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Tekkoshocon - Author's Notes - 2006 Johann von Goethe, the writer who was one of Beethoven's favorites, wrote "What does not kill me makes me stronger." For the author of this site, 2006 in general -- and the Tekkoshocon weekend in particular -- has been like that. Among other things, we forgot to fix the HTML link on the site's main page, which mistakenly pointed to the previous weekend's Anime Detour material. If it wasn't for a helpful E-mail, we may have never realized we made the big mistake. Fortunately we corrected the error on Sunday evening. If there were any questions about our recovery from the heart attacks and surgery, they were answered on this weekend. It was our second convention in a row, and we got there the hard way. We wanted to catch a plane to the Pittsburgh airport, but we waited way too long to do that. The Tekkoshocon weekend also was a big spring break travel weekend, and every useful flight to Pittsburgh was booked solid. The only alternative was to load up the car and hit the interstates for a six-hour drive to Monroeville. By a long shot, it was our longest drive of the year and something we hadn't tried since our January health problems. Fortunately, we had more than enough endurance to stay behind the wheel for the distance, from the flatlands of eastern Indiana to the hills of western Pennsylvania. What we weren't really ready for were the construction zones, a half-dozen of them. I-70 in the Dayton area is being rebuilt, and we lost a half-hour when crews funneled the highway down to one eastbound lane. Then on the stretch of I-79 south of Pittsburgh, the southbound lanes had been stripped bare and traffic was shunted to the northbound lanes -- and sometimes down to one lane at a time. On top of that, this writer's dead reckoning and sense of direction collapsed around the same time we were confronted by the I-79 construction. We managed to miss two interstate exits, then drove by the Raddison twice before we realized that it was the place where the convention was supposed to be. Then, after we unloaded the trunk and carted everything to our room, we found that our trusty, reliable printer had stopped working, which was a big problem because Tekkoshocon marked our return to photo print sales. We thought around dropping the idea, then we looked out of our hotel window and saw a Best Buy in the distance. Back in the car, we rushed to the store, bought a new printer and put it in use for the rest of the weekend. Good thing we didn't give up, because there were people who really were interested in buying prints - thanks to our customers, as always. Apologies to those who looked for us late Saturday night and Sunday, but we had to get ready for the return trip home, which was smoother than the inbound trip. The fourth Tekkoshocon was the second time in Monroeville, an eastern suburb of Pittsburgh. Some of the panels and the dealers' room were in the Raddison, but main events and the artists' alley were in the attached Expo Mart, which had plenty of room. The Expo Mart is built on pillars above a road and a parking lot, and the main level flexes with foot traffic - a strange feeling. There's another oddity about the Expo Mart that would be noticed only by fans of gangster and prison movies: the building has two upper levels lined with meeting rooms, accessed by balconies guarded by big steel rails. Look at the balconies at the right angle and the correct state of mind, and it looks like something out of Birdman of Alcatraz or White Heat. The building was so large that a portion of the main floor also held a sports memorabilia show, at which one dealer had a collection of Pittsburgh Steeler replica jerseys. A few of those jerseys were seen at the anime convention, but most of the fan clothing was T-shirts from anime series. One exception was fan game show host Greggo's sports jacket, which he sold off his back to help raise money for an ovarian cancer charity. It was part of a charity auction held after the costume contest's stage presentation. That auction raised about $1,500 with the assistance of actor Caitlin Glass, who played the role of celebrity presenter, showed off her rarely-displayed dancing skills and performed several "squees" for fans. The high point of the weekend was provided by the sky, the best backdrop a photographer could ever want - if you're in the right place. Rain fell over the weekend and the resulting clouds produced a brilliantly orange Friday evening sky. It was a perfect color for a photo background, but it was in the wrong place and not visible at an angle we could use. Tekkoshocon Main Page