Memories of Meeting Alex O’Loughlin by H50Fanatic Ellen

The story of meeting Alex started in February 2011.  I was thinking that I wanted to try and meet him. It made sense to me that he might do talk shows after the first season of Hawaii Five-0 wrapped in the spring.

I have a friend who works in the industry.  I started to put together a plan to go to NYC, where I’m from.  I thought if he was there for the Upfronts and did talk shows, I’d have a couple of chances to try and see him and see some old friends at the same time. To plan a trip like this, I needed way more information than I had.  I knew enough to know that I wasn’t connected at all to the inside information.  I started to search the Internet and finally realized that Twitter would be the place to learn what was happening – so I had to “learn twitter”.

I was rewarded almost immediately.  I read a tweet from an artist Kent Williams who wrote; “My friend Alex O’Loughlin has agreed to host my gallery opening in May”.  I started to re-plan my trip to come home from NYC by way of Los Angeles, since the gallery opening was the weekend after the Upfronts.  I still couldn't believe that getting into the gallery could be that easy, so I called for information.  When I spoke to the gallery staff asking if tickets were needed and what the attire usually was for events like this, the woman said “there is a private reception before the opening, would you like me to put your name on the list?”  Incredible!  From that moment on, going to New York began to fall off my radar and I focused on a weekend trip to LA.

I asked a few of my new friends on twitter who also lived in California if they were planning to go. Unfortunately, no one was going.  That made me wonder if I was completely mistaken about this. I’d get to LA and no one would be there.  I worried about this for weeks.  Flying to LA for 24 hours just to try and meet a TV star for a few minutes sounded like a crazy idea to just about everyone I knew. I felt like I just had to try if there was the smallest chance Alex would be there.

The morning I flew out I was so excited. Wearing the clothes that I bought just for the trip (nothing I owned was “LA gallery appropriate” in my mind), a line from the Alex's movie The Back Up Plan was playing in my head... “did you buy that for me?” It made me laugh out loud as I waited for the shuttle. I started texting Deb.  "I'm getting nervous." "This was crazy."  Oh, would my husband laugh if I went all the way to LA and didn’t see Alex?  I’d never live it down.  And what if I DID see Alex and I couldn’t speak?

My friend from LA picked me up at the airport. We had a fun day catching up and trying to keep my mind off the evening to come.  I had gotten up at 4:00 a.m. to get to the airport on time so by mid-afternoon I was starting to lose my adrenaline high.  I went to lie down and Deb sent me a text “how are you doing?”  It was so great to have that support from across the country while I watched the clock and wondered what was going to happen next.  We texted back and forth for a while and I started to calm down. Mostly by telling myself that he probably wouldn’t even be there so what was the point in getting nervous.

We drove to the gallery. My friend wasn’t sure there would be anything there to see.  She said “I’ll just sit in the car and wait for a bit – you go in and see if there is anything happening before I put money in the meter”. I got out of the car and walked to the door and there were security guards there with a list and my name was on it.  I walked inside and the gallery was almost empty.  There were two staff members behind the counter, someone putting out wine and water bottles and a man I guessed was probably Kent Williams, the artist.  I looked over just a few feet away and there was a videographer taking pictures of - - Alex. He was talking about a painting.  He was standing in a room that was almost empty, not ten feet from where I was standing.

That’s when I began to feel like I was watching myself walking in a dream or a movie.  It was very surreal.  I took a quick picture of very poor quality on my phone and tweeted it.  I couldn’t believe it.  We didn’t take pictures with flash while the videographer was working. There were a few other fans there and we just stood there, watched and waited.  As soon as Alex was done, we approached him for pictures and to talk.

After  posing for pictures with us, he said that he had to mingle with the other guests. He didn’t object when we approached him again later to talk.  I brought my dvd case of the Oyster Farmer for him to sign, which he did. He surprised me when he asked me for my name. I guess I assumed he’d just sign his name and give it back to me. Then, and I realize this will sound so fan-girlish, we touched hands when he gave me my sharpie pen back.

  

After about 45 minutes, my friend decided we should go.  The public event was going to start soon and there would be a crowd.  I couldn't believe I had to leave him. It still didn’t seem real. Did I actually just spend almost an hour with Alex O'Loughlin in a room with less than a dozen people in it? Yes, yes I did.

My friend and I left and drove back to her place to upload her pictures.  It was incredible having her there to take photos. I don’t think that I would have been able to do it.  While we were driving I called @terrysagirl (another Twitter friend) and told her not to post the phone pictures that I had tweeted earlier on her Facebook wall. We had much better photos in the camera that we would send as soon as we got home. When we got back to the house we uploaded the pictures. Terry posted them and I made an album for Facebook. 

Since going to LA, there was one question many people had been asking me. "Are you going to Sunset On the Beach?"  Before I went to the gallery I wasn't sure. Would I want to go all the way to Hawaii after flying to LA?  Would I feel like since I met him in LA, I’d “done it” and not need to go to the premiere in Hawaii?  I thought that maybe if LA was a bust and if I didn’t see Alex, I’d want to try again in Hawaii.  I thought that maybe, if I got an autograph I’d feel like I had succeeded and that would be the end of it.

Well, I don’t remember how long it took, but it wasn’t long before I knew - -  I was going to Hawaii in September for the premiere.