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Suddenly Jonathan broke out in song and dance. And as always there was plenty of film on hand to capture the moment. 
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As the day’s camera crazy had officially begun, some in the group ducked for cover. |
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But nobody tried to hide when moments later we sat down with our Internet uncle for lunch at the Hard Rock Café. And there’s our Uncle G!
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Inga was so excited about sitting next to Uncle G that she started to blur! |
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But Gary’s never shaken by strange behavior. After all he’s our moderator. Gary answered all of our questions about Alyssa and Lin and Charmed and SafeSearching 
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And brought his friend Joe (JWagnon from the board)- that’s him to right next to Carl. Joe talked about his work as an extra- and also just happened to mention that he, like Gary, had met Alyssa! |
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Outside the café the gang chatted with Gary and Joe.
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And when everyone got sick of me taking pictures- |
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They decided to join in. Fifty flashes later we all had a copy of this.
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But whose camera was whose? |
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We finally came up with a solution- to go back to the parking lot and restart the entire lunch all over from the beginning. As Gary and Joe simultaneously thought- “Doh! Not again!”
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After everything was sorted out |
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We visited a little while longer.
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But when the sun got so hot that Joe had to cover Gary’s eyes, |
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We knew that our time was about to close. Just like on the message boards, and at the SafeSearching office- everything ended with a hug. 
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And we waved goodbye to our uncle under the strings of the Hard Rock guitar.  |
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From the guitar at the Hard Rock Café we decided to split a number of ways in advance of the evening banquet.
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Some in the group chose to continue browsing the Universal Citywalk; I chose to keep taking pictures. Universal Hollywood is an amazing place.  |
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During daylight hours Universal’s spherical icon glistens in the sun.
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And the Universal marquis beckons visitors along the red carpet into the theme park. |
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Just inside the entrance is a lifesize statue of a film crew. |
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But there’s more than monuments to Universal. To even access the Citywalk you must utilize a piece of moviemaking history- the parking structure that doubled to frame the cliffs in Jurassic Park. Hence- Jurassic Parking |
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Along the walk there are many highly decorative restaurants and gift shops, as well as an arcade and a cinema with IMAX capabilities. In the center of the complex is an open dome where a grid of fountains are built into the sidewalk. Those who don’t mind risking a drenching or two can take their chances between the nozzles. As long as Steph’s shoes didn’t get wet, the gang was ready to gamble. 
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And luck out they did. But when Jonathan took his turn, the fountains took their revenge! |
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The Citywalk is all about fun. And that’s just what we had.
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| Most of my coverage of the ABS banquet was captured on video, with the thought that I would eventually freeze stills from it to complete the photo coverage. But I’ve never used my IEEE port or done any appreciable video editing on my computer before, and it will probably be awhile before I am able to get to it. Nonetheless, browsing the pics that were captured still, there’s enough material to give you a healthy sampling of our special evening. The streams, footpaths, bridges, waterfalls, swans, and fish that beautified the entrance to the Starlight Room were more than impressive of themselves, while the room itself was large, lavish, everything that I imagined it would be- and a lot more. In fact, as we prepared the room, a photographer from one of the studios snapped away in the process of scouting the room for a film. Unfortunately most of my pictures of the landscaping and room are momentarily vaulted within video. | |
A few hours before the official 7:30 gathering, the committee members and some of the others began Alyssifying the room for the evening. Before long it looked fancier than ever.
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But most beautiful of all was the collection of Alyssa pictures that cycled across the screen as Courtney prepared her presentation. |
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Having just one Alyssa in this world is more than I ever dreamed. But through the magic of video- can there actually be six? 
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Before long the cycling Alyssas drew a crowd. |
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And heaping helpings of great ABS eatings began to materialize 
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Thanks to the service of the Lodge’s fine staff. In particular the chap who’s trying to run for cover in this pic comes to mind.  |
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| During the evening I wanted to record video messages from everyone to Alyssa, planning to eventually edit them into a video for her. But everytime that I asked an ABS member to say something they told me that it was too hard to come up with something, and I ended up with no footage. Or almost none. Once it became clear that asking people familiar with Alyssa to say Hi to her was too intimidating, I began searching outside the room, and ran across this fellow waiting on call to serve us. I asked him if he knew who Alyssa Milano was and he said no. So I asked if he would be willing to say hi to her on video, and he agreed! Then I turned on the camera, and he looked into it, and announced- “Hi!”. I’m not sure that’s quite enough video to configure into a montage- or even a clip- but as always the Lodge did what it could to make our evening memorable, in the best possible way. But back to the beginning. | |
As Krystina took pictures of pictures of Alyssa, I took pictures of Krystina taking pictures of pictures of Alyssa.
