First off, such a great time! But what's the count? SGOH parties attended: 2, SGFL parties: ZERO! Weird, right?!
Also, I learned some stuff on the trip. But I'll get to that...
Party pictures! (a few)
Chrysis was such a sweetheart!
Drama and his girl in their SOA costumes. (I'll eventually watch that show)
BTW, who's the blonde in the stockings here?!
I'm sorry to say, ALL these pictures (and a few of the following) are stolen.
Which brings me to LESSON 1:
Typically I plan my trips in detail, but this time was more "go with the flow" and leave things to chance. I planned to NOT plan! And I don't think things could've worked out better.
So having only booked a hotel for the first night, I had to drag myself out of bed in time for check out on Sat and started trying to see what the goings on were for the day. Eventually I met Delia, Shipwreck, SoBelle and Amarena for lunch at the fabulous the Waffle House! And Dovah arrived by the time we were done.
That's when I was told that I had a job to do. The girls were going to be shooting Zivity sets and they needed a "dead guy".
How I tried to appear to feel about it:
But what I was feeling inside:
Shipwreck was next to shoot. Stuck around for that one too given that the first shoot had some creepers... Well, creepin'! And they were glad to have a guy around.
That girl has some great ink!
LESSON 2:
Must join Zivity!
Gotta give these girls credit, it... was... COLD! But they soldiered on!
Since I still didn't have any other plans by then, I continued to hang and went downtown for diner and a "gallery hop". This was coincidental because back in June I bought some art from a guy in Australia.
Finally got it on Saturday. Airplane "panel art". Added a ruler for scale.
But anyway! While waiting for diner, we ALL learned something...
LESSON 3:
Downtown was crowded. So we all retired back to the hotel early, made a booze run and watched the SG UK Holiday on iPad.
The video was great and all, but in my opinion the best part of staying in was having the opportunity to chat about SG itself; the sets, SGs, hopefuls, old vs new, what annoys, what excites...
Also, the girls had never had the pleasure of a drive THROUGH liqueur store before then!
Oh... LESSON 4:
Apparently, the general consensus on adjoining hotel rooms is...
Had an extra hour to sleep in on Sun morning before leaving for the airport, which was awesome! But I still had time to kill, so I went and watched "Wreck-It Ralph" in theater. So much nostalgia in that flick!
When I did get to the airport, I learned my 2:15pm flight was delayed due to mechanical issues. First to 3:30, then to 6:20, then 8:20, 9:45 came and went too... I didn't leave Columbus until 10:30!!!
Still... After such a good time, nothing was taking the smile off my face! The airline folks appreciated that. 
Naturally, there was a lot of entertaining myself on the internet. At one point I stumbled across a picture.
...The London Eye in the evening.
In that one instant, I decided London will be my destination for New Years!
I won't lie, I was among the many people drinking away the pain of such a long delay.
That didn't change once finally boarded.
