I load up my car and take off towards the Cedar Rapids Airport, with the diabolical Steve the Dummy in tow--buckled in the back seat, around 8:45 pm. I’m nervous as hell and sweating bullets. I’m gonna meet two of my friends, PaplooTheory (Jake) and HumanJedi_024 (Paul) for the very first time; it’s been a long-ass ****ing day of running around like a chicken with its head cut off; and I’m already running way behind schedule on no sleep. This was going to be rough, man. Very rough.

I finally arrive in Cedar Rapids... and what happens? I get friggin’ lost. I’ve never been to the C.R. Airport before... so I’m clueless. I have these lame internet directions that feel the need to take you off onto bum-**** Egypt-type side roads and it mixes me all up. So I stop at a gas station to get directions, and I’m back on the road. A bum-**** Egypt-type side road... but back on the road nevertheless. Then, of course, I get stuck behind a train... two, no less, and it sets me even further back. Just after the train issue subsides, I’m back on the warpath to find this airport... when I suddenly get a call from Paul.

"Where are you at?" he asks...

"I’m almost there," I retort...

"Well, we just landed and are standing at the terminal," he replies...

"Right on, man, I’m on my way," says the dip****...

So, all obstacles aside, I finally get to the terminal and pick the two jackasses up. We shake hands, exchange pleasantries, I freak them out with my freakish appearance and we’re off to Chicago...to pick up yet another asshole.

"Blue Yoda enjoys the scenery from the dashboard (obviously, since he’s looking at me) as we pass through Illinois on our way to O’Hare International Airport..."

Craziness and Toll Booths. That would best describe our journey from the Cedar Rapids Airport to O’Hare... once we got into Illinois, specifically. Not only did we have to contend with those annoying as hell toll booths (to which there was an over abundance), but we also had to deal with the drones that run said booths... and some lunatics for drivers. Seriously crazy drivers. One person in particular liked to speed way up and slow way down as we drove beside them. Must’ve been a wicked acid flashback. And don’t even get me started on the toll booth folk. *shudders*

So we finally make it to O’Hare and pick up TIE1138 (Derik). I’ve met this jackass before, so who cares?... Just messin’ with ya, Der. It was cool as hell meetin’ Derik again. Helluva good guy.

So we drive through the night, through roadwork and more toll booths, into Wednesday morning...

We arrive at the Red Roof Inn in Indianapolis, Indiana, around 6 in the morning. We check into the now infamous "Room 116," and it’s time for some breakfast. After eating and some aimless driving around to find a Super Target (I needed an RF Switch for my PS2 & GameCube. Derp!), which ended up being closed anyways, we finally go back to the hotel room for some shut eye. Some MUCH NEEDED shut eye for yours truly.

I wake up to someone smacking my feet.

"What the bloody hell?"I think to my groggy self.

I look up, and it’s none other than the man himself, Salty (Salty). I’ve been talkin’ to this ****er for so long, it was really cool--and really weird at the same time--finally meeting him in person. Along with him was his lovely wife, Mrs_Kitty (Jenny), who was also standing to greet me. It was so awesome to finally meet these guys--I was lost for words. Could’ve been the grogginess, too... but I’m going to say it was a combination of both. As we wait for more of our friends to arrive, we watch Top Gun in the meantime.

"Sammy, you got a Charles Manson type thing a’goin’!" quipped Salt.

Yeah, yeah, yeah...ya ****in’ asshole. Dammit.

So, we decide to head into to town to get my RF Switch and grab some grub. White Castle was the order of the day...

"The BYS goes to White Castle..."

Once we got done eating, we decide to make the trek to the Convention Center for the very first time so some of us could pick up our badges. This proved to be quite humorous... as we were able to infiltrate the convention by slipping through the cracks. Pretty funny stuff.

Not too much later, after making it back to the hotel, the supreme bitch showed up. We all know who that is. Padawan915 (Herb). Along with him was another awesome guy, Lifesabre (Ant). Really cool stuff. It was all finally coming together.. and it was brilliant.

We also plugged in and played "LEGO Star Wars" for the first time. This would be the first seduction for many in our group, as we became addicted to this extraordinary game throughout the course of the trip. This would also be our introduction to the "Evil TV" as it had absolutely NO volume control when you played video games and DVDs. Damn ****in’ thing.

Jake would also earn the nickname, "The Hannibal Lector Of Video Gaming" during this first time playing... a nickname he would earn, and carry with him quite well, throughout the entire trip.

That evening, it was Hooters time. Pretty cool place... but it sounded like other Hooters were more customer friendly. Regardless, it was good times... and it was awesome having almost all of us together at the same place having a good time. Those friggin’ wings that Paul and I had were killers, though. Damn.

It was also fun being half drunk and scaring Jake to death since I was driving in said state. I love makin’ that kid squirm.

