The Road to DragonCon team is frolicking around the mountains of Colorado today on their way to the first fan meet-up in Denver. Details on that in a little bit! First a bit of a recap from yesterday.
Justin, Doug and Ryan woke up in the rain at Lake Powell, Utah – allowing them only 4 hours of sleep that night. Rain in the desert is not as uncommon as one might think! They made their way to a local Denny’s where the manager and waitress gave them the all-star treatment.
Our Adventurers are on the road! After leaving Meltdown Comics in Los Angeles yesterday, they’ve travelled through Barstow, Las Vegas and camped in Utah. After traveling through a Mines of Moria-esque tunnel, they are now at the Denny’s in Page, Arizona.
Justin, Doug and Ryan are fueling up to continue the adventure today – with plans to visit Monument Valley, Mexican Hat and other amazing locations. You can follow their progress along the way on our 24/7 LIVE Event page. [Route]
Did you know, you can help shape what #Road2DCon becomes, in real time, as we stream LIVE from our cart…err car. Set the conversation topic! Force an unexpected detour! Make the roadtrippers eat somewhere unique! As Fan Producer, the live show is in your hands.
As you are well aware, TheOneRing.net is a 100% volunteer not for profit website. We’ve been fan-powered for nearly 14 years, and are looking to keep it that way. From Aug 24 through Sept 4th, we are holding our first annual pledge drive, appropriately named, ‘Light the Beacons: TheOneRing.net’s Fellowship Fundraiser.’ If you believe your experience with TheOneRing.net brings value to your personal Tolkien experience, please consider a donation. We’ve set-up a variety of pledge levels, each with a unique item or opportunity.
It’s time once again to join our merry travelers LIVE for the 3rd Annual Road To DragonCon! More meet ups, more fans, more live streaming discussion as the crew drive across the country experiencing America through a Middle-earth lens. LAX to ATL and Back Again, Saturday August 24 – Thursday September 4. Over the next few days we will release details of the route, fan meet ups (or moots) and ways you can get involved!
#Road2DCon is new this year on many fronts. Along for the adventure with TORN Tuesday’s Justin is the team behind the Beardomancy101 podcast (iTunes): Ryan Moran and Doug Brochu! You may know Doug from the TV shows ‘Sonny With A Chance’ and ‘So Random,’ but we know him as a loyal Ringer whose TORN Tuesday appearance is the most-watched episode in the show’s two years.
It is hard to believe, but the little live webcast that could, TORnTUESDAY, has reached a new milestone! Two years non-stop, ongoing live coverage of major fan events such as Comic-Con and Dragon*Con — as well as bringing you a bevy of stars such as Sean Astin, Dominic Monaghan, Billy Boyd and his band Beecake, Royd Tolkien, “The Last Unicorn” and LOTR writer Peter S. Beagle, “Hellboy” star Doug Jones, “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” creator Kevin Eastman, the Happy Hobbit girls, “Lord of the Rings” Living Card Game designers, and many more!
To mark this special anniversary we will have a lot of material to cover, and let’s all take a closer look at the Extended Edition of THE HOBBIT: AUJ that is coming out — so please bring your questions and comments to the chat!
We launch TORn TUESDAY every week at 5:00PM Pacific: brought to you by host Clifford “Quickbeam” Broadway and producer Justin “Nothing Up My Sleeve” Sewell — Our innovative live show includes worldwide fans who join us on the Live Event page with a built-in IRC chat (affectionately known as Barliman’s Chat room). Be part of the fun and mischief every week as we broadcast *live* from Meltdown Comics in the heart of Hollywood, U.S.A.!
And yes our YouTube channel will have this archived later. You can find us on www.youtube.com/the1nering
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Anne C. Petty, a notable J.R.R. Tolkien scholar, writer, editor, publisher and friend died from cancer on July 21. Petty lived in Florida and is survived by her daughter. She is perhaps best known for her book “One Ring to Bind Them: Tolkien’s Mythology,” but those who knew her will remember her best for her fun and down-to-earth nature.
TheOneRing.net had the honor of calling her friend via several of our staffers. She was invited to and spoke at our own One Ring Celebration (ORC) and was a frequent Tolkien guest at Dragon Con in Atlanta where we had the pleasure of knowing her on a more personal level. Although she was a scholar with all the academic credentials (Ph.D. in English, Florida State University) she never thought any other Tolkien fan or their opinion or feelings were any less important than her own.
Anne loved anime and she showed up at Dragon Con’s annual Middle-earth party night in her head-to-toe fox costume, making a point to greet those of us who knew her, despite our inability to recognize her at all. She would alert us to her costume the following day if we didn’t catch on at the event. She also had a taste for the darker parts of entertainment, a characteristic she wasn’t afraid to share.
Petty delivered interesting Tolkien themed lectures frequently at DragonCon and was always willing to listen to audience questions and responses. She wrote “Tolkien in the Land of Heroes: Discovering the Human Spirit,” and “Dragons of Fantasy: Scaly Villains & Heroes of Modern Fantasy Literature,” that included a section on Tolkien’s dragons that TORn favorably reviewed.
We featured at least two longer interviews with her in our own Green Books. Please see Part One and Part Two.
After repeated exposure to Anne at Dragon Con and other conventions, she evolved into a personal friend of several of our staffers including our own Balin/Greg, who also died of cancer and for whom we always buy a drink at the annual celebration of popular culture. I had the chance to know Anne on a deeper level and even met and chatted with her daughter who visited the convention one year. I wrote the following about her in 2005 as part of the summary of the whole Tolkien part of the convention:
Dr. Anne “Just Anne” Petty was also part of the Tolkien track and was kind enough to join a group of us for dinner at the Hard Rock Café after the convention was winding down. I admit I was a bit chagrined that we were taking somebody I considered of grandmother age and who deserved respect as a genuine Tolkien scholar to such an undignified and loud joint. A short time into the meal it was discovered she is a closet hard rock / heavy metal fan who has toured around with Yngwie Malmsteen http://www.yngwie.org/ and considers herself a surrogate grandmother to the Swedish guitar virtuoso. She is extremely fond of Danzig, System of a Down, Ramstien and a gaggle of other just-as-unlikely bands. I joked that she probably knew Norweigen death-metal bands and she proceeded to name one that she likes. Consider her officially outed and look for her name in the “thank yous” on the Malmsteen disc. Those present urged her to use “Metal Mamma” as her TORn board and chat room handle.
In successive years we shared more con-meals and our mutual love for Tolkien and the most unlikely of music made us comfortable friends. It is with some shame that I can’t claim to have kept in better touch and I didn’t realize her time was so limited. She last updated her personal blog on May 22 with a headline of “Staying Alive,” and I am confident the irony of that would tickle her now.
While we have lost our friend, the whole of the Tolkien community has lost one its voices and much more importantly one of its spectacular people. We at TheOneRing.net wish her family and friends peace.
Our Adventurers are on the road! After leaving 
