Continued From Part 1. I exceeded the max 60,000 character limit for a thread.
The phone rang and I was up. I felt refreshed. I wasn’t exhausted, but still stumbled to the bathroom to get ready. I wanted to be up early in order to hit the VIP lounge and see what free breakfast was up there. Eggs? Bacon? Pancakes? Waffles? What will it be? I left my backpack in the room and just took my camera up with me, just in case. When I got inside, the place was packed. I walked over to the hot bar to find......oatmeal. That was the main course. The other option was bagels with no toaster to toast them. I grabbed a Starbucks, a bowl of stale cereal and a carton of milk. Cereal was bad. Took the coffee and left. I got back to my room and grabbed my bag and headed back to the con. Found my friends waiting in the lobby and we went inside. Once inside, we found a MUCH different audience from Saturday. The room was packed, minus a few empty seats in the last couple of rows. There had to be well over 300 people here now. By con standards....very small. But versus what we saw Saturday....a huge uptick. The announcements started and then I started to get the feeling that there was some stalling. They kept doing a roll call for who had which photo ops. They then said they had an unfortunate announcement. Oh here we go. All the rumors? No Joseph Morgan? Even after the tweets....no, it can’t be. Riley. Must be Riley. They screwed this up so bad.....Riley is NOT coming. This is all racing through my head for the 3 seconds of pause before Josh announces that Rob isn’t coming, but he might come later in the day to just wander about. I seriously doubt that, but disaster avoided. Riley was the 3rd op they were doing. There wasn’t many of us and it moved VERY quickly. She was awesome and looked great. Got my photo done and went out the door. Within minutes my photo op was on the table. Just like the Daniel one, something was a little off in the photo. It definitely looked like something that could be fixed with Photoshop, but honestly.....why should it have to be? The price we are paying for these photo ops, they should all come out crisp and stellar. Wizard World does a fantastic job with these and they use Celebrity Photo Ops. Chris who does Creation, also does a fabulous job.
We head back inside for Joseph. The time is coming. And the anxious wait is almost over. And to reassure all, Joseph tweets he is in the house ready to meet us. FAN GIRL TIME!!!! 
They now began lining up for Joseph. I originally bought 2 Joseph photo ops. I was planning on doing 1 standard pose and 1 pose prop pose. I had brought a human heart prop and I was going to stand in front with him behind holding the prop heart. I ended up purchasing a 3rd photo op because I found someone who needed to unload 1 and was able to secure it for half price. Sadly, Eyecon announced no poses. I've never been one to follow this and always let the star tell me no. As I am standing in line, they have volunteers managing the line all about the hall. They are constantly reminding us no poses and no props. They say the only acceptable pose will your arm around him and his arm around you. They also mention that Joseph doesn’t do many cons and one of the reasons is people cannot control themselves. They clarified by saying people become extra touchy feely and cross the line. They tell everyone to touch Joseph only how you might touch your BROTHER. Remember, Joseph is your brother. Don’t touch anything on Joseph that you wouldn’t touch on your brother. They looked at me directly with the last statement. 
Just joking. The line moved fairly quickly, much slower than the previous ones. But what can you expect....this line must be 4 or 5 x the size of previous lines. Once inside the room, you stop before entering where Joseph is. Here you there are 2 volunteers who sole purpose is to physically demonstrate over and over and over the ONLY acceptable pose. They warn that any props will be seized. I had my heart in my back pocket, but I started to ponder and determined that this no poses and no props rule probably isn’t the cons. They are going overboard with this posing and what is acceptable. They didn’t do ANY of that with the other guests. Also, in terms of con lines, this line is incredibly short. There can’t be more than 300 people and he is here all day. At the last second, I reconsidered. I am not gonna try and ask for a prop pose. Maybe I missed out. Maybe I avoided pissing off Joseph and the convention. Don’t know. It just seemed to not add up to it being the con wanting the line to move faster. NOT ONCE during this entire convention did I feel rushed or pushed. It was actually very relaxed environment. My honest opinion is that Joseph was concerned with how some people, yes mostly the women, were gonna behave around him. He did not want to be touched inappropriately and probably to avoid having to turn people's request for certain poses like being hugged, compelled, kissed, or having to hold a whip while spanking the fan...he opted to just say no props and no poses.
