"May the 4th Be With You"!
Yesterday was Star Wars Day, so of course I had a SW event that I signed up for. There were a lot of events to choose from yesterday because not only was it the unofficial Star Wars Day, it was also Free Comic Book Day, which is also a "big deal" in geekdom. I attended a booksigning with the author Jeffrey Brown for the Star Wars book "Vader's Little Princess". It is a children's book and is a sequel to "Vader and Son". These books may be children's books but they are hysterical and very well done so it was a no-brainer to attend the booksigning as my May the 4th event. The event was held on North Lincoln Ave and traffic was absolutely horrible getting there. Also, there is no parking really on the north side of Chicago so I had to wander around to get a parking place (parking is something we take for granted in the burbs) but finally did squeeze into one. It is a good thing I grew up in Chicago because I know how to parallel park....lol...lots of people who grew up in the burbs have no idea how to parallel park. The event co-ordinator asked me to wear my Stormtrooper costume which is one I don't wear often because I am too short. It was fun to wear that costume for a change. I was the only Stormtrooper so not as many people seemed to care that I was too short. Anyway, it was a really nice event.
We took some photos of us sitting and "reading" the book. Sitting in TK armor is not easy, but I did sit and the photo came out pretty amusing.
On May 3rd I did another SW event for Channel 7 news Morning Show. Channel 7 is doing features highlighting various suburbs. Friday they did Joliet and the Joliet Star Wars Day event was one that they wanted to feature. We were asked to be part of the "set dressing" for that part of the news report. We had to get to the Joliet Historical Museum at 4:00 AM and be suited up by 5:00 AM. I am up every day at 2:00 AM so it was no big deal for me, but it was a little more difficult for the other brave souls who came. It was pretty wild! There were marching bands and all sorts of other things besides us....it made for a crazy scene for sure. I brought along my Artoo and ended up leaving him at the Museum because he will be needed there for the upcoming Joliet Library/Historical Museum Star Wars Day anyway, so that will now be one less thing to haul down there on May 21st. The video is here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YnsR5nypVk&feature=youtu.be
Last weekend I spent Sunday at C2E2 which is a local comic book and entertainment convention. I went in Jedi costume to that. I am not much on Cons and really only went there to help out my Rebel Legion Base with sitting at our fan table and running a game for the kids. I went in Jedi costume to this event because I knew that there would be more Jedi there besides me. It was ok....and the day really flew by. I must have walked 10 miles though as the game we were conducting called for me to be wandering the show floor with stickers and the kids were supposed to find me (and the others) to get one of 4 stickers. I walked back and forth through McCormick Place (which is huge) for 3 hours. At least I got my exercise for the day.
I have also been spending a lot of my free time spraying the invasive species garlic mustard in the woods at my prairie restoration site. Thankfully, the garlic mustard hasn't been as horrendous as the last couple of years so I have been able to walk large areas without having to constantly re-load the spray tank.
I also have been working in my garden a bit and planting seed for the early season vegetables and working with transplants. The soil is finally warming up to the point where I can probably think in terms of putting some of the other plants into the ground. We had some severe rains a couple weeks ago and I flooded from front to back. It was miserable but the standing water is finally gone. I just hope that we don't head straight back into another drought like last year. It seems it is always one extreme or the other around here.
I have also spent the past week working on the Joliet Library/Museum Star Wars Day event. On Tuesday I spent practically my entire day off with meetings in that regard. I also set up a lightsaber display at the Library's display case. I thought I would not be able to fill the case, but as always, I actually brought too much. 
I also spent a good bit of time making signage for the rest of the display and trying to go over in my mind what will be needed for the Rebel Legion and R2 Builder's display. I will need a bigger truck than my Jeep to haul all of the stuff home. I would love to find some old school/industrial lockers for the display and will keep my eyes open, but I don't have a lot of money to waste on that. I can always find a use for the lockers after the event, so that is something to consider. I did find one set of lockers on Craig's list, but it was a set of 4 and was pretty large. I am going to try to find something a little smaller. 
