First of all I had an opportunity to get back on line, thanks to the generous offers from Best Buy and got a fairly decent Compaq laptop (which I believe in now a part of HP) for less than $400, after mine had burned out the first night on the road.
Then I've taken the four days between events to literally stop in each major city between Charlotte and Philly, to visit and leave book samples with as many comic shops as feasible (thank God for Google Maps....a few years back this kind of thing would have just been too labor intensive to put together)!
Being a former retailer myself, it's always a blast to see the very different characters of shops around the county and how different they can be right within the same city...as well as how the store owners/mgr's greet and deal with people that walk into their stores. I'm happy to report that out of the 30 odd stores I visited, only one shop (and store owner) was rude to me and wouldn't even accept my book sample (he told me he doesn't sell anything over $10...and all the Eye Witness books were $13.99 SRP). Yeah right! But as a professional courtesy I won't name the store, but only let you know it's in Raleigh.
But on the other hand here's a list of stores I would definitely seek out, if I needed my comic and/or GN fix and found myself in one of these cities:
Chapel Hill Comics (Chapel Hill, NC)
SciFi Genre (Durham, NC)
EG Comics (Vienna, VA)
Nostalgia Plus (Richmond, VA)
Laughing Ogre (Fairfax, VA)
Heroes Aren't Hard to Find (Charlotte, NC)
One final note. During one of my two days in the Washington area, I decided to take one to do a bit of sightseeing, since I had never had the opportunity before in our nation's capital. Coming into the city I lucked into a parking place right along one of the main streets next to the Washington monument and better yet, it was free parking....score!
I went on my way to see the Wash. Mom't, toured the Smithsonian Natural history Museum and made myself walk the approximate 1 mile distance to the Lincoln Monum't. During that last hike I made a point of making sure all was well with my vehicle as I passed it and making sure there it was still where I left it. It was.
On my way back to my truck I noticed a lack of cars parked along the street I was parked on and became concerned. A brisk walk ended up becoming a jog, which turned into an outright sprint, when I saw several motorcycle cops along the block where I was parked and only a handful of cars still parked. Yikes!
I was in full panic mode as I was sure the spot where I left my truck was now vacant, but kept sprinting forward as I saw there was a blue vehicle up ahead (but it looked like a van). But I kept running forward just in case (rather than stop and talk to the cops) and to my relief it was my truck and the tow truck was lining it up to haul away next!!!! I ran up and told him in a breathless manner, "Dude, that's mine,"...and to my total surprise he just said, go ahead and take it!
I learned that where I was parked was legal parking, that is until 4:30 to 6pm...and at that moment it was 4:45pm. Wow...what a bullet I dodged. That would have put a serious black cloud over this trip if I would have just taken my time to get back to the spot. 5 minutes later and it would have been gone.
Today starts the Philly CC...more to come on that later.
R.J. Luedke
http://www.headpress.info/
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