It was my turn finally. Since poses were out and I didn’t want each photo to look the same, I asked the photographer to shoot at least 1 photo long ways. The photographer offered for me to switch sides for the other, but for some reason I passed and now I am kind of kicking myself. Not the worst thing....but still, some variation would have been good. Anyway, I walk in and Joseph immediately notices the Klaus t-shirt I am wearing. I created a t-shirt with an image of Joseph from The Originals with one of my favorite quotes from the show. I even had something on the back, but more on that later. So Joseph loves the shirt. He stops to tell me how much he loves the shirt and wants to know where I got it. I told him I made it. He was amazed by it and really liked it. He said that the quote was one of his favorite from the show as well. The quote on the shirt read; "Let Me Buy You A Drink. I'll Tell You All About Being The Bad Guy." Technically the quote is from season 3 of Vampire Diaries when he was on VD, but it was still a Klaus quote. I got my 3 photos and left. Once outside, I waited by the photo op table for my photo ops. My friends were still waiting in line and they wanted the 411 on how Joseph was. I told them my little story and then spotted photo ops being put on the table. I rushed over and could see mine. I let others grab theirs and then I reached in and grabbed mine. The 2nd photo I took, Joseph changed it up a bit. Instead of just doing is normal grin, he pointed to my shirt and struck the angry Klaus face like in the shirt. It turned out really well. Still, the photos were about the same as the previous 2 I took. One, I could definitely tell was blurry. I would catch up with Froggy later to get it corrected.
I took my photos and went back into the main ball room to wait for the Q and A. Once the photo ops were done, which only took maybe another 20 minutes or so, Josh returned to let everyone know where we were at in the schedule. They were running a few minutes behind, but would be getting the Q and A started right away. Everyone took their seat and the Platinum badge paid off here as I was in the 3rd row and I had the center aisle seat. I could easily lean out into the aisle and had an unobstructed view of the stage and Joseph. The only thing that sucked was just as Joseph was entering, they announced no flash photography. I had to quickly make changes on my camera and had to start playing with the settings while trying to take pics. Needless to say, I took about 250 photos and only about 30 were worth a damn. Not only did the no flash hurt, but I just couldn’t find the right settings.
They had 2 people walking around with microphones to people who wanted to ask questions. All questions were prescreened and there was no shortage of them. I was the 3rd person to ask. As they handed me the microphone, I greeted Joseph. He then said he wanted to acknowledge once more how much he truly loved my shirt and the quote on it. I told him if he liked that, he should see the back. His eyes lit up like Christmas and he leaped off the stage. I stood up and he walked over to take a read of the back of the shirt. On the back was a screen capture of a tweet I sent to Joseph at the end of season 1. If anyone remembers my Upfronts story from 2 years ago, you would know what I am talking about. At this point it has over 1200 RTs and 1700 favorites, including one from Joseph Morgan. We had chatted about this and I reminded him about it. He read the tweet aloud to the crowd, smiled and lifted his hands in the air in victory. It was an awesome moment for myself. I was lucky that so many people were taking photos that they pretty much captured this moment from all sides. And one person even sent me her video of him jumping off the stage to come read it. After Joseph retook his seat I asked my question. My question was if Joseph could choose any 2 characters to bring to New Orleans, who would they be and why? I warned him that Caroline better be one of his choices. Joseph said he would like to see Damon or Stefan to come to New Orleans. He thought Damon would be perfect to raise hell with, while Stefan he hoped to see in full Ripper mode. He then said that he would like to see Caroline come to New Orleans more for an end to the series more so than just having her stopping by. I think he misunderstood what I was asking. I wasn’t asking about a crossover, but I was alluding more to how VD seems to be coming to an end. With Originals still going strong, I expect to see at least a couple more seasons of Originals to go on after VD. I am sure we will see a few characters permanently come to New Orleans if VD was to actually end.
