With the flight in hand, I chose to try at the airport since I had a better shot at multiples. Though I told my travelling buddies to keep the signing the next day as backup just in case.
Of course the whole thing was not without snow issues. Due to this his arrival time was delayed from 5pm to 11pm. So I pick up my friend Don then go to markedout.com's adelta and it was off to Harrisburg.
While it snowed on the way, it was nothing bad. And the highways were fine. We stopped at a Chinese buffet close to the airport and hung out there for a couple of hours. That was pretty fulfilling.
We then go to the airport. I come across
who was shocked to see me. I shook his hand, BS'd with him, and we buried the hatchet thus ending our long running feud. He also tipped me that two names, actor R Lee Ermey from Full Metal Jacket and former TNA wrestler and Eric Bischoff's son Garett Bischoff were both at the show. WTF? Neither one were on the guest list when I checked it before leaving. And in the case of Garett he wasn't even an official guest but he was manning his own table about some kind of gun course that he teaches. Additionally R Lee was someone I had missed last year. He was supposed to do an event with Dolph Lundgren and I was going to push away my plans for that event. But when Dolph cancelled I felt the event wasn't worth moving mountains for anymore. So this way my chance to make this up. Especially since he is up there in age. So thanks to
I now had that chance! And Garett would be a nice bonus. To Danny: Thank you for the tips! I also saw former markedout member CHRIS COLLECTOR who was awesome to see again!
Austin arrived and was mobbed, but he was VERY accommodating and did multi combos with everybody. Wow just wow! Here you have WWE stars of today that are barely mid carders who are dicks and sign initials when they do sign, yet you have one of the biggest wrestling names who is retired going out of his way for fans and giving nice detailed big autographs! This is truly incredible.
I got signed two magazine covers, one incredible WM13 blood photo in a magazine, his entry on the WWE_E V2, and a trading card. PLUS I managed to get a standing no shades shot
Sadly there is a slight smudge on the "S" on the WWE_E V2 autograph but it's nothing bad or intrusive.
After this it was about midnight, and despite disgruntled travelling buddies I decided to invoke my backup day and stay for the show (one of the perks of owning the car and being the driver, you can make choices like that).
We get a room for the evening and ready for the Great Outdoors Show. Before doing so we check a spot where Stonecold was staying. While waiting in there we definitely saw people from show but didn't know who they were. Adelta spotted UFC fighter Matt Hughes. We got photo ops and he was as nice as can be. He asked who we were waiting for and adelta told him Stonecold and he asked "oh is he staying here" and we confirmed it for him. HCIT.
More time passed and at that point we decided to head up to the show. We park and find the NRA booth for R Lee Ermey and get a spot in line. While waiting I suggest to adelta to go get Garett. He objected to the idea but I told him our spot could be held and Garett is at his table R Lee is not. One thing for certain I have MUCH more experience juggling multiple people at cons than adelta. So we both went to Garett's table. He was conversing with someone about his program and when he was done we asked him for photo ops which he was more than happy to do. I then asked him to sign his business card which he did no issue, even rubbing it on his pants to remove gloss before signing it in gold. The other guy manning the table with Garett looked at us like we were crazy.
We go back to the R Lee line, reclaim our spots, and are joined by
R Lee finally arrives and the line is sllooowww due to life stories being told
Finally we get up to him and he is super nice, conversing, signing, and taking standing photo ops. How I wish all celebrities could be that nice and accommodating. And for those wondering no I didn't tell him my life story.
With all our meets out of the way I visited the Stonecold line where I said hi to everybody I knew. The highlight was of course meeting Mama
We left the show then stopped by Burger King to eat then were on our way. Overall it was a good, fruitful, and relatively stress free time of indoor combos.
Stonecold Steve Austin
Matt Hughes
Garett Bischoff
R Lee Ermey
Stonecold autographs
non-Stonecold autographs
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