My night at the orchestra

This Friday I ventured as close to the sci-fi nerd hive as I've ever been. Was I at a Trekkie convention you ask? No. I was at Star Trek / Star Wars themed orchestra performance. And with George Takei as the narrator! If you don't know who he is, he was Mr. Sulu in the original Star Trek show and has been in a few other shows. Most recently he was Hiro's dad in the show Heroes.

After work I found a nice quiet corner, curled up by an extremely fake fireplace (It didn't even give off heat!) and read a book for a good 2 hours before hiking down Nicollet and grabbing some dinner at Panera Bread. Yum! I had some really good chicken wild rice soup in a bread bowl.

From there it was a few short blocks to orchestra hall. I'll admit, expectations were high. A few months back I came to the orchestra for a performance of Lord of the Rings music and like Friday, there was a costume contest. For LoTR there were fantasy nerds everywhere. Dwarves, elves, hobbits and wizards. Even some people who weren't "dressed up" for the contest were wearing capes and had staffs. So like I said, the bar was set high. I wasn't completely disappointed.
Here are a few pictures of contestants. I apologize for the blurriness but it was poorly lit and my camera isn't friendly. Unfortunately most of them didn't turn out.


This kid was the clear winner in my mind. He was some droid from Star Wars. It was funny, he almost rolled down the stairs on his way off the stage.



Some people who decided that tin foil on their heads was good enough for a costume contest. I was embarrassed for them.


A little storm trooper kid

After the costume contest, I walked around and ran into a couple former acquaintances from high school, Jeff and Allison. I hadn't seen them in maybe 11 years or so. They were there celebrating Jeff's 30th birthday. I talked to them for awhile and then took my seat before the performance. These movie themed shows are much more casual than a typical orchestra performance. They have a popcorn cart set up in the lobby and are selling candy and other treats and you get to bring them in with you can munch on popcorn during the performance. So I grabbed a box of Dots and took my seat wayyyy in the back and on the end of the row. Next to me was a small girl, maybe 4, then her father and another child to his left maybe 7. I was pretty impressed that she stayed quiet through the entire show. She was a little squirmy, but I didn't mind. I talked to the dad during intermission and told him how cool I thought it was, him taking his kids to the orchestra at their age. I know they'll remember it. When I was younger, from about age 5 until well into high school, my parents took me to the UofM marching band indoor concert. Especially at a younger age, I was captivated. It's not that they were very good, although I thought they were, but my parents spending the time and money to take me to an event like that was great.

Anyways, here's a few more pictures I took during the show.



Creepy? Yep. Can you guess where I took this?