As the Q and A continued, there was a point that Joseph started to talk about a movie he did called Alexandria. A smile came over my face, as I reached into my bag and pulled out the back of cast's chair that was for the movie Alexandria and was the very seat back of Joseph Morgan. His character's name is printed on the inside. I hold it up and catch his eye. Joseph asks what is that? I turn it around and he reads aloud. Philotas. In wonder, he says that’s the name of his character. He then says....that’s my chair! He wants to know where I got that. He says we will talk later. Uh oh.
The rest of the Q and A went fairly well. Questions were solid and this would make the 3rd Q and A I have been too where the questions were good. I think weeding out questions plays a big role in this. It was at this point that I needed to check into my flight. I got on my phone and tried to use the Southwest app to check in. I kept getting this error. I figured it must have been the app and would have to try later when I could get to a computer.
As the Q and A came to a close, the script got flipped. Suddenly Joseph says he wants to do something different. Since we had fun asking him questions, he wants to do the same to us. How's this gonna work? Turns out he wants to run a little trivia contest. I love trivia contests! The prizes are t-shirts that he has designed for his own Represent fund raiser. The shirts were quite nice and I was ready to make myself a winner. And I felt like I had a bit of an advantage. I just binge watched Season 3 Of Vampire Diaries to Season 2 Of The Originals. Only 1 snag.....I couldn’t answer the questions. His first question was what was the title to the episode he made his debut in? First off, that’s season 2. Secondly, I couldn’t name the title to ANY episode of VD or Originals.
His second question was about the books. Oh joy. I've never read the books. He asked who was Klaus' victim when he took his or her blood and wrote Sweetheart on the wall? Ironically, I had read an article about this exact scene on the plane ride to Atlanta. I couldn’t remember the character’s name from the book, but she was based on Vicky Donovan from the season. I guess technically, Vicki Donovan is based off this character, which turned out to be Vickie Bennett. It only came to me after 20 other hands had already hit the air.
Joseph remarked that maybe his questions were too easy. He had a 3rd question, but maybe it was too easy. He asked during the major fight scene between Klaus and Marcel's vamps, what was the item that Marcel picked up? Not only did my hand leap into action, but my entire body sprung from my seat as I forgot to wait to be called on and shouted out.....A COIN!!!! Joseph said it was correct, but it was too easy and he needed a different question #3. 
DAMN!!!!!!
After taking some suggestions, I ended up coming up on his own concerning his movie Armistice. Armistice stars Joseph Morgan and Matt Ryan from Constantine fame. It’s awful. I mean.....it’s hard to watch. I sat through the whole thing after having huge expectations. It was downright confusing at times. I am still confused. I will say the acting is stellar and the end is shocking, very Sixth Sense like. But it’s not worth the 2 hours you have to sit through. I can’t remember the actual question, as I completely tuned out. I just was never going to be able to answer any of the questions about it.
The final question would finally stump a few people before someone got it right. Sadly, it was from Season 2 of VD. What was the first thing that Joseph Morgan as Klaus ever said on Vampire Diaries in present day time? Hell, my name is Klaus. Please call me Klaus. Both of these were said and both were wrong. That’s what Matt Davis said, as he was playing Klaus stuck in Alaric's body. The correct answer was....That’s More Like It.
The trivia game came to an end and I could hear the Price Is Right failure horn go off in my head. Joseph said he wanted to do one more thing before he left for break and that was to take a group selfie for his Instagram account. He opted to use the panoramic video option instead after they failed to get a selfie stick to work. Really?! A fucking selfie stick? Anyway, it was pretty cool and very interactive by someone who is widely considered to be introverted.
As the Q and A ended for Joseph, the next one was to begin. More than half the room exited. The next Q and A was to last an hour, so my friends and I opted to go and get some food. First we stopped in the photo room to sort out an issue with jpegs and also to get my 1 photo fixed. Froggy was good about it. They sharpened my photo and reprinted it. As I was walking out, Froggy stops me and apologizes for the trouble. He says I want to make up for the mistake with the jpegs. He reaches into his pocket and begins to dumping all kinds of stuff out on the table. There were like 3 dollar bills crumpled up like they just came out of a stripper's g string. He opened up his wallet and inside was a single dollar bill and a condom. He turned to his partner and asked for $10. He turns and hands me $10, saying this is to make up for the error. Not one to turn down money, I was confused. But quickly blurted out.....I bought 5 jpegs. Froggy looked at me and then just went back to packing up his equipment. Off we went.
