Hello everyone and welcome to my first blog of 2011. This blog will be a summary of all good and bad that happened to me in 2010. Of course I won’t go into detail on everything. Some things I have blogged about, some things might be new. I really just want to type this as I go along and in the end, I’ll just press the right key to post this and it should be fine. So I guess this will be just another blog in my style :-)
In the end of 2009 I got fired from my new job. I had quit the job I’d been doing for 8 years to start something new. I had a two month training period with the new job. Unfortunately I got ill and it resulted into me getting fired.
So my 2010 started very badly. I was very depressed and I guess it wasn’t easy for other people to deal/live with me. I sought help and started an anonymous blog to make it more easily to write about all my problems freely. I don’t mind sharing stuff online, and I know my blog isn’t really popular, compared to others. But still, some things were and are too personal to write freely about.
I got money from welfare but it was hard to make ends meet. I fell down in a hole and I just couldn’t climb out all by myself. So I sought help and got some. It started well, but too late in my opinion. And now I still am waiting for a follow up, been on a waiting list ever since May 2010.
I felt horrible. It was nice at times to be home, to be able to do as I please. But I had to write many solicitation letters and to some I got a reply, but not to all. And most replies were negative. So I felt even worse. I have blogged a lot back then on my anonymous blog, wrote a lot in my paper journal. I tried to make the best of it.
I was glad I had some money saved up. And I was happy that I already had paid for my ticket to FedCon 19. My parents gave me money for the hotel and because of that all, I could do something positive: visit FedCon 19 in Bonn, Germany. This is a big convention that is held annually. In 2009 Joyce and I went to our first FedCon, number 18, and we got hooked straight away!
A small impression of our weekend at FedCon 19:
The first evening, Thursday April 29th. We met up with some German friends we met back in 2009. This picture is made by “Battlestar Galactica” star Aaron Douglas!!! We were right next to their (Aaron shared a table with some Battlestar Galactica friends) table. We wanted to have our group picture taken. So I went over to the neighbors’ table and asked Kandyse McClure if I might ask a weird question. You saw her face change to “OK, here we go again” but she answered politely that I was allowed to ask the question. Then I explained that we would like to have our group picture taken BY one of them (so not WITH) and Aaron jumped up while Kandyse was still surprised. We had to yell “Battlestar Galactica” (so everyone was checking us out) and then Aaron took this shot. So it’s a great story with some great memories as well.
The first photo shoot Joyce and I had on Friday, April 30th: Terry Farrell and Michael Dorn (a.k.a. Jadzia Dax and Worf from Star Trek Deep Space Nine).
And the thing FedCon is almost famous for: queuing! And the fun thing is, you keep on meeting the same people in your queue or in the queue next to you. This is a gall we met at FedCon and we are still calling a dear friend :-D I really met some great and awesome people at FedCon :-)
Our second photoshoot on Friday: Kandyse McClure. YES! The woman I asked to make a picture of our group the evening before. She still remembered us and we had a really nice chat with her. She is lovely and has a GREAT memory of faces and names, wow :-O
And this is Aaron Douglas. YES, the man who took our picture yesterday.
These were the photo shoots we took on Friday. I have made many pictures of the opening ceremonial. They are on my Flickr account, BUT you need to be my friend in order to see them. In the past I have shared my convention pictures in high quality with others freely and unfortunately people have taken advantage of me. So now I would still like to share pictures with friends/people who also love conventions and all, but only behind "closed gates" a.k.a. a Flickr account with a friendship bond on there. If you already have a Flickr account, please just look for me on there using the nickname SuperCynni. Send a request to befriend me. If you aren’t a Flickr member and you would still like to see the pictures, please sign up for Flickr on their main page (only takes a minute or so and it’s completely free) and then search for me to send the friendship request.
Our first photoshoot on Saturday, May 1st, was with Chase Masterson. She is known ofr her character "Leeta" in Star Trek Deep Space Nine.
A dear friend of ours, which we also met at FedCon 18, really wanted another photo shoot with Kandyse. But his funds had run out... So Joyce and I decided to buy him a ticket as a birthday present. We really love the outcome of this picture! So we are glad we decided on giving him this present.
I wanted another picture taken with Kandyse as well. This is a lovely "hugging picture", as I like to call them. While Kandyse and I were ready, the camera man wasn't. So he asked us to wait for a few seconds. I mumbled that he could take a whole minute if he wanted to...I was fine. This was heard by Kandyse who had to laugh hard and then the camera man had to wait for her to be ready again... Great memories! Great hugging ;-)
TAMOH!!! A lovely picture with Tamoh Penikett from Battlestar Galactica. I even got to offer him a chair on Thursday evening when he came up to join his BGS friends and got a thumbs up then! Lovely...
James Marsters. We had only met up with him during Hallowhedon in the end of October 2009 so it was nice to catch up with him again.
*while scrolling through all the pictures (over 500) of FedCon 19 I uploaded to Flickr, I really was glad to be there. After so many rejections while job searching, after all the time of not having the money to do anything fun while being unemployed, this was really something I needed badly.*
Sunday, May 2nd, our last photo shoot...
When we had our second photo with Martha Hackett, we asked for a hugging picture. This is what Martha made of it. I LOVE ♥ it!!!
This was the update on FedCon. As mentioned before, if you are interested in my talk pictures and/or the opening/closing ceremonial pictures…check out Flickr!
On May 31st, my mum’s birthday, we went to the Dutch amusement park: The Efteling.
A small impression of our day at the Efteling:
All pictures above are made at the "Droomvlucht" attraction.
This year, due to the lack of money, we decided to go on a cheaper kind of holiday: take the caravan and go to Austria. We went to the place we already visited a few times before: Hartberg in the Steiermark region. The vacation had it’s ups and downs. Partly because I was still not fully out of my depression yet. Partly due to, well, other reasons. But we did have some real good times and I would like to share some pictures of that as well. I guess I will post only the first week and in my follow up post (I will hopefully be able to write it a.s.a.p.) I will continue. It’s 1:18 am and I need to work again tomorrow (starting at 13) so I do need some sleep soon.
Small impression of our first week on vacation in Austria, starting Saturday July 31st.
A few KM before the Austrian border, so still in Germany (near Passau) one of our mobile home tired blew. And it blew hard! That evening I found rubber in bed. Not the safe kind of rubber though, but bits of the tire...
We found an Irisch pub near by, I was thrilled for sure!
A long, widing path through the "Teichalm Moor".
Chance had a great time as well :-)
Folks, I am getting really tired so I guess it's time to end the blog for now and shut my eyes and hopefully get some good rest/sleep. Thanks for your interest and hope to be able to "tell" you more about my 2010 soon!
TTFN! ☺
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