Starbase Indy 2005

Dominic Keating, Max Grodenchik, Aron Eisenberg, Chase Masterson

Lolita Fatjo, Vaughn Armstrong and Herbert Jefferson Jr

(apologies for some of the pictures....the lighting is not good in those places)

At Thanksgiving we were excited to see that no storms were expected so it looked like we were going to be able to get to Chicago and Indianapolis without any problems. We had a nice family get together and then when everyone left we got into the car about 8pm and headed down the road.

It was great. dry roads and no traffic. Jay drove until 10 and then I drove until 2. I would have stopped sooner but there was no a lot of gas stations open in Wisconsin so took me a while to find one. I slept until 6 after that. We got into Naperville and the rental car dealership by 7. Thank goodness they opened at 7. After Jay got his car, I headed out for Indianapolis and got there about 10:30. I was very pleased about the time but then I realized that they were on Eastern Time. So it was actually 11:30 and my plans to get a nap before heading to the airport to pick up MJ were scrubbed.

My room was ready so got everything up there. I registered, got my packet and my table for the holiday greetings ready. Things were pretty much the same except they changed some of the rooms around. The main auditorium was where the dealer room was last year. The dealers were right by the registration area, which is a good move, I think. They had the dinner in where the auditorium was last year. I think all those changes made sense.

I was thrilled to note that some of the slogans that I had pitched to Kim the chairperson of SBI were used in the program. Heehee…I guess I'm a published writer now.

I headed for the airport about 1. I was a little later than I wanted to get going because of some problems with getting my photo ops paid for. I decided to get a photo with Dominic and Vaughn. They were pretty expensive so didn't go with the rest of the actors although it would have been nice.

I found the airport without a problem…Yay me. And ended up parking as it was very close to the terminal. Found Continental and waited at the baggage claim. MJ called about 2 minutes after I got there and she was in the NWA baggage claim. So we hooked up and got in the car and headed back to the hotel.

Then I got two messages from Tom so finally got back to him and we decided that we'd try and get everyone together for dinner that night. There were 8 people from HoT and we all managed to get together for supper at the restaurant next door. MJ came along, as there was no one else there from DKEB. It was fun to catch up with the people I knew and meet some new people.

After supper I went back to the room quickly to get a couple of things and then headed to the auditorium for the opening things and the Ferengi Family Hour. It was a surprise to see Dominic Keating there as he was only suppose to be there on Saturday. But he got on stage and said hello to everyone.

The actors that did the Ferengi Family Hour were Chase Masterson <Leta on DS9> Max Grodenchik <Rom-DS9> Aron Eisenberg <Nog on DS9> and Lolita Fatjo < Assistant to the Executive Producer and Script Coordinator on TNG, DS9 and Voyager> And it was a hoot. Vaughn Armstrong <Admiral Forrest on Enterprise and many other ST characters> was the narrator and extra as needed. He also played his ukulele and sang a couple of songs for us. It was so silly that it was very entertaining.

After the show and all the introductions, we got to meet with the 4 actors from DS9 at an autograph table. As we were standing in line, Dominic came over and got in line ahead of the guy in front of me. <Who had absolutely NO idea who he was, said he only watched three episodes of Enterprise. ARRGGHH…and we wonder why it failed.>

I felt compelled to say something to him so I decided to get a little fangirl and got all gushy. Something like….OMG, I'm soo happy to meet you….and….it's really you!!….and ….I drove all the way from Fargo, ND to see you. Heehee…he was amused by that and did stop and talk with me. He said. "Here I am" and poised for me. Then when I said I'd come all the way from Fargo he said. "Bless your heart, love." And then Tom got a few moments with him. As he left us, he patted my butt/hip as he walked by me. Tom and I were impressed with him. So open and willing to mingle.

As we were walking back to our rooms, Vaughn Armstrong came down the hall in front of us. He turned around to say hello and we said hi and I said. "Its my FAVORITE Admiral." So he stopped and talked with us for a bit. We told him how unhappy we were about Enterprise being cancelled and he said he'd hoped it would last long enough to get his kids through college. He was very pleasant and it was fun meeting him.

