Oddly enough, I was hoping to get a close encounter with Buzz Aldrin a few years ago when Microsoft were launching Halo Reach on XBOX at UTS.
I sat 3 chairs away from him before he came on stage to do a speech on Halo, technology and its similarity to the Apollo missions..... Anyway to cut a long story short, there were a number of people, nerdier than me hoping to maybe, just maybe get an autograph or even a photo next to him.
The guy had absolutely no bar of it, nor his P#@#s hand entourage, made up of his wife and step daughter. It was quite sad really. Not so much not getting an autograph or even photo, but their whole attitude. It was almost like, unless you pay us....go away.
That said, he had no problems doing it with the sponsors/hosts.
I felt sorry for the other people wanting to meet/greet him.
Maybe I'm a bit harsh, who knows...... after that, I'll always see him as the bloke who came 2nd
Norm