Another Roller-Coaster Month
I was up to my eyeballs in busy for the entire month of November. Even with the fun stuff, I was busting my ass doing it all. The past four weekends I've been busy with something. I was also busy for most of the weekdays. First weekend of the month was Board Game Geek Con. A heck of a lot of fun, and also much better than I expected. The week after the con, we went to Arkansas to visit Brig's parents and drop off our ferrets, so they would be taken care of while we were gone. And we were gone a LOT this month. We worked on puzzles for the RG on the way to Arkansas, while we were there, and on the way back. We got back from Arkansas that Thursday, with less than 24 hours to pack for our California trip.
We flew out Friday night, got to LAX pretty late, and got to a hotel around midnight, I think. Got up the next day and hit California Adventure/Disneyland. Spent that whole weekend (Sat-Mon) at Disneyland and California Adventure. We ran ourselves silly, but got in everything we really wanted to do, some of the cool stuff more than once. The Haunted Mansion had been re-themed with the Nightmare Before Christmas, so that was neat. We also enjoyed all the original rides that aren't at Disney World, and we liked comparing the ones we'd ridden in both places. Had a blast there, but it wore us out. I'd gotten sick right after BGG.con, and with hardly any time to rest up, I stayed pretty sick all month long.
Monday night we switched to the Anabella hotel, due to a GenCon screw-up, and then on Tuesday morning we moved over to the Marriott for the con. We got to rest for about half a day, before we had our first True Dungeon staff meeting and DM training. Then, that night we were treated to Buca di Beppo, which ruled, and gave us leftovers for a couple more free meals. Wednesday afternoon we got the ballroom for True Dungeon, and we busted our asses working on the build. Again, I think GenCon had screwed up and gotten us in later than they should have. So we worked late that night getting it all put together in a super-short amount of time. The next day, we put on the finishing touches, and started our dungeon runs that evening. We worked until about midnight, running TD.
Friday the dealer hall was open, so we went over early and got some swag, before heading back to spend the rest of the day running TD. The dungeon runs ended earlier on Friday, but we had a big shindig after, so we were up really late. (I might also be on Jay Leno, but I haven't figured out yet if that was a serious film crew or some kind of prank.) The first two days I'd had the final room with the wicked 3-D effects and fluorescent paint and black lights, where one might assume I'd get terrible headaches. But I'd really made it just fine. Having a late room meant that I started later, which had given us more time for the dealer hall on Friday, but it also meant I'd been working later on the first two nights.
For Saturday, I had to start earlier, since I'd been moved to an earlier room, so we skipped the dealer hall and started our day around noon with TD. The Rose Room. OMFG. I will specify next year that I would be happy to DM, even in a 3-D prismatic nightmare, but I WILL NOT run a room for eight hours that smells like roses. I think I'm allergic. I didn't like the smell, but by the time that night was over, I had a sore throat and felt really crappy. They refreshed the rose oil half-way through the day, and I swear, by that night the whole first floor of the hotel smelled like roses, and there I was at ground zero. Other than that, though, it went well. The folks from Seaborn Games ran through that night, and I got to DM for them, which was cool. I 'finished' early that night, but when my dungeon runs were over, I had to get to work breaking the set. Even as the last groups were running through, we were tearing down the dungeon behind them. We worked well into the wee hours that night packing everything up.
Sunday, we got up and went to the TD riddle reveal, which GenCon had screwed up and failed to schedule in the right place. After that, we worked on a puzzle that one of the non-TD guys had designed. It was very complicated by TD standards, but he had some great ideas. We made it to the dealer hall just as it was closing, and pretty much missed out on swag for Sunday, but they weren't offering much that day, anyway. We caught wind of a post-GenCon staff party that night, that we planned to go to, but it was later than we'd thought. We ran into the Seaborn folks (Ben, Renee, Patrick, and Jamie), and got together with them and a couple others for a game of Werewolf in/near the hot tub. We were flying out soon, so we didn't get in the hot tub, but the rest of them did, and we played through a game of Werewolf. And then we discussed how cool it would be to have a special "hot tub" Werewolf set. Then Brig and I went to the GC staff party. I was starving and had about a foot-long finger sandwich, and some Tom Collins. After less than an hour at the party, though, we had to head out to catch our shuttle to the airport. We got there late that night, caught our red-eye, slept on the plane, and got back to Dallas about 5-6 am. Pete came and picked us up at the airport. He asked us if it felt like it was 4:30 am. No, not really. We didn't actually get jet lagged because we hadn't slept normal hours in weeks. We were tired, but 24 hours before, we'd been awake - 48 hours before we'd been awake... It was just our strange schedule, but we were exhausted, so we slept most of Monday - one of the few days we had to rest.
Although, I was on a very short deadline to get the M-Aura (newsletter) to the printer before Thanksgiving. So, as soon as I got up on Monday, I had to work on that. I worked into the night that night and then finished up by Tuesday afternoon. Tuesday night we had an RG meeting to go to. After that we had a lot of work to get done to finish up on PuzzleQuest for the RG. Brig and I worked on puzzles all day Wednesday, and then I worked all night that night and then we worked most of Thursday to get it all done. And we did get it done, and the end result was very cool.
