Over this past weekend I was at the Magic: The Gathering Grand Prix in San Jose. It was nice to escape the heat of Southern California for a bit and meet up with some new and old friends.
The two other guest artists were Anthony Francisco and Rob Alexander. I had no idea that both Rob and I play ice hockey and that we are both goaltenders. Pretty crazy.
The show had a huge turnout. They only expected around 900 players but ended up having between 1700-1800! The hall was completely packed and there was no rest for the artists. It is actually pretty amazing how many of the same faces I see at these shows regardless of the location. Hopefully they aren’t tired of me yet!
Despite the number of players, the show was actually fairly relaxed. I never had any downtime and sometimes the line was fairly long, but I wasn’t as slammed like some of the other shows. I actually got to take a bathroom break this time!
I would just like to thank all of the fans for showing up to the event and dropping by my table. Also a big thank you goes out to Tim Shields, Ron Foster, and all of the GP staff. It was a great show and I had a blast.
I hadn’t really been to San Jose before. I have driven through it, but I’ve never stayed in the city for any length of time. The downtown area was actually a lot nicer than I thought it would be. When I lived in San Francisco I would hear people saying how San Jose wasn’t nice, but maybe they were talking about another area.
We initially planned on arriving early so that we could check out the city, but I ended up working in the hotel room the majority of the trip. Surprise surprise. Usually with these shows I don’t get to see the sights because I’m stuck in the hotel working.
On Monday before our flight we were able to sneak in some touristy stuff, although we never left a 2-3 block radius from our hotel.
The Tech Museum one block away was having a Mythbusters Exhibit, so we were able to see that. It was really cool seeing all of the props and gadgets from the show. I am a huge Mythbusters fan, so I was pretty excited.
There was also a live demonstration, although the actual Mythbusters were not there. They were testing whether or not you could dodge a paintball fired from a gun. It was pretty fun watching the volunteers get smacked by speeding paintballs. The guy was able to dodge it after they gave him a bit of a warning before it was fired. The problem was that the guy was holding a huge riot shield, so I’m sure that slowed him down. In the end they had to simulate it as if the gun was fired 170 feet away from the guy before he was able to dodge it. Fun stuff!
What I also liked about the exhibit was the fact that they had a lot of interactive stations. They had a telephone book swing, card throwing, reaction tests, structure building, you could hang from a ledge, a blind driving video game, and several other things.
So if you are in the San Jose area and you like the Mythbusters, you should definitely check it out!
