A few bitty thoughts…

A Starbucks, across the street from a Starbucks, in Shanghai.

Sled ride down from the Great Wall.

Mandatory tourist Terrifying Ride of Death(tm) pedicab/rickshaw

Lots of “unintentional exploring”

Finding awesome bakery on the last day (*cries*)

No cries of CURSE YOU FOR DISRESPECTING MY CULTURAL HERTITAGE DISHONOR ON YOUR COW for cosplaying at ancient historical landmark, woo!

Epic hair wars between j-rock wannabe boys on subway.

People didn’t really stare at us any more than they usually did on the subway, even though I was wearing a satellite dish on my head. But I got an excellent signal. Would you like to check your Facebook?

Not getting sick and no rain until the last day! woooooo! (unfortunately, though, ugh.)

$13 one hour foot massages. Almost every day. AWESOME.

Finding the fabric district on the second to last day. Omg. I’m taking about 30 pounds of brocade back. Omg.

Hanging out with and Nick for an awesome day at BeiHai and the hutong district.

Obviously, I’m not expecting to EVER have a twenty four pack body. However, it seemed like a fun way to stay motivated, plus not spend another million hours on the elliptical at the gym. I went into it knowing FULL well I’d either have pause the tape a million times, or do it VERRRYYYY SLOWLY.

Today was the first day.

I allotted 2 hours to get through the 40 minute program.

Step One: Warm Up

I knew there was a reason i haven’t done jumping jacks since about 8th grade. I think my boobs bounced over a foot (with a sports bra, mind you… but when you are a 40 DDD, sports bras are more of…. wishful thinking). I had to hold them after the first two. I could have put an eye out!

Step Two: Intervals

Hey…. this isn’t so bad. Okay, I need do it at 1/3 the speed, and kinda… shuffle back and forth instead of hopping, but hey, I can do this. Oh, wow, my face is really red and I’m really tired, huh? But hey, the girls in the video look about as miserable as I am, so I must be doing it right, right?

Step Three: Level One Drills Video here

Do two girly push ups.

Sit back on ankles.

Stare at screen in disbelief.

Walk forward on hands.

Do 1 1/2 girly pushups.

Watch them throw their legs from side to side.

Sit back on ankles.

Shift weight from side to side.

ALMOST THE SAME THING.

*dies*

Go check it out here!

Second, Cheryll wrote up an awesome backstage report with tons of photos. Go check it out, here!

Third, I’m really really happy with how the Big Daddy Bouncer silhouette turned out. All that time with a calculator and ruler working on the proportions really paid off. I think I really nailed the shaping, plus I had every single part, even the ones I was thinking I wouldn’t finish. Yay! And I’m super big. About 7 feet tall, 3 feet wide, and about 6 feet deep. Woot. I’m not a big daddy. I’m a BIG DADDY.

Fourth, all the crap I’m uphappy with, lol.

* It’s just too $(@#$ heavy. At first, I thought just a metric ton of weightlifting training would solve that part (I had meant to undergo a training program prior to SDCC, but that was cut out of the schedule in favor of finishing the damn thing). I was (obviously) struggling to walk, and I felt like such a wimp, until I saw three guys trying to carry it and having problems. Lol. So, I’m not super wimpy (well, i’m wimpy, just not super wimpy.) So, the plan is to start weightlifting before I wear it again, but that can’t be my only option. I have to figure out somewhere to shed at least 20 pounds. I had originally thought it was around 50 pounds of costume, but I weighed the lightest piece. It’s 7 ounces. Super light, right? There are 47 pieces. >_< My current estimate is somewhere around 70-80 pounds. I’ll try to weigh the whole thing this weekend.

* The drill turning worked for about 5 seconds. I have to remake the drill anyway, since that’s one of the heaviest pieces. So much so that it pulls the right side of the costume down, and (apparently) causes me to constantly drift to the right. I wouldn’t know, because….

* I can’t see. Seriously. No see. Anything. I had A) angled the bottom air vents so I could see the floor, and B) put “cracks” the porthole glass frosting so I could see out, but neglected to account for the fact the dome is about two feet from my eyes. A nice big slit right in front of your face is awesome. Two feet away and all you can see are dark and light. Going up and down the stairs to get on the stage is one of the scariest things I’ve done. Without the worlds most awesome handlers, it would probably have been one of those tragic, News at Eleven type things. Much more news worthily bizarre than the pen stabbing in Hall H.

* The lights in the dome were too weak to show up in most photos. I had to take the padding out of arms and cut them shorter to fit, and now they look silly. My pants fell off on stage (Well, at least it was suddenly drafting around the big daddy rear section). I didn’t have time to distress the soft costume,

etc

etc.

Overall, thrilled for how awesome the girls did, happy with my costume, and dismayed at the world’s longest laundry list of fix-its. But all in all, not bad for first time really working with fiberglass, right? lol.

Back from SDCC, more later

(holding it a wee bit too tall, heh.

Had a blast, as always. This was the first time I’ve been in the late spring, and what a wonderful time to go! The crowds are (slightly) less, and everywhere you look is another waterfall! The three big ones were of course, very spectacular, but every 50 feet of canyon, there was another baby one I had never seen before. The weather, however, was rather odd. First of all, for those unfamiliar, this is Yosemite:

Wow, right? And wait a sec… is that SNOW? Yes, yes it is snow. I was prepared for the forecasted 70 degrees, with a chance of rain on sunday. I drive into the valley, and whoop, snow. At least most of it was above the valley floor, but it did leave things a little cooler than I expected. >_<

One of the best parts of Yosemite is that every new view is just amazing. You’re driving through a twisty forested road, and suddenly, there is something amazing in the distance, like this view of Bridalveil falls (photo taken from my bike)

Lower Yosemite Falls was so strong that the wind caused by the water hitting the ground caused my hat to fly off. Oops.

Here is Upper Yosemite Falls, Middle Yosemite Falls (which I’ve never been able to see before) and Lower Falls peeking through the trees

Lunch!

Half Dome wearing a snow beret. I can’t believe I almost got to the top of that. One day! *shakes fist at sky* I sure hope the cables go up in time for a friend’s trip up!

So, I was pedalling a long, and all of a sudden I come across a huge group of people pointing, cameras out, with binoculars, looking at the face of El Capitan. And pointing at nothing. It was a like driving past an accident. I had to stop to find out what they are looking at. It took me quite a while to figure it out. That speck? It’s a PERSON. CRAZY CRAZY PERSON.

Another view of Bridalveil

So, not only was there unexpected snow… on Sunday there was rain (well, at least it was forecasted), but hail, and then fog. o.0

And lastly, the best part of camping, peach cobbler in a dutch oven