I started there as Associate Editor, then wound up as Senior Editor – perhaps the most stressful job I’ve ever done in my life. No, not perhaps. Definitely. After the magazine was bought and moved to California, I wound up transitioning to being a freelance writer for them. (I couldn’t make the move to California for a variety of reasons.) From there, I wound up freelancing for DealerNews, 2Wheel Tuner’s sister publication. I still write for them.

It’s hard to see something you worked so hard on come to an end, but all the issues that were produced during my tenure there are on my desk, and I admit I feel a lot of pride about them. The issue I’m most proud of is the June 2008 issue. The entire issue was dedicated to military riders, featuring bikes built for and by members of the military. We got a lot of positive response from men and women deployed overseas for that one. I guess, in the end, it’s that ability to reach people that keeps me writing. The magazine may be gone, but there are other adventures to be had…and to be written about.

I was not disappointed.

Celebration V was held in the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida. Ed and I got to town Thursday night, but I had to go over by myself on Friday because he had to work from the hotel room. I was nervous since I was debuting my new 1950s-style homage to Boba Fett. “Will people think my outfit is dorky?” I asked Ed. (The answer was no: I got my pic taken all day, and Boba Fett himself gave me a sinister nod of approval.)

I shouldn’t have worried about going over alone. By the time I got on the shuttle, I was already befriended by Melissa and her mother, who showed me where to go and were great company in line to get into the show. After that, I met up with Charlotte and Bruce from the UAB Magic board, and we hung out.

Ed came over in the afternoon, then we spent Saturday there before heading to the Last Tour to Endor at Disney’s Hollywood Studios (more on that later). We went for one last hurrah Sunday morning before making the drive back home to Atlanta.

The highlights:

Star Wars Celebration V was an amazing experience. I am proud to be a fangirl, and brought home some Boba Fett goodies to prove it. (However, I passed on the circa-1979 Boba action figure in a box…$8,000 was out of my budget.) I get giddy seeing one or two Stormtroopers, and the occasional Mandalorian Merc. Seeing them come out in force for Celebration…well, it’s like Geek Girl Heaven for me.

Charlie Preston got an incredible photo in July of 2010 after learning about the house on a ghost tour. Here is Charlie’s account of the night:

“We recently did the Sixth Sense tour on Thursday and saw nothing although the house was extremly spooky. We decided to go back alone last night and noticed that the 12 o’clock tour group was already at the Mercer House so we pulled up alongside 432 and took a few pictures. At first my boyfriend took a few, but as I was closest to the house in the car, I rolled the window down and aimed the camera as I was too scared to look!!!! The house seriously gives me the creeps yet I’m so facinated with the story. I took three pictures and zoomed in on one of them and came face to face with the little girl.”

The little girl's face is in the bottom middle pane. Charlie thinks the girl seems extremely lonely.

A brightened image shows the girl's face clearly.

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Paranormal romance author Terri Grimes and her sister-in-law visited Savannah during Memorial Day Weekend in 2010. Teri loves visiting haunted locations to get inspiration for her books, such as Morons Guide to Waking Up Dead and Shake, Rattle and Haunt. She was amazed at how evil the house at 432 Abercorn felt, and she had some very interesting experiences and pictures to share.

Terri and here sister-in-law were brave enough to stick their arms inside the mail slot on the front door to take pictures of the house’s interior. Here’s what Terri says about that experience:

“My sister and law and I took turns taking our digital cameras and sticking them through the mail slot and taking pictures. Each picture we tried to snap, sparks would fly and the camera made a popping sound like you were repeatedly popping bubble wrap. It was like there was an overwhelming amount of electricity in the air. Literally we saw sparks when the popping sounds happened. Not surprising since you can actually feel the energy when you are a few feet away from the house. There is no electricity in the house at all. I get that. But when you stick your hand in through the mail slot you feel a blast of the coldest AC air you’ve ever felt. You actually feel a strong breeze of it on your arm and hand. And it’s so cold! And the hairs on your arm stick straight up and have an electric charge feeling like you ran a balloon over carpet and then ran it across your arm. I can’t get over it. I tell you, I’ve never felt such a thing in my life. I’ve been to a lot of haunted locations. I’ve even been touched by spirits but never have I ever felt such a strong energy, not even in Waverly Hills. It scares me because now I want to go back to that house so bad and walk through it, investigate it, take my digital voice recorder and look through every nook and cranny. It’s apparent that house gets under your skin and that really scares me. It would be all too easy for it to suck you in.”

The picture that Terri’s sister-in-law snapped while holding her camera through the mail slot defies description. What do you think caused this phenomena?

The camera was completely inside the house. What surrounds the image?

Another picture Terri took shows what looks like glowing eyes in a downstairs window. Is that a head with long hair materializing around the eyes?

Click for the full-size photo. Can you see the eyes?

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Homemade cookies at the "Georgia Spirits and Specters" party.

It seems like a lot to happen in just one year, but there has been a lot of patience involved in all of it. Writing takes a great deal of patience and humility: patience as you wait for your book to debut, or wait to hear back from a potential agent. As for humility, well, you hear “no” a lot more often than you hear “yes.”

Thankfully, it only takes one “yes” to really get things rolling. When Dinah, my editor at Schiffer Publishing, said “yes” to me writing “Georgia Spirits and Specters,” it led to me authoring “Everyday Voodoo.” Having two books already published helped me get an agent at a well-established agency. Now, hopefully, that will lead to my fiction manuscript being sold to a publisher.

My year in publishing has been especially busy when you tally the number of book signings and radio interviews I’ve been fortunate enough to do. I’m glad all those Georgia ghosts got things rolling for me.

Lots of players were checking out Rusty's sign for Moose.

And, of course, I always enjoy warm-ups. It’s fun to see the players up close, and I got a ton of pictures of Jim Slater.