Tom dropped me off at my room and I went in. MJ wasn't there so I thought probably since she is DKEB, she was probably somewhere that I should be. I left the room again and headed to the bar. Sure enough there she was with Michelle, Pageen, Linda, Jim and Dominic, Vaughn, Aron and Max. Of course I pulled up a chair and joined the table. <what?? me wait for an invite….not on your life…she was my roommate so she was stuck with me>

And from there it was over 2 hours of hanging out with the actors and talking with them.

Dominic was seated across the table and a couple of chairs down from me. He has a great personality and really really knows how to flirt. He makes everyone feel special. Lots of good eye contact. And I never realized that his eyes are actually blue. Not as light as Connors but definitely blue. He made sure that he talked with me and when he would tell a joke or a story, he would make eye contact with the people at the table. I actually got to talk with him a few times. We talked about our cats. He has two and was telling us that someone let them out of the kitchen the night before so they had him awake at 5 ready to eat. He thinks he's in control of them. I told him he was delusional and he laughed. Then he asked me how many I had. I told him five and he called me the "weird cat lady of east Fargo." Then later I asked him what he had been doing. So he told me he was filming an episode of Las Vegas right now, did a movie called Hollywood Kills and he's the killer. And Beowulf which is done like Polar Express with sensor buttons all over his body and face. Interesting and I'll be looking forward to that.

He bought drinks for everyone and delivered them to us himself. He's a fun guy and we enjoyed our time with him.

I got to talk with Vaughn a bit too. He is very interesting and interested in everyone. Max was a hoot and a little shy maybe. He didn't say too much. Vaughn and Dominic talked about how much they wanted to get out of LA. Traffic and attitude being a big part of why they would like to get out.

Chase and Lolita were there also but it was more a coming and going. Vaughn left about 11:30, came back with a bottle of wine, shared it with the table and left again. <the bar had closed at 11> I got a hug and kiss goodnight from him.

About midnight some staff came down to escort Dominic back to his room. So the party pretty much broke up after that. We went back to our rooms and I got online to email Laura and then went to bed. I was exhausted.

We had a wake up call for 7:15 the next morning. I got up and showered. Being in the bar with all the smoking going on, I felt kind of grimy and my lungs were protesting.

Called Tom and we met for breakfast and a couple other HoT people joined us. MJ went off with Michelle and Pegeen.

We hung out in the dealer's room for a while and I got an Enterprise T-shirt that I didn't have. Then we got in line for photo ops. Dominic was first.

Just as they got to me, they had problems with the camera so I got to stand up there waiting and had a few exchanges with Dominic while they were getting the camera set up. Once they got ready I went over to him. He was sitting and I was standing but he put his arm around me and snuggled in close with his arm around me. They had a little trouble so we had to stand like that for a few minutes. Heehee…no complaints here. He looked like he had a late night but was friendly.

After the photos, Tom and I wandered around in the dealer's room and talked with others until it was time for the photo op with Vaughn.

Vaughn was funny. The ladies had to sit on his lap. He's so funny and so approachable so we had an exchange of smart alert comments. He remembered me from the night before and asked how I'd slept.

Then it was on to my writer's workshop, which was done my Janet Nemecek. She was assistant script coordinator on Voyager. She's very good, dry sense of humor and used films to emphasize her points. It was a quick 2 hours and I enjoyed every minute of it.

After the workshop, Tom and I went to have some lunch. The restaurant in the hotel hadn't changed much from the year before. Very slow service. We had a chicken Caesar salad and it took 20 minutes to get it to us. Luckily we weren't in any hurry so it was kind of humorous.

Before Dominic's talk, Gillian and I decided to go and get some autographs. I wanted to get Vaughn's on a picture so we waited in a short line and then got to talk with him. He remembered me from the bar and we had a nice conversation. I bought his Enterprise Blue's Band CD and also a picture, which he autographed. He did Gillian's pictures and we all had a nice conversation about a lot of things. He loves to talk and seems to appreciate his fans.

