Mountain Con 4-the search for big name stars

It had been a long summer and Jen & I did not have much alone time since our spring time vacation. So we found an excuse this weekend to pawn our kids off on my parents and head out of town. But we did not go far (nor could we at today's gas prices.) We went to Layton to attend the local science fiction convention called Mountain Con. This was the fourth mountain con and we had the pleasure of attending all of them. We got a room at the adjoining hotel and enjoyed the quality time together.

My brother Carl has been a major participant in past mountain cons, but took a smaller role in this year's event. The new managers of the con tried very hard to bring great guests and enjoyable panels. But they got some bad luck when their main headline star, Kevin Sorbo, had to back out. Leaving very little time to find a suitable replacement. So we did not have any spectacular stars attending the con this year. But we still had fun. Check out Jen's blog for the pictures we took at the event.

They offer a chance to eat a very nice dinner with the stars. We normally do not participate in that as I find the cost to be unrealistic, just like the prices they charge to give autographs. But they were unable to sell all the tickets they had for the dinner and since they had already bought all the food that was going to be served. They asked Carl and his entourage if they wanted to attend for free. So the weekend started off with some wonderful food and some good time spend with good people. My 8 year old niece was instant on sitting next to me during the dinner. It is nice to be liked by my brother's daughter. She is fun and cute.

I got to hear a presentation about what we know about Mars from someone from the Clark Planetarium. That was very cool, as was playing a role playing game with my wife, watching a fan made star trek film and taking a starfleet course about romulans and Capt. Kirk's first 5 year mission. They had a panel about Stephanie Meyer's Twlight series and I made the mistake of joking calling the books a romance novel. All the girls in the room gave me the evil eye and one began to blame me for every mis-characterized author in the entire known universe. I learned not to joke about Stephanie Meyer.

It was very nice to have some time with just me and my wife. I relaxed, slept in, ate out at restaurants and enjoyed spending some one on one time with the woman I fell in love with and had a great weekend. Hearing that both the Utes and Cougars won their games completed the perfect weekend.

Quick book review: I am currently reading the book "Paul of Dune" which continues the Dune series. I am a third of the way through and so far I am enjoying it greatly. I enjoy the works of Kevin Anderson and Brain Herbert very much. I think I enjoy their books more than Frank Herbert's works. I will give a full review when I am done with the book but can already recommend it to anyone who wants to see what happens to Paul before and after the first Dune book.