Yet another Jim Slater pic. Don't even pretend you're surprised!

After warm-ups, we trooped up to our seats in 319. Before the game, they presented the Dan Snyder Award to the team member who is selected as an unsung hero. This year’s winner was Jimmy! I don’t have any pictures of him receiving the award, though: I was too busy jumping up and down with my Slater banner.

We were playing the Pittsburgh Penguins, and frankly I didn’t expect to win. They are, after all, the defending Stanley Cup champions. Halfway through the second, Bryan Little scored for us, and his was the only goal of the night. We didn’t just win, but we shut out the Pens! What makes that even sweeter is that we kept Crosby from scoring his 50th goal of the season.

I missed the fight of the season, but it was already posted online by the time we got home. Our 18-year-old rookie Evander Kane accepted a challenge from Matt Cooke, a notorious thug. One solid punch from Kane sent Cooke to the ice. A KO from Kane! Cooke eventually got up and left the ice under his own power.

The only downside of the night happened in the first period. Slater took a puck to the foot and left the ice obviously in pain. He returned shortly after but only lasted a few seconds before he went straight back to the locker room. Heal fast, Jimmy!

After the win, the Fan Appreciation Video started playing. Last year I was thrilled that they included a clip of me and my friend Brandy waving the Slater banner. This year was even better. Rusty’s daughter Rebecca showed up holding my “May the Bergfors be with You” sign, there was a clip of us all holding Rusty’s “Moooose” sign, and, for the second year in a row, the Slater banner made an appearance!

Rebecca's Fan Appreciation Video debut!

Rusty's Moooose sign is pretty well-known by now!

Jimmmmmyyyyy!

Now we have the long wait until next season. Luckily, there will be lots to occupy my time, beginning with the Georgia Renaissance Festival and going right up to Halloween season. Thrashers, I just have one request: re-sign Jimmy, please. Oh, and Let’s Go, Thrashers!

After a heavy rainstorm, we went to the Singapore Zoo for a couple of hours. The rain held off until the final half hour, but by then we’d seen all the monkeys and the cute “little” pygmy hippos, so we took shelter in an aviary. This aviary featured the usual birds, but there were also free-ranging mice deer (which are the size of house cats), bats, lemurs and even a sloth. On the whole, the Singapore Zoo is probably the best zoo we’ve ever visited.

Little free-ranging monkeys at the zoo entrance.

Another monkey.

Beautiful white tigers.

Baby monkeys!

This little guy was so cute, but oddly human.

The free-ranging mice deer were tiny!

Cute ring-tailed lemurs.

However, the adjacent Night Safari was every bit as good, and a unique zoo experience. Night Safari opens at 7:00 p.m., and seeing animals in the near-dark adds a whole new dimension: it’s so dark that you often can’t see the barriers between you and the animals. Of course, plenty of the zoo’s inhabitants are free-ranging, but the ones that would like to eat small children are kept out of reach.

Ed had visited the Night Safari once before, so this time we signed up for the VIP tour. We got dinner and a tour on a golf cart. Most visitors board trams that wind past exhibits and stop at trails featuring more animals. The golf cart was definitely the better choice. We were the only people who had signed up for the VIP package that night, so after seeing a show featuring nocturnal animals, we climbed aboard our cart with our very own tour guide. It was amazing, but the absolute highlight was getting to feed elephants. We fed bananas and apples to two elephants. One was close enough that I just reached out with the fruit, and she took it from me with her trunk. The second stood out of reach, but she’d lift her trunk and open her mouth when she wanted us to toss a banana to her. It was such a neat experience!

We finished our Night Safari around 11:30, so we were ready to get back into the city for some sleep.

The view from our hotel room.

The flights to get there – about 14 hours to Tokyo and another 7 to Singapore – were enough to make anyone stir crazy. I arrived at 1:oo a.m. on a Thursday. Thankfully, navigating customs and falling into a taxi were easy to do on very little sleep. I happily slept in Thursday morning, but by noon I was ready to go out and see Singapore.

My first stop was Raffles City, one of the many shopping malls in the country. These people are serious shoppers! My aim wasn’t shopping, though: it was food. I wound up with a bowl of awesome that, though called a Portuguese dish, closely resembled my favorite Korean dish, Be-Bim-Bab.

Next up was Fort Canning Park. Only three blocks from the hotel, the park felt like something from an Indiana Jones movie. It was easy to forget I was in the middle of a huge city-country as I roamed pathways and checked out the historic sites. One unexpected encounter was listening to the sound check for a Placebo concert happening in the park that night. Sadly, it was only crew guys on stage!

Fort Canning Park felt like a jungle.

Headstones placed in a wall at Fort Canning Park.

Ed arrived Thursday night and we indulged in incredible “cook it yourself” steak at a Japanese restaurant. We followed that up with Singapore Slings at Raffles Hotel. Legend has it that Raffles is where the Singapore Sling was born. The bar was wonderful: I have no doubt that Disney Imagineers used it as inspiration for The Adventurers Club at the now-defunct Pleasure Island.

We went back to Fort Canning Park on Friday morning to tour The Battle Box. Singapore was a British colony from the mid-1800s through, technically, 1971. The British Army established a base there with a labyrinthine bunker built into the hill that now comprises the park. The bunker was used extensively during World War II. It was an interesting tour, though the mannequins used in the dioramas were so lifelike that I found them creepy. I’m convinced they come to life at night!

A room in the Battle Box.

The mannequins aren't so bad unless they're looking at you...

...Like this one.

I hate is when the escape route is a dead end!

This photo in the Battle Box museum cracked us up!

Friday afternoon and evening was all about animals, as we headed to the Singapore Zoo and Night Safari. Stay tuned for plenty of monkey pictures!