The first day of the convention... and it was cold as **** outside. And I don’t think it made Steve, who was still strapped to the backseat, all too happy... because my car battery was completely dead.

"Steve does his worst... for now..."

The bastard.

So, after the fellas pushed the car back and gave ‘er a jump, we were finally onto the road to the convention.

After parking in the first of what would be a series of many parking garages, we march our way to the convention. And what do we see? Lines. People. Everywhere. Friggin’ nuts, man. So after a long trek to the very tail end of the line, there we were. Standing... and waiting. Fortunately the line began to move quite briskly... which was good. At some point in the line, a dude sporting a costume asked me if I was "that dude from That ‘70’s Show". Hmmm...

Me =

Interesting. I don’t see the resemblance.

Maybe more like this =

Perhaps this =

Or this =

....

Sorry, went off on a tangent, there.

Anyways, we finally make it into the convention... and there are people. Everywhere. Cluster-**** City, man. Costume-clad geekazoids filled to the brim, bitch. But the biggest attraction of the day was easily...

...yeah. That’s right.

The Slave Leia Girl. Created quite the stir each day she was at the convention. Beautiful.

Thursday ended up being a pretty eventful day. We made some rounds in the room that had all of the vintage action figures, board game tourneys, legos, you name it. Paul and Herb bought some Unleashed figures that they needed....Paul also got a cool SW Trilogy soundtrack boxed set which came with a free TPM soundtrack in vinyl....and we perused the "Battle of the Heroes" video for the very first time. Pretty cool stuff.

Met back up with Salt and Jen, and made our way over to the Fan Force area so Salt could give some action figures to their toy drive at the Phatooine.net stand. Derik and I ducked out for a smoke... and to our surprise, another one of our old friends had tracked us down--wicket1138 (Joe). Cool ****, man. I was especially surprised that he too had long hair and a beard, just like me. Nice to know that I wasn’t the only "hippie-esque" dude in the group... and that I had a "twin".

Back to the Fan Force section. We met some really cool dudes from Phat...including Captain_Obvious and Captain_Sarcasm. Pretty cool fellas.

From there, we decided to hit the autograph room, which was right next door. Salt and Jen were the only ones that had autograph coupons... and getting the autograph of one Amy Allen was the order of the day. After Salt and Jen got her autograph, she was so kind to allow us to take a group photo with her...

"The BYS and Amy Allen..."

Very, very cool.

As the first day of C3 for the BYS began to wrap itself up, we decided it was time to grab some eats and some brews. The first place that we tried to hit up, The Ram, seemed like a pretty cool place. But since the regular seating was cut-off due to the plethora of SW geeks reserving it... and you had to have your ID and be 21-and-over to sit in the bar section, we had no choice but to leave. We found a better place, however, called The Alcatraz. Great eats; great homemade brews; great service. A+++

From there, we hopped onto the escalators and made our way to the movie theater at the top floor of the mall....to take in a screening of Sin City. Very, very excellent flick that we all enjoyed very much. Marv is a friggin’ rock, man.

Back to the hotel we went...to hang out, play a game of SW Trivial Pursuit DVD (I won, after a valiant comeback--and Jake & Der blew their final question. Hehehe...losers. That’s right.), play some more LEGO Star Wars, watch some "Chappelle’s Show" on DVD and unwind. All in all, an excellent day.

Too many beers and much too late of a night. This would end up being a trend for some of us. Trust me. Salt, Jen and Paul would establish themselves as rocks that could get up and go quite early. The same could NOT be said for the rest of us…lol.

After more wandering around at the convention, we decide to go back to the Fan Force area and back to the Phat.net table…in hopes of meeting Sith_Wench (Hope) for the first time. And meet her, we did. Very cool woman. Her boyfriend is cool as ****, too.

On our way out, we noticed that there was a booth that does SW face paintings for eight bucks. For eight bucks, you could get your face painted as a SW character. Mainly on a whim, I jokingly suggested to Joe that he get his face painted as Blue Yoda. He complied. As some of us waited outside, we learned that another one of our good friends had finally made it to the party--SPACEMONKEY20 (Jon). Really great guy. Class-act, all the ****ing way.

So Joe finally gets done:

Rock on, Joe.

So…what’s next on the agenda? How ‘bout the Rick McCallum C3 Spectacular…which boasts a showing of never-before-seen footage of the new film? And, wow, what a treat. That footage was absolutely mind-blowing…and the crowd went friggin’ nuts--ourselves included. It was so good, in fact, that some of us insisted on seeing it again that day.

Another great day of SW goodness and overcrowdedness…including Salt and Jen obtaining some more killer autographs--including Ray Park, David Prowse, Peter Mayhew and Kenny Baker. Lots of fun had by all…and it was time to head back to the infamous hotel room.