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But I could only hide behind the balloons for so long before she found me out! |
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Every more people began to arrive, everyone looking absolutely spectacular!
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"Are we ready yet? They’re almost here!”  |
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| Years in the planning stages, the evening to which we had been looking forward for an appreciable fraction of our lifetimes was now about to transform into reality, mere seconds away. And if it was not crystalline from the experiences of the previous several days, this was to be one of the most memorable evenings of our lives. Just talking about this reminds me of arriving at the Sportsmen’s Lodge the very first day. After having spoken with Lizzy and Kyan on the phone for the first time, we planned to meet at the Patio Café for dinner, and I was waiting just outside the restaurant at the pool. There was about 10 minutes between the time I arrived at the pool and the moment that I met them, and Eli. I’ve almost never felt so close to approaching a heart attack as I did during those ten minutes. The pressure of the nervous anticipation of finally meeting the people who are such a huge part of your life in such a direct way is tremendously enormous. It was the same nervousness that took place two years ago standing outside of the door of SafeSearching before knocking seconds before the reality of meeting all of the wonderful people on the other side. And the same nervousness that instantly vaporized the first time that Lin called me “Sweetie”. Now as the banquet was mere seconds from its start, nervousness was again on the rise. But instantly as always to be completely forgotten as bliss transformed into reality. And now the banquet has arrived. | |
Welcome to the Starlight Room.
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If you spot someone with a camera in their hand, you know you’re in the right place. And Sharon’s showing us the way. |
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We all enjoyed a vast and delicious dinner together.
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An ABS scrapbook was circulated in which we wrote notes to revisit for the rest of our lives. |
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| I never realized until after the ABS just how many pictures I have of Krystina taking pictures. She may very well have more than me, and she’s very good at capturing her pics inconspicuously. | |
Tim and Dave took a look at the scrapbook at Krystina sneakily snapped a classic.
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At first glance this may appear to be just a picture of a very beautiful veteran SafeSearching poster holding a smiling balloon.  |
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| But on closer inspection, Krystina hasn’t lost touch of her camera and in fact is starting to aim it in the same direction as an unusually large drinking glass in the lower right. You’re looking at Krystina, and she’s looking back at you- but her gaze also includes the glass that’s so big she could almost stand inside. And her camera is about to capture another classic. Very sneaky… But aside from taking pictures, the evening included many entertaining events. | |
Courtney’s presentation offered a multidimensional tribute to Alyssa.
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Carl’s Cadre had us ready to dance and buy stamps. But stamps can be picked up anytime- this is the time to dance! |
Now as demonstrated by Inga and Krystina, it’s time for y’all to learn the greatest dance sensation to sweep the nation- the ABS Shuffle! “Everybody- click your camera on, raise it high, and shout Hey! Wave right and left and click away!” |
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And again Krystina took the lead standing on a table near the right. Nope, this wasn’t taken during a battle of “Who’s the Tallest?” She and Courtney proctored an intense match of Alyssa and Charmed trivia contests, complete with prizes. But before long soon became clear that the expertise of those two in regard to Charmed vastly exceeded the limits of our collective trivia databanks. Courtney’s final challenge of playing a song heard once during the run of Charmed and asking us to identify the scene had Dave just about ready learn the name of an episode in protest. |
It is now four weeks to the day since the ABS began, and you have been very patient as every day of the event has been drawn as long as possible. Here now is the capstone picture you’ve been waiting a month to see. The ABS 2004 Group Photo  I hope you like it. If you do, Libby’s mom is where credit is due. |
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Eventually 1:00am arrived and our reservation of the Starlight Room was complete. And so as we must, we left. To step out of the moment one final time, for all of the happiness beyond measure that the ABS delivered and which none would be traded for the world- it is back to back with an almost equal measure of depression and lonliness the moment that it ends. Being face to face with your extended family from around the world and sharing the time of your life together, then a day and a thousand hugs later finding yourself in the middle of a continent completely alone is a terribly difficult transition. It is difficult not to believe that the entire week is just a dream relative to the reality of the isolation surrounding you. And yet these pictures prove that it is not a dream. And that’s why they are so special. |
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