Time for Dominic's talk in the auditorium so we went and got our seats in the second row.

He came on stage and was quite animated. I wish I had the transcript of what he said but this is all from memory. He did sing a couple of songs. One was a song that everyone has been hearing about him singing about being on Enterprise and he did a good job of it. Then he sang the song that he said John Billingsley use to sing all the time because he had so many days off. "Another day off and the checks they still come." He answered a lot of questions. What he was doing lately which I had asked him the night before at the bar and got the same answer so won't repeat here. He was asked if he misses his castmates and he answered that he missed all of Enterprise. He said he really misses Scott. He still has moments when things are going wrong when he asks himself. What would Scott do?

I think most of the questions that he was asked were the usual. The only one that stands out was the one Tom asked. He wondered if Dominic had over the years built any kind of a back story for Malcolm For some reason Dominic took that opportunity to launch into the first gay character on Star Trek with a couple jokes that I thought were a little inappropriate. In the end he did say he based him on how he was when he was 17. It was an interesting question and when he finally got down to it, he gave an interesting answer.

Dominic also said that he didn't think that Star Trek was dead but thought that when it did come back; it wouldn't be in a form that we would like. I think he's pretty right on about that.

After the talk on stage, we sat through an announcement by Tim Brazeel about a fan based Scifi series that is in the works. Enterprise is dead. No surprise there. The announcement was not greeted with any applause or reaction at all.

Finally we were called row by row to get our autographs with Dominic. It was controlled chaos. But since we were in the second row, we got in pretty quickly. We were lucky. It went on for a long time after we got our autographs. Tom got a personalized autograph with Dominic but my two pictures were just signed with his name. I was slightly disappointed about that. I had my photo op picture signed < which came out a little fuzzy but not to bad> and the cast photo that Connor and Anthony signed last year. So now I just need to get the rest of the cast to sign it.

After I got my autograph signed I went over to the registration desk to get my photo op with Vaughn and although they were all back, mine was not in there. They told me it really wasn't lost, it was in the camera just hadn't gotten printed out.

I wandered in the dealer room and then went up to the room to send a quick email to Laura. MJ, Michelle and Pageen were on a mission to make some T-shirts to show Dominic. They were really quite cute and they did a good job of getting them done in just a couple of hours before the dinner started.

I got ready for the Luau and went downstairs to meet Tom and some of the other HoT people. They didn't open the doors on time but we had a good time taking pictures with each other and talking. Just about everyone was dressed in their Hawaiian shirts and some of the woman wore dresses with flowers in their hair.

When they opened the doors, they had the woman and the men in separate lines and we all got a lei from the stars. Dominic was in the middle of the men and he didn't have anyone with him so I went over and he put a lei around my neck with a big smile, a "Hello, love" and a quick kiss on the lips.

I found my table easily enough and sat down. As everyone came and sat down they left the seat beside me empty. And it stayed empty.

After the table pictures were taken our guest came and joined us. We had Vaughn Armstrong. What a lovely man he is. He greeted everyone at the table and asked questions about where they were from. Then he turned to me and said that the lei that he was wearing was scratching him and he thought I needed another one. So he took off his and put it around my neck and gave me a kiss on the lips.

We told him that he was supposed to go and get his food first. He refused saying he would get his food when we got ours and he did. He stood in line with us and got his food. We had a great conversation at the table. He talked about his roles, his band. He asked me about the movie Fargo and we had quite a discussion about that. I told him about Kristen Rudrud living in Fargo and how she's a big fan of Jay's. We talked about the Fargo premiere of the movie and he thought that was funny. In the middle of dinner, Tom came over and whispered in my ear that he was so jealous. I had to laugh but if the tables had been turned, I would have been too. It was great to get some a fun guest.