We stopped in the VIP lounge, partially in hopes to find Joseph in there. Perhaps lunch with the hybrid would be possible. No dice. Room was empty. And by empty I mean....no people AND NO FOOD. AND no coffee. This place was trashed. I called to the front desk and waited a good half hour, but they refused to come up to restock. Before we left, I stopped at the PC they had in the room to check in for my flight. I went to southwest.com and once again was met with the same error. I still couldn’t get checked in. So we left for the restaurant. I went to the restaurant, but it was closed to the public. That left the bar. We went inside and took a seat. There was no waitress. I went to the bartender and asked do we order at the bar or will someone take orders from the table? He stated he would be with us in 1 second. He walked away from the bar and we waited 20 minutes and he never came back. The bar got backlogged, people were trying to settle up their bill.....but this dude never came back. Now our lunch hour was about gone.
We passed on lunch and headed back to the con. We had about 15 minutes before autographs were scheduled to start. I saw someone exit the autograph room with Joseph's autograph. WHAT?!?!? I headed to the main ball room to find the entire room was already in line. They evidently started autographs about 20 minutes ago. Josh was kind of enough to agree to come into line with me to help me get my stuff signed. I had several items, plus I wanted to have it signed in paint. But when I look around, Josh is nowhere to be found. My friends get in line and I wait on the sidelines. I know I won’t be able to handle it all on my own.
Finally, I spot Josh coming in and I head right to him. He tells me that my row went through already and he apologizes profusely for screwing things up and not being here. I told him it was no biggie. He rushes me to the front of the line and grabs 2 volunteers and says now I will have 2 ladies to help me. He explains to the handler at the table what is going on and I put to the front. I walk over and hand Joseph a gift. Joseph is a big fan of Anne Rice and loves Interview With The Vampire. I too love the series and one of my favorite books from the series is Memonch The Devil due to its religious overtones and how Lestat deals with them in the book. It’s a first edition hardcover. He thanks me and tells me he has not read this one and looks forward to reading it. I start with the easiest pieces and that’s my flat photos. I have an 11x14. I asked him to inscribe Always And Forever and he does. I then move to my photo op with him from earlier. Then I break out the chair back. He asks me where I got it and I told him off of eBay. He says he hasn’t seen this in years and is kind of glad. He didn’t like his performance in the movie and wants to forget about it. Oh great. He signed it and even wrote his character’s name, which turned out to be redundant since his character’s name is already printed on it.
My last 2 items were my posters. The girls had done a wonderful job handling my items. The one girl had the 2 flats, 1 in each hand and the other girl had my chair back. I got my Vampire Diaries poster signed. Joseph looked it over and was checking out who already signed it. He said....you got everyone. Not quite I mentioned, but I have a lot and certainly most of the big cast names. I then pull out The Originals poster. He smiled and was impressed with this one. He inscribed Klaus on it as well. He complimented me on my markers and said they were really nice to sign with. I thanked him for coming and grabbed my stuff and left. The girls followed me over to some empty chairs. They laid my items down to continue to let them dry. I waited a solid 5 minutes and checked everything before leaving. I put everything away and walked out of the room.
