Travis and Michelle Fitzgerald's blog

(You’re going to have to bear with me today, we have several things to post about from the past couple of weeks, so there will be several posts today!)

The weekend of March 13-15, 2009, Michelle and I attended a Science-Fiction Convention, called All-Con, in Addison, Texas (near Dallas). This was my first convention (hard to believe for such a big Star Wars geek as myself, but still true), so it was an interesting experience.

We chose this convention because it is sort of the “home” convention of the Star Garrison of the 501st Star Wars Costuming Group, of which I am a member. (The Star Garrison covers all the folks in the 501st within Texas, Arkansas, and Oklahoma.) So there were lots of friends (and soon-to-be friends) at the convention to show us the ropes.

The convention itself was kinda small. It was held in a fair sized hotel, and the entire second floor of the hotel (including conference space and hallways) was reserved for the convention. But there were still maybe 20-30 small booths. Most of the booths were costuming organizations, some artists, and vendors selling various sci-fi related swag (toys, costuming accessories, etc).

I spent most of Saturday in my Stormtrooper armor (8 hours, by my count), Michelle started with her Elizabethan dress and then switched to her new Star Wars crewperson outfit.

There were several events that we participated in. Friday night we had dinner with Peter Mayhew (who played Chewbacca in all of the Star Wars movies). Saturday we participated in a Q&A for the 501st, a bake sale to raise money for the American Cancer Society, the 501st group picture, and the 501st party.

It was a lot of fun, and we have some good stories from it (be sure to ask when you see us!). I posted a bunch of pictures from other photographers on our picture page. I didn’t take any pictures, because, well, there’s no place to keep a camera in my Stormtrooper armor.

Here are a few of my favorite pictures from the gallery:

A candid shot of us walking back to our room (one of the few pictures of me in my armor).

Us at the party.

Michelle looking beautiful.

Looking back on the past few posts, I realized that the feel of the blog has gotten somber and serious. Well, since that doesn’t really reflect who we are, here is a more lighthearted post.

It’s a list of my favorite entertaining websites. I’ve probably posted some of these before, but they’re fun, so whatever:

http://icanhascheezburger.com/
Pictures of cats. Doing funny things. Mostly silly.

http://ihasahotdog.com/
Same thing, except with dogs.

http://www.swtor.com/
So there’s a new Star Wars computer game coming out that will probably take over my life (perhaps even replace the World of Warcraft). It looks really cool, so far. Not sure when it will be released, though.

http://gizmodo.com/
Gadgets galore!

http://www.fbtb.net/
A Star Wars website that focuses on Legos. Or maybe a Lego website that focuses on Star Wars. Should keep the philosophers busy for a while.

http://www.theforce.net/
Best Star Wars website ever

http://www.astromech.net/
The place where people building Star Wars droids discuss super important things…like “what color is R2-D2 really?”

Ok, that’s a taste of the websites that I visit on a daily basis. Enjoy!

I ran across a good document that shows how much a car can be considered “domestic". It gives the percentage of parts made in the US/Canada, as well as where the final assembly is done. Unfortunately, it doesn’t differentiate between parts or assembly in the US versus Canada. It appears the most “American” car is the Ford Crown Vic, which has 90% US/Canadian parts, and is assembled in the US/Canadia . Upon further research, however, it turns out the final assembly is indeed done in Canada.

So here are the vehicles we are/were looking at:

(Brand, Model, % content US/Canada, Assembly location)
Pontiac G8, 7%, Outside US/Canada (Australia)
Toyota Camry, 70%, Both inside and outside US/Canada
Toyota Camry Hybrid, 45%, Both inside and outside US/Canada
Nissan Maxima, 55%, US/Canada
Honda Accord, 60%, Both inside and outside US/Canada

More food for thought.

p.s. Yes, we are procrastinating buying the new car…

p.p.s Forgot the link: http://tinyurl.com/ag29sr

A remarkable woman, Betty Fitzgerald, passed away this past Wednesday. Affectionately known as Me-Maw to most of her grandchildren, my grandmother was truly the matriarch of my Dad’s side of the family. Her love for her family was only exceeded by her remarkable faith. I have very fond memories of years of Christmases, birthdays, and various outings with her. She was a wonderful person and a fabulous grandmother. She will be greatly missed.

Here is a link to the obituary.

Just a couple of things to add to what Travis wrote…

Honda

Salesman was a little weird, and didn’t mention anything about the available voice commands until after we were parked, coming back from the test drive. Also, unlike any of the other dealerships, he took us on a short little route with NO CHANCE of flooring the car. For those of you in the Clear Lake Area: Kobyashi -> Magnolia -> I-45 feeder -> the dealership. Maybe at 0400 you could open it up on the feeder, but not Saturday afternoon. Oh, and the dash display for the fan speed & temp controls was a long LCD. Yeah, looked like a cheap calculator. Weird.

Ford

Yeah, what he said. A mess.

Pontiac

This guy didn’t even want me to park the car. Werido. It wasn’t even that small a spot. And the cars look pretty and did handle well but that didn’t make up for the lack of pretty much everything else.

Nissan

I hadn’t even considered Nissan in our original ponderings, but the dealership is on the freeway between Pontiac and Toyota so we stopped in. Very pleasantly surprised. Both cars I drove were comfortable and handled well (through a construction zone no less). The choice here (Maxima vs. Altima) would be between the gadget lover and the thrifty spender.

Toyota

Gizmos and gadgets a plenty – I’ve got whosits and whatsits galore! Yeah, the Toyotas were fun and the choice between the Hybrid and the XLE is between the eco-geek and the joy rider. And I didn’t mind the teal as much as Travis did… We need to hit the Consumer Reports…

~Michelle