After we'd eaten Michelle came and got me and we went to give Dominic his gift and t-shirt. It took a while but he finally came out to join us. He was tickled with his gift from DKEB and he laughed at the Tshirts and signed Michelle's. There was some other conversation and then he left to go back to the dinner but not without hugs and kisses all around for us. He really is a sweet man.

He excused himself to the crowd before the entertainment started due to having to get up early in the morning.

The entertainment was very good and we all enjoyed it a lot. Vaughn played the ukulele and sang a couple of songs. Chase sang, Menina did some dancing and Max did a couple of songs that were really funny. One was definitely not child appropriate. James Horan and Deborah Downey sang a duet and James did a couple of other songs. It was fun.

After the dinner I went back to see if they had my photo op with Vaughn and still nothing so tried to find Vaughn so that I could get a picture with him. Gillian was with me and we finally found him. He was so accommodating about the picture but we couldn't just stand beside him…he had to give us a bear hug. So we talked a little more and then we found Tom again and went to the bar to join the others of our group.

After we had been sitting there a while, Max came in and I said hello and told him to have a seat so he sat with us for a while. He was very curious about the size of the mosquitoes in ND and Minnesota so Pageen and I were telling him stories. <who knows where that came from, but it was funny> He was obviously tired and didn't stay too long but he did talk about auditions that he was doing and other things. A very nice man.

Vaughn came in a little while after that and had a great time just talking with everyone in the bar. We stayed until about 12:30 and then got up to leave to get some sleep. As we stood up, Vaughn asked if he were going to go and he said goodnight to us all. I got a big hug and a kiss with a "see you tomorrow" from him.

I was in bed pretty quick after that. I was so tired. Not sure what time MJ came in, I never heard her come in.

Met Tom and Gillian for breakfast at 8:30 so had plenty of time before the last Writer's Workshop. I wanted to get my photo op picture but they still didn't have it. Said they would mail it to me. I was disappointed as I wanted it to be personalized but knew Kim would take care of getting at least To Gail on it.

The Writer's Workshop was good again. I had to leave at 11:30 to check out of my room. On the way by I stopped to see if my picture was in yet and it was. YAYY. I knew I was suppose to meet MJ in the room but I also knew that Vaughn was doing his talk at noon and I had to leave at 12:45 during his talk so if I didn't get it autographed now…it wasn't going to happen. So I left my stuff with Tom and went to the autograph room. He had a couple of people he was talking with but then when it was my turn, he had a big hello for me and we talked about a lot of different things. He commented that "our" picture came out good and it did. He signed it. "To Gail, It was nice having dinner with you. Live Long and Prosper." We talked about the movie Fargo again and I told him the next time he saw it, he should think of me. Charming man that he is, he said he certainly would.

I told him that I was coming to his talk but we would have to leave early because I had to take a friend to the airport and then we were heading back because of a blizzard due at home. I told him what a joy it had been to have spent so much time with him and he really made my whole weekend so much more fun. He told me that he had had fun too and that I was "a hoot". Ok, I can handle that. I thought it was a great compliment. I can't be sexy but I can be amusing.

Checked out of the hotel and went to Vaughn's talk. It was very interesting and we learned a lot about his childhood, his time in Vietnam and how he got into acting. Too soon it was time to leave and get to the airport.

Tom, MJ and I got up to leave and we were a little way down the aisle when Vaughn stopped his talk to tell me goodbye, have a safe trip and it was nice having dinner with me. Now THAT was cool!! And I wasn't even embarrassed just very pleased.

The trip home was a nightmare, from traffic jams near Chicago, to icy roads and freezing rain, to power outages as we got into ND. We lucked out; we had power and kept it. We had only been home for 4 hours when the blizzard hit.

It was an awesome weekend. I'm not sure I'll ever have another experience that awesome.
Thank you to everyone who made it so special. Tom, MJ, Michelle, Gillian, Pageen, Linda, Jim and all the actors who were so approachable and the people that put the convention on. You guys all rock!!