Friday 29, 2003

At 10:00am my family and I went to the Hyatt Hotel for the Tribal Fashion Show and our first glimpse of the cast. Each member was given a little intro starting with Caleb. He waved and said hi to everyone and walked to the edge of the stage. HE looked a little uncomfortable. My mom was beside herself �� Next came Beth who was tripped up the stairs. Great first impression for America! (I love you Beth!) With a thumbs up and a nervous shuffle she joined Caleb. Then Meryl came out ("How you guys doin'"?�) followed by Tom who also tripped. Last came Mike who stood on the stage looking confused ("Oh!") and he ran to the others. They left the stage and watched from the balcony then came down to announce the winners. Tom did most of the talking.

Later that day we were waiting for a signing (in the wrong room by chance) and saw Meryl come down the escalator and Mike hurtle over the passerby's (in the opposite direction form us, which might have clued us in). At the time, seeing Mikey's back was really huge.

At 5:30pm we went to see An Hour With Tom Hern. I was in the isle and Tom walked right passed me (Wow! Corny I know, but it gets better). Turns out Tom is really funny, witty, and a great speaker. He got the nickname "Herndog" form his huge ��homie�� best friend. He described it like he was the sidekick ("Who's that pimple on that guy?�) . Tom even did a freestyle rap on a topic chosen from the audience (love). Wow, it was amazing. Tom told us some words: Cats = people Macer = McDonalds Snag = smooth w/ the ladies.

Saturday 30, 2003

The parade was Saturday morning. While on the curb, I was attack by a zombie in a walker and saw about 100 storm troopers. Toward the end was the Tribe Float. Only Meryl was facing our side of the street and we snapped a few pictures. We followed the cast up to the front of the hotel and got our picture taken with each of them. They were all wet because they had a water fight on the float. They were all really nice, especially Meryl, she's very chatty. Caleb was caring around a drum (he went to a Drum Circle earlier). Beth was fidgety at first, but was real calm by the end of the Con. (And now for the better part:) After my picture with Mike my Mom asked him to kiss me on the cheek and he did!!!! Ahhhhhh!!! It all happened so fast, I wasn't paying attention! ::Breath Breath:: I had to sit down because I was shaking form meeting them.

Next was Growing Up on The Tribe. When they are together they are really funny. They would joke with each other and they all picked on Mike and when his voice would crack on set. They said that the guy who played Ryan was valedictorian and now they see him walking around New Zealand with dreads and a beer can. Big rugby fan :)

A word about Meryl Cassie: she is the sweetest person I have ever met. She makes an effort to talk to you when you are lost for words and is always smiling. The whole cast was super nice, but I found it easiest to talk to Meryl. That��s our Ebony, well, not really :)

Later on was An Hour With Caleb Ross. He is a very quiet person and gets right to the point with questions. He and Dwayne (Bray) tried (or were) to be extras in The Lord of the Rings movies and to answer any questions, his hair is dyed black. It is a natural mousy brown. When I asked him if he liked it dyed or natural he said he doesn't even remember what it looks like. He also wants to cut his hair :)

I ran into Meryl and Mike in the hall with some other fans. I asked Meryl to sign my DVDs so she asked her supervisor for a marker and she signed it! I went over to Mike, but I only had a ballpoint pen so he started to engrave his name into my DVD cover. About a minute later he was done his first name. The pen kept running out of ink so he would scribble on his arm to keep the ink going. We found a Sharpie and he finished, but he had ink all up his arm just for me! Unfortunately, after all that work he had smudged of Meryl's signature! (Don't worry I got it re-signed at the "official signing")

Sunday 31, 2003

The next day we went to the Marriott for Tribal Feud (Family Feud). Tom was on the Technos and Beth for the Mallrats (coincidence?) They were giddy the whole time, swigging their arms everywhere playing Rock-Paper-Scissors (Beth won). The other team members were picked out of Tom's hat. Later, he put the hat on and sprinkled tickets all over the floor. The Technos won the game.

