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This weekend we are attending the anime con held yearly at Georgia tech, Momocon. I haven't really spent much time on the GATech campus since I attended classes there way back in 97 so being back on the campus was nice and nostalgic at the same time. The day didn't start out well though. When I woke up and checked headline news they reported the hard to believe news that a tornado had torn through down town Atlanta, and had even scored a direct hit on the CNN center. On our way up to the show we saw some of the damage to buildings around olympic park; skyscrappers were missing windows, billboards were twisted around like paper toys, and even though we didn't see it I hear a big loft building was torn apart. I will try to take some pictures and post them here tomorrow; it really looked unreal to see buildings with big gapping holes where windows used to be.
Momocon itself was fun and very well organized and run. Most of the day we talked with customers and sold a lot of copies of Pantheon High 1 & 2 along with my sketch book for 2007 and some prints but I also did my first piece of commissioned art work. I honestly have a very hard time drawing with people looking on and the hustle and bustle of 2 or 3 thousand people walking by is also distracting. So up until today I have turned down doing commissioned work. That was until I was asked to draw a picture for a Beyblade character, Kai. I remember Beiblade being popular back when we lived in Japan so I was vaguely familiar with the property but I don't know the character. A friend of the commissionee(?) found a picture of the character on his cell phone and for some reason the challenge of having to draw a character based on a tiny cell phone screen overcame my normal reluctance and I ended up giving it a whirl.
Of course the most moving part of the day was when I met a particular guy late at the show. He said he was a fan of Pantheon High and proceeded to pull out 7 dollars and give it me telling me it was a donation for a book well done. This guy has already bought two of my books and he was then prepared out of the goodness of his heart to just give me some more money. If only more fans were like that...(we gave him a bunch of stuff because I couldn't just take the guy's money without giving him something. Now that I am typing this I wish I had asked his name...).
But I can't leave off without mentioning tornado part two. Sometime in the late afternoon when I was in a long panel in a separate building my wife started trying to call me. She and everyone in the dealer's room had been evacuated to the basement of the student center because a tornado was spotted somewhere nearby. When I finally got to her in the student center people were fainting(I am pretty sure it was the blue hair). Absolutely crazy.

This last friday was White Day which is valentine's day part 2 in Japan. Valentine's day isn't actually a day where people in love exchange gifts and go on romantic dates but in Japan is a day for women to give men gifts, whether they like them or not. Exactly one month later is white day on the 14th of march when men are supposed to return the favor and treat the women in their lives and at work with gifts and chocolate.
Even though it's a little late(a month?) I'm posting my valentine's gift from my wife's step mother.


That's right, it looks just like a delivery of fresh fish. The wrapping on the package even says "sent directly from the point of origin". The fish itself was a plastic bag that contained knock off peanut M&Ms! Genius!