The first time Jayden saw R2-D2 in person, he forgot I existed.

We were maybe twenty feet onto the floor at SpaceCon San Antonio when he spotted the little astromech parked in front of the photo backdrop, and that was it — gone, weaving through the crowd with the single-minded focus only a kid chasing a childhood hero can manage. I caught up just in time to watch him plant himself next to that droid, grinning like he’d been handed the keys to the galaxy. I took the picture. And somewhere between lifting my phone and lowering it, I thought: I should write about this.

It had been a while since I’d thought that.

If you’ve been here before, you’ve probably noticed the lights were off longer than I planned. Life got loud. Work filled the hours I used to spend writing, and the blog became one of those things I kept meaning to get back to — right after the next deadline, the next busy season, the next “when things calm down.” Things, as it turns out, do not calm down. You just decide what’s worth making time for.

So consider this the sound of the lights flickering back on.

I could’ve restarted with a grand mission statement and a five-point plan for the future. Instead I’m starting where the spark actually came back: a convention center full of aliens, droids, comic artists, and one very happy kid.

SpaceCon was the kind of day that reminds you why you bother documenting anything. We met Groot — well, a Groot tall enough to make Jayden look pocket-sized. We stared down Darth Vader. We found Chewbacca mid-roar and a pair of BB-8 units that Jayden treated like long-lost friends. We closed out the afternoon at the Voyager panel, watching Jeri Ryan and Robert Picardo — Seven of Nine and The Doctor, in the same room, in our city. And tucked in one corner was an arcade where I lost my son to a pinball machine and Nitro Trucks for a solid stretch of the day. No complaints. That’s the good stuff.

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But the moment that stuck with me most wasn’t a big-name character or a flashy booth. It was meeting Devin Richard.

Devin is an independent comic creator, and his table was exactly the kind of thing I love about these events — someone building entire worlds on their own terms and handing them to anyone willing to stop and look. We stopped. We looked. We talked. And we walked away with signed copies of Reload #1, Insane Ops #1, and 13 Tribes #2 and #3. There’s something about an artist signing a book for your kid that lands differently than any celebrity autograph. It quietly says: you can make things too. Jayden hasn’t stopped talking about it.

That, honestly, is the whole reason I’m back here.

Because this blog was never really about having something impressive to report. It was about paying attention — catching the small, ordinary, ridiculous, wonderful moments before they blur into the general noise of a life that moves too fast. A day at a sci-fi convention with my son is exactly that kind of moment. If I hadn’t decided to write it down, it would’ve slowly faded into “that one time we went to SpaceCon” instead of the specific, vivid afternoon it actually was.

So here’s what The Life and Times is going to be, going forward.

More of this. More adventures with Jayden — the planned ones and the accidental ones. More fandom, because I’m a fan and I’ve stopped pretending to be too busy to enjoy things. More San Antonio, the city we actually live in and rarely write love letters to. And every so often, a spotlight on the independent creators and makers who deserve a few more eyes on their work. (Devin, you’re first on that list.)

I’m aiming for sustainable over ambitious: a couple of posts a month, written like I’m telling you about my week — not performing for an algorithm. Some will be longer. Some will just be a good photo and a story worth a paragraph. All of them will be me actually showing up, which, it turns out, is the only part that ever mattered.

If you’re still here after the long quiet — thank you. Genuinely. Pull up a chair. Subscribe if you’d like the next one in your inbox, and tell me in the comments: what’s the last thing that reminded you why you love what you love?

Jayden says hi. He’s already asking when we go back.

See you soon — for real this time.

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