to the beautiful metropolis of Phoenix, AZ and Mesa. By the time we arrived it was 1:30PM GMT/12:30 PM PST where we'd meet "The Portlanders" aka Danny and Michael at the car of the hotel driveport. Expecting the lobby to be full of convetioners, it was surprisingly quiet. To our dismay, we got into our room fairly quick and did a full walk-through of the convention grounds.


Badges were painless to receive so realizing that there wasn't alot going on 'till later that night we do an impromptu trip to the store to stock up on food for the convention. By the time we got back we had lined up for the start of our glorified "Persona Con" with the Musical Guest Q&A Panel.


After some good to wacky questions, we returned to our room for some much needed Domino's Pizza. Unfortunatly. Michael had to take off for the night so Danny and I hung out while he was streaming. I had passed out not too long after that from exhaustion of the prior day. The moment all of us had been waiting for was a mere 12 hours away...

End Of Day 1