Once there, we ordered some Domino’s Pizza, drank some Pabst (it may taste like horse piss…but you just HAVE to at a BYS gathering, I mean…c’mon!), and watched Spaceballs and The Big Lebowski. And, of course, played some more LEGO SW.

"Chillin' in Room 116..."

Good times had by all on this day.

Steve the Dummy was also having a blast…

”Steve the Drunkard…”

Have to add one more thing: Jon established himself as THE party animal of the group. The dude was the oldest of us there…and he was a rock. He’d be up late, get an hour of sleep and be rarin’ to go. Amazing. Here’s some proof:

”A very odd--and funny as hell--photo opportunity...”

The dude is insane, I tells you. INSANE!

I was thinkin’ that Herb was gonna be the drunken beast on this trip…but he wasn’t. Shame on you, second bitch. For shame.

This evening would also contain one of my personal favorite exchanges of the entire trip. Here’s the scenario: It’s around 4:30 in the morning, and we’re all lying down in the pitch darkness that is the hotel room, conversing and trying to get to sleep (this would also be a common theme, us stayin’ up waaaaay too late). Herb and Derik had the beds on this particular evening (while the rest of us were on the floor--as per the rotation). At one point, during the conversation, we hear a cork pop off of a bottle, and liquid swishing around. This prompts Herb to say to Derik…

“Are you drinking tequila, Derik?”

To which Derik replies…very much like he just got done taking a shot of hard alcohol…

“No.”

The room just erupted in laughter. LMAO…Too funny.

Anyways…

“BYS DAY“. Plain and simple. The bulk of our entire group would be together on this day (unfortunately some members couldn‘t be here for this momentous event…but they were there in spirit)…and it will be a day long remembered.

The day started, once again, with Salt, Jen, Paul and Jon taking off quite early to the convention…and the rest of us not getting there until the afternoon--such as the pattern the entire time. While us lazy asses were sleeping, the four diehards were quite busy at the convention. Namely: THE DREADED C3 STORE LINE. The bitch of the convention. Salt, Jen and Paul would prove to be very patient, and wait in this line all morning until they got the merchandise that they wanted.

Jon, on the other hand, would end up being quite lucky. As he stood in line for the store, some dude came out and proclaimed that they needed four hundred more people to go to one of the George Lucas Q & A sessions. Jon did just that. Lucky bastard. Pretty funny, too, as many nimrods sat in the rain and cold all night whilst waiting in line. The BYS trumps all again. Too funny.

So, us lazy bastards finally drag our asses out of bed and make our way to the convention, with Steve in tow…

”Steve makes his journey to the convention center…”

So, we finally make it there…and we wait. Salt, Jen and Paul are in the store…Joe is nowhere to be found…and Jon, The Lurker (Becky) and Zaxxon (Jack) are taking in the McCallum Spectacular. So we wait for a few…when finally some of the gang comes out of the McCallum thing. Finally getting to meet Beck and Jack was a joy for all of us. Really, really cool. We get the call from the Salted One that they are finally out of the store, and we make our way over to them.

We meet back up with the others…and we are soon joined by Hope, her boyfriend and Arriss (PJ). Also joining us would be a completely shot Joe, who had been at the convention for like, forever…and Jedi_Satimber (Shawn #2). Man oh man…I wouldn’t want to tangle with that big boy. Jeekits.

Anyways, Becky takes off to check out the “One Man Star Wars” show (kinda wish I would have went with her…would‘ve been like a date! Hehehehe…), so we wait on her to come back…so we can finally take our much anticipated group photo. And, to our surprise, we see some of our online friends across the room. With one shout of “ALL HAIL BLUE YODA!” by yours-truly…they come over to chat with us.

It was none other than YodaJeff and Droideka27…or Jeff and Tracy. Really nice folks. Pretty cool meeting them in person. Soon, more of our friends would arrive…including AmazingB, FateNaberrie, Darth_Glymmer, VadersLament, and the world-famous Darth_Ignant. The much-anticipated “BYS & DB“ meeting was finally coming to fruition. After all of these years. Pretty surreal. And they all seemed like really cool people, even in our short meeting. Rather enjoyed it.

”NO BLASTERS, NO BLASTERS!”

So Becky finally makes it back…and it’s picture time. This was THE moment we’ve been waiting for during this entire, stupid, three-year journey that is the Blue Yoda Society…and it was absolutely perfect…

~~THE BLUE YODA SOCIETY~~

- Front, Lying Down: Sith_Wench (Hope)

- Kneeling (left to right): TIE1138 (Derik), Leonard_Shelby (Sammy)

- Front Row (left to right): wicket1138 (Joe), Salty (Salty), Mrs_Kitty (Jenny)

- Back Row (left to right): Arriss (PJ), PaplooTheory (Jake), Jedi_Satimber (Shawn), HumanJedi_024 (Paul), SPACEMONKEY20 (Jon), Zaxxon (Jack), The Lurker (Becky), Padawan915 (Herb)

Simply beautiful.