On to the thing I most wanted to see, An Hour With Michael Wesley Smith. My sister and I got front row seats. Mike came in and sat at the table. His cheeks turned really red when everyone clapped for him. There was an awkward silence then the supervisor told him it was a Q&A ("Oh!") and we started. When asked if he was ever shy or quiet, Mike said the hospital asked his mother to take him home early because he was keeping all the other babies up. His biggest and worst investment was a Jet Ski. He lives on the water, but his family members aren��t water people. He took his Dad out on the ski and did a spontaneous 360. He came out of it wrong and sunk the ski. Mikes pets include a black lab, an evil cat named Fluffy, and a clan of Blue Penguins. The penguins live under his floorboards when they mate. They are very noisy :) When asked about the strangest thing he had seen at Dragon*Con, he laughs and says The Meshgirl (or so he called her). He said something like, ��She was wearing chain mail and nothing else! Did anyone see? Was there anything under there?" Then he gave a that-was-a-little-embarrassing-laugh. Then someone asked him if he put on a lisp for seasons 1 and 2. He said something like, "I was born with it. You can't hear it? Wow!" He looked sooo good, and is really cute, and nice, and funny, and everything you��d expect and more.

Next was An Hour with Beth Allen. She looked a little shocked that people were clapping for her. She gave us Americans some insight into season 5. She also said she left the Tribe after season one so she could go to school, but she got really bored so she gratefully accepted to come back on ("But I'm dead?!") I asked Beth if she watched The Tribe when she wasn��t with the cast. She said she did because it was her way of keeping up with the cast and plot line. Beth has a Cherry Twizzler fetish :)

Hangin' With The Tribe came next. The cast was supposed to interview the Wam! Contest Winner, but there wasn't enough to talk about. This led to the whole cast and audience shouting out things like: pork or chicken? White meat or dark meat? Mammals or seafood? So Tom said, "Are you all butchers or something?" Mike asked, "Justin Timberlake: boy or girl?" lol. This led to a whole hour of casual chatting with the cast: "Oh, did you guys read this?" "That was a great movie." "Yes, there are about 50 million sheep and 4 million people in New Zealand." This was my favorite panel because it was like we were all old friends

At night there was a masquerade show at the Civics Center and Meryl and Tom were doing half time. Meryl came out and sang �You Belong to Me� all by herself in front of at least 500 people (most of whom didn�t know who she was). She has such a great voice. It was awesome to see her sing live (a dream come true, haha). Next, Tom came out with his guitar and sat on a stool next to Meryl. They sang an original and unreleased song they made! Tom played and rapped while Meryl did beautiful back up singing. Tom did another freestyle. He made a 90210 comment- �Luke Perry/Where is that brother?� (Luke was a no show at the Con) and that got some laughs from the Con people

Monday 1, 2003

Season by Season was my last chance to see that cast before I had to leave. Our panel was at 11:30 and outside people were lined up for a Buffy (the Vampire Slayer) panel at 1:00! There were about 3x more of them than us, but the guys in charge let them in our room early! So we were shoved in the back surrounded by Buffy fans (can you spell �unfair�)! When the cast came out they must have been freaked about talking to people who don�t know who they are. I was surprised, even the Buffy people were asking them questions about the show. The cast was cracking jokes and just being themselves. The Buffy�s were saying, �They�re so cute!� and laughing with them. One even said she was going to watch the show. It was bad for getting seats, but great for publicity!

At the end we ran to the cast to say goodbye (I was already missing them). Beth was in a sprint towards the door when we caught her. We said bye and hugged her. She said she had to go to the restroom, oops, sorry! Me and my sister gave Mikey a group hug and Tom said, �Gimme a hug!� Eeeee! We hugged Caleb too and went to Meryl. I told her she had a awesome voice and she hoped we could come again next year (we hugged her too!) I just want to say, if you haven�t met them they are all the nicest, funniest, quirkiest, normal, oh and nicest people I have ever met.

Jessie Amadio (15)