We headed over to the RG to set things up, and got most of it set up just in time for the first PQ and Cerebral Scavenge info session. After that we did the Rum Tasting, which was very cool and got us fairly smashed, and then we headed back upstairs for the Spades Tournament. We started off playing badly, because we were drunk, but we won our first match, and then went on, slightly more sober, to win our second match. But the games ran long and into the wee hours. One of our opponents for the finals had taken ill and left before the game. We planned to wrap it up later, but we never got around to having that game. We headed home, slept from about 3:30 am to 7:30 am, and got up and finished up everything else we had to do to get ready for the RG. Having had about 4 hours sleep in the past 48, I was feeling very, very crappy.
We got to the RG around noon, which was a bit late. Grabbed some lunch, demoed Zendo, got our room, then I crashed for about another half hour, during the cancelled Scrabble Scramble slot. Kellie and Pete showed up. Seems like I demoed Cranium Hoopla while Brig went to a Screenwriting program. Then we had our beer tasting - Beers of the British Isles. I love British beer, and I'd had (I think) every beer in the tasting except for one. Funny thing I found out though, is that Fuller's ESB is a damn good beer albeit very hoppy. The first time I'd tried it, many years ago, I hadn't liked it at all. But now, I thought it was, oddly, one of the best we tried.
During the Beer Tasting, Kellie had played in and won the Set Tournament. Wasn't long after that we grabbed some supper and headed to the Ten Paces Treasure Hunt. That one's always a blast, and was probably even more fun this year than last. Then, before I could spit twice, we were gathering for the Fishbowl, which ran until about 12:30 am. Then Brig showed some Dr. Who, and I played Apples to Apples with Kara's custom deck. I was exhausted, but determined to be the last one to cave in. So I lasted until about 5 am or so. Thank God we had a hotel room that night, so it was just down the hall, and I crashed. Brig took the morning shift on Saturday. She set up the A/V for the Bridge lesson, then ran the Anachronism demos after Bridge. I got up around lunch time, grabbed a bite and a shower, and was ready to help out by the 1:30 pm Candy Tasting.
The Candy Tasting was pretty cool. We didn't get a huge turnout, but everyone seemed to have fun and they seemed to think we had a pretty interesting collection of candies from around the world. So that went pretty well. After that we did Blokus demos, which is a fun game that went over well. Nobody showed up for Mega-Twister... And then it was time to grab a couple slices of pizza and begin setting up for the dance. I had to run home (d'oh!) and get the new 4' black lights that we'd bought for the RG. I got back in time to get them set up just before the dance started. We gathered up our posse, most of them members of the Serenity crew, and headed down to the dance. And the dance was a BLAST! We won the trivia contest (thanks, Jenni). Then we announced the winners of the other games and tournaments, and then we got back to dancing for a few hours. I did a crazy slam dance for Smells Like Teen Spirit with a couple of other GenX headbangers. Then I headed to the bathroom and wrote on my shirt with a red marker, "IF YOU DON'T MOSH, GET OUT OF THE PIT", accentuated with some blood splatter, and I topped it off by coloring under my nose, so it totally looked like I'd had a nosebleed. When I got back, all bloody, some people who had seen me dancing (I actually did fall down at one point) thought that I'd really gotten a bloody nose. It was a fun joke, though. I'd spent so much energy, that I danced a lot more tamely for the rest of the night.
After the dance was over and we cleaned up after it, we had some late-night Werewolf games, introducing some people who had never played. It's a quick one to pick up, though. After a few games of that, some people had to leave and/or get to bed, as it was probably getting to be around 3-4 am. I went over to the other room and played some more custom-deck Apples to Apples with Kara and company for, literally, the rest of the night. We petered out after dawn. I had some Wheaties and a hard-boiled egg, loaded the van (so I wouldn't have to later), and hit the sack around 10 am. I got almost no sleep, but Sunday was a slow clean-up day. With everyone working together, we didn't have that much work to do, although we stuck around the hotel, talking, until well after sunset. Then we went to La Mad with Andrew for some supper around 9 pm. Then home, and crash. I said I would sleep all day Monday, and I pretty much did. Probably a good 18 hours or so. Wow. I feel like a living human being again.
We flew out Friday night, got to LAX pretty late, and got to a hotel around midnight, I think. Got up the next day and hit California Adventure/Disneyland. Spent that whole weekend (Sat-Mon) at Disneyland and California Adventure. We ran ourselves silly, but got in everything we really wanted to do, some of the cool stuff more than once. The Haunted Mansion had been re-themed with the Nightmare Before Christmas, so that was neat. We also enjoyed all the original rides that aren't at Disney World, and we liked comparing the ones we'd ridden in both places. Had a blast there, but it wore us out. I'd gotten sick right after BGG.con, and with hardly any time to rest up, I stayed pretty sick all month long.
Monday night we switched to the Anabella hotel, due to a GenCon screw-up, and then on Tuesday morning we moved over to the Marriott for the con. We got to rest for about half a day, before we had our first True Dungeon staff meeting and DM training. Then, that night we were treated to Buca di Beppo, which ruled, and gave us leftovers for a couple more free meals. Wednesday afternoon we got the ballroom for True Dungeon, and we busted our asses