My plan was to head directly to my room and relax. My found my friends waiting in the hall, so at least I got a chance to say goodbye before they left. I got on the elevator and headed to my room. I crashed for a solid half hour. Just laid on the bed watching the Falcons/Redskins game. I was definitely beat now. I tried for a third time to check in for my flight, but same error. I googled and found out that Southwest computers were down across the nation. No one could check in and Southwest asked all people to show up 1 hour earlier than usual because they have manually check everyone in and check bags manually. I decided to head to the VIP room and see if it was stocked yet. I went up and it STILL wasn’t restocked. I grabbed a soda and started watching the Patriots/Cowboys game. A couple of Redskins fans came in and sat down with me and we started talking Skins football, RG3, Gruden, Patriots, Brady, Cowboys and more. Good chat. They finally came in to restock. They put out meatballs for appetizers today. Awesome. Last night's stuffed lasagna rolls were so good, I couldn’t wait to taste the meatballs. Besides, I was so hungry from no lunch.....I could eat about anything. I filled my plate FULL of meatballs. I must have grabbed 20 of them. I grabbed 2 bags of Doritos and sat down. I stabbed a meatball with my fork and bit right in. BARBECUE SAUCE!!!!!!! What. The. Fuck. Why in the hell is there barbecue sauce on these meatballs? Marinara....I get. No sauce....good by me. Barbecue sauce??!?!? I knew I smelled a nasty fart in the air.....just turned out to be these fucking things. I picked up my plate and dumped them in the trash. Disgusting.
As the game got out of hand, the guys departed. Still reeling from that horrid ass tasting meatballs, I headed back to my room. I set my wake up time and curled into bed ready to just relax for the rest of the evening. I wanted to be up extra early to get to the AP extra early so I could get checked in and not get stuck in the last boarding group.
About an hour later, I got hungry and ordered room service. Ironically food came from the bar that I couldn’t get serviced from earlier for lunch. Food was good and it was brought up quickly. I ate it and watched the Sunday night game to close out the evening. I was beat and couldn’t wait to get to sleep. Could be a long travel day tomorrow.
When I awoke, I got showered and ready quickly and last touches on the packing finished. I checked the room before I left, as I usually do, and it was clear. Downstairs I went to check out. Here I ran into a problem. As I checked out, I noticed the bill was $10 more than I was expecting. I asked for an itemized receipt and noticed 2 $5 dollar charges for a State lodging fee. I checked my receipt from the 1 night deposit I had to put down. This was the total I was told, including taxes, that the room would cost per night. They informed me that in July the state of GA added this new fee on. I'm sorry.....that’s why I ask what my total is going to be. I don’t care what the state of GA has done. This room was booked on July 7th and you said that on July 1st is when it went into effect. The front desk clerk said it was posted on a sign on the counter. I read the sign and it mentioned nothing. She told me it was posted around the hotel and I asked for her to show me and she could not. She said she has a copy she can hand to me. She left the counter for several minutes and came back and said she couldn’t find it. I said great. Take it off the bill and the hotel can eat it. I am not paying for it. She tells me that its already been charged to my card and hands me my receipt. I have spent over 20 minutes at the counter and I need to get to the AP to deal with that issue. I take the receipt and will just have to call in and deal with the hotel when I get home. I call for my Uber and it’s a new Uber record. I press summon Uber and I look up and a car pulls right up to me and it’s my Uber! WOW! Something went right.
The driver gets me to the AP in 10 mins and I head to the ticket counter. It’s actually a lot quieter than I expect. Southwest tells me the computers are up and running now. I check in for the flight and they have me in boarding group C. WHAT?!!?!? I am 3 hours early for the plane and no one could check in yesterday. How am I in C? A lot of back and forth fighting and she will not upgrade me. She tells me the flight is only half full, so I shouldn’t worry about getting a middle seat. I said if its half full, then why am I in C? Shouldn’t people who check in after me, especially people with no ticket, be in group C. Seems to me some of them are going to be in A or B. She offers me an upgrade to boarding group A if I am willing to pay $40. That’s fucking extortion. I decline.
I leave the counter, as its clear I am getting nowhere here. Security takes a bit to get through. Once I am through, I head to the Southwest counter by my gate. I explain the same situation and this lady is much more helpful. She tells me the same upgrade but says its $30 and not $40. She says I have to pay it, but she will issue me a $30 voucher good towards another SW flight in the future. While this is not the best situation, it beats getting stuck with a middle seat. I am now in Boarding group A. She even suggests that I call SW when I get home and they will probably refund me my $30 since its clearly not my fault that I couldn’t get checked in and I will still have the $30 voucher.
