Last Friday (the 14th) Bev, the boys, and I went to the Borders on Union Square to hear Wil Wheaton do a reading from his book Just A Geek. I have greatly enjoyed reading his website, so a chance to see him in person was too much to pass up. (He was in town to give a keynote at MacWorld on Thursday and a fan who worked at Borders arranged to have him read.)
We drove up right after work and were planning to eat dinner at a California Pizza Kitchen that is near Union Square. When we got to CPK, it was not CPK – a new resturant was in it’s place. We walked down to the corner and found a Max’s for dinner. Were in and out fairly quickly – our waitress was from Ireland and took a few minutes to talk to her about the difference between No Cal and Ireland and how her kids were so to the great weather we have in the Bay Area, that they had a hard time adapting to the rain in Ireland when they went back to visit.
After dinner we headed over to Borders. As we entered we headed for the information booth to find out where the reading was. There we ran in to Wil’s wife Anne. I recognized her from her photos on his site and the fact that I had seen her at MacWorld the day before with Wil. I quickly introduced her to my family and asked where the reading was.
We headed up to the 3rd floor to find the seats all taken. We found a spot on the floor and made ourselves comfortable. Shortly after 7p Wil started. He made some remarks and then launched into a reading. He read 2 stories that dealt with his experiences at at SciFi Convention in Las Vegas a few years aog. He described this as the turning point from him being angry about his ST:TNG experience to seeing it how the fans see him and beginning to enjoy it. The two readings were long than I think he originally planned to read. I enjoyed his reading style and his humour. Even though I bought the book for him to sign, I am planning to get the Audible download so that I can hear the stories in his own words.
After he was done reading everyone queued up to get their books (or whatever they had) signed. The line was long but moved steadily. I had to wait about 40 minutes before it was my turn. Just before I got the head of the line, Landon joined me in line and we started talking. As we walked up to see Wil, he commented to Landon that he must me a Napolean Dynamite fan because of the shirt Landon was wearing. For those that have not see the movie, Landon was wearing his “Vote for Pedro” t-shirt. I thought it was pretty cool that Wil recognized it and commented on it.
When he was signing the book I asked him to write – “Geeks make great Dads” – which I think is true. Just scary for the moms that we turn our sons in to geeks also 🙂 
All in all it was a great time and I really appreciate Bev and the boys going with me. Everyone enjoyed his reading, but the waiting for me to get the book signed was the hard part. But mission was accomplished and we headed home.
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