It was kinda cool, too, because a HUGE group of folks came out of a convention hall, just as we were snapping the first of the pictures…and we were creating quite the stir. In fact, it even piqued the interest of someone with a “Press” badge on. The woman took our picture and came over to get our information. It was a woman who worked for the Star Wars Insider, and she did articles for “Bantha Tracks”. Be sure to look for our group picture…coming to a future issue of SW Insider. That’s right.

After the wonderful experience that was the group photo, we break up for a few moments…so some of us can look around, some of us can crud up our lungs with the sweet, sweet nicotine…and so some of us can pick up the diabolical Steve the Dummy; so he can be reunited with his father.

Cold as hell, man. That’s the best to describe Saturday at the convention. Trace snowfall…the works. It wouldn’t be a smart move to, say, wear shorts. Well, I’m the jackass that did…and I paid dearly for it. Anyways, Derik and I go and get Steve out of my car…and to say that our walk back to the convention center was highly hysterical would be an understatement. You should’ve seen the looks that we were getting…ranging from stunned to smirking to all-out grinning to all-out terrified…as we walked back to the center, cradling that freaky little dummy in my arms like a baby. It was priceless. Der and I were grinning like ****ing idiots. Too great.

”Father and Son…Reunited…”

It was also great hearing people in Star Wars costumes commenting on how cool our Pabst shirts were. I think I can count a few times or more where this happened. Too awesome.

Anyways, we all regroup and make our way to the ever-wonderful Alcatraz restaurant. After, once again, bein’ shot down by The Ram (these buffoons turned away almost six hundred bucks of our business during the weekend. Damn fools), we decided to go back to this kick-ass place. Once again, we didn’t regret it. Great food…great brews…awesome waiter…great times. Lovely.

During this meal, another very memorable BYS “moment” would occur…when we all stood up, said “All Hail Blue Yoda” and clanked glasses together. The ultimate toast. It was a quiet and profound moment in our history…a moment that we have since dubbed the “ROTK” moment.

”The 'ROTK' moment…”

After yet another awesome meal, it was time to part ways…and say our first goodbyes. Beck, Jack and Joe were the first to leave us. It was great fun to be with the three of you. And we're down to eight.

Back to the hotel…and the beer flowed like water. Especially for yours-truly. On this evening, we watched the fan film, Episode IV.V: The Unknown Discovery, a DVD that some dude just handed to Jon, Der and myself as we stood outside with our smokes. We also watched a BYS staple flick…Old School. Great stuff. And, of course, Pulp Fiction. Lots of cool flicks, lots of good beer.

I could barely pick myself up off of the floor by the end of the evening

Damn. What a rough morning. Hangovers abound, man. Woke up to, once again, to see that the diehards (we all know who these guys are by now, yes?) went to the convention…and our sorry asses slept all day. Literally. Like vampires…Herb, Jake, Der and yours-truly stayed in the hotel all day. Which was cool. None of us had any money, and we saw all we needed to see at the convention. LEGO STAR WARS was the order of the day for us lazy ****s…and we managed to unlock a lot of it. SKEET-SKEET-SKEET-SKEET!

It was cool for Salt and Jen…as they managed to get good ole Lando’s autograph. Very, very cool. I think Paul may have picked some more stuff up…but I can’t remember.

Later in the day…Jon, Paul, Jen and Salt made their way back to the hotel. After hanging out for awhile, it was time--once again--to say some goodbyes. Jon, Salt and Jen all went their separate ways…and we were wittled down to five.

For the rest of the day, we mainly hung out playin’ LEGO SW and Resident Evil 4. Paul and I played some catch with the baseball as well. All in all, a pretty good wind down day.

After stayin’ up ‘til five in the morning every night, havin’ to wake up at five in the morning was pretty rough…but it had to be done. Groggy as hell, the five of us got our **** together for the final BYS departure from Indy.

Ant comes to the hotel to pick up Herb, and we have our goodbyes with the two fellas…and the four of us are off…but not before leaving a nice little “mark” on our room…

”The BYS Was Here…”

And we said goodbye to Indy.

And soon we would say goodbye to Derik, as we drop him off at the O’Hare Airport…and we’re down to three.

And soon I would say goodbye to Jake and Paul…as I drop them off at the Cedar Rapids Airport…and we’re down to one, and the circle is complete.

I did as I set out to do: I got my friends to and from the convention safely…which was a relief.

What a journey, man. Totally amazing. Words cannot describe how I feel about you individuals…how I feel about you as my friends. Words just can’t--and won’t--do it justice.

Until we meet again, my friends…forever and always…

….ahby!