Since I have A LOT of time before takeoff, I head over to get some lunch. There are a couple of nearby options. I narrow it down to a cheesesteak place or this taco joint voted best Mexican in all of Atlanta. All right.....I'll try the taco place. It’s not the best taco place in Atlanta. And if it is.....Atlanta must not have a Taco Bell because as awful as Taco Bell is, this place was worse. It’s possible that I didn’t like it because they messed up my order. I looked over the menu, found a taco and asked exactly what was in it. When they said there was some fiesta lime sauce, I asked for no sauce. When I opened them up.....I found some white cream. STOP! Get your head out of the gutter. It actually had a sweet taste to it. Ok, that one's on me. Anyway, I was hungry and was out of energy to fight. I'll let this one go. I ended up having to go back bc the Snapple Fruit Punch was really good and I wanted to grab 2 bottles for the ride home. They asked me how it was and I left no rock unturned. I told the cashier that they messed up and put the sauce on it. The guy in the back assured me he did not. I told him there was a white sauce on it. He said it wasn’t the fiesta lime sauce, but the sweet mayo. What sweet mayo? It’s not on the menu and the cashier never told me about it. She said the sweet mayo comes on all of their tacos. Ok. Well, I asked what came on the taco I ordered and you never mentioned it. She said she didn’t think she needed too. The manager over heard the conversation and offered to remake them for me. I told her it wasn’t necessary, as I was full. I did tell her that if she wants to satisfy me, she can take care of these 2 drinks for me. She agreed and I was off with 2 bottles of Snapple Fruit Punch.
I sat at the boarding gate for the long wait before it was time for takeoff. As the time approached, they announced the flight was now sold out. Thank God I upgraded my boarding pass. Or I DEFINITELY would have been stuck in boarding group C. I get on the plane and head right for the "prime seat" on a Southwest flight. I couldn’t believe it was open, but the premier grade people all wanted to sit at the front of the plane. I get there and go to sit down and immediately find that while there is extra space to the side, there is limited leg room. So I opt for the 2nd best rated seat. I prefer the aisle seat, but this window seat will do as now I could stretch my legs. But wait....there is something wrong here. The seat has limited reclining. This won’t work. I am better off where I was.....too late. Someone took it. Ok, I am better with an aisle seat. Unfortunately, there are too many people on now. I'm gonna have to stick with this seat. I sit back down and find I can’t even buckle the seat belt. What is going on here? Do window seats come with smaller seat belts? Surely the tacos I just ate haven’t added extra inches that I can’t buckle the seat belt. I am on the exact same type plane as the one I came down here on. And the moment I dread, someone has sat down in the middle seat next to me. This big guy is in window seat. There is a big black guy in the aisle seat and this tiny black guy in the middle. You barely could tell there was a person sitting in the middle seat as myself and other guy in the aisle just completely eclipsed the poor man in the middle seat. I felt bad for him....but not as bad as I felt for myself. I was SO uncomfortable. I couldn’t even read some comic books on the ride back. It just required too much space and any movement just made the entire row upset. I sat back, plugged in my headphones, streamed some Sirius XM, closed my eyes and just tried to make the best of it.
When we touched down in Baltimore, I couldn’t wait to get off the plane. It was exhilarating to be freed of the confines of that prison. I was just as excited to get home as I was to meet Joseph Morgan. The upcoming week was going to be a long one. But this trip was well worth it. With all the issues from ticketing to the hotel to Southwest.....it was worth it. If things were so easy and simple.....how would I be able to return home to write this 18 page diatribe? On that note.....I'll leave you with wise words of Jerry Springer. Until next time....take care of yourself and each other.
As of the night I am finishing this write up, Southwest did the honorable thing and refunded me the $30 and I still got the $30 voucher. The Sheraton in Atlanta is a different beast. 5 additional phone calls went ignored and messages were left for manager after manager. Not one single manager returned a call. I called corporate and they, after a lengthy argument, finally agreed to refund me 1 nights stay. And then the next morning, I received an email from the hotel's Assistant GM stating that they are canceling the refund, but apologize for the inconvenience. This is not over.....not by a long shot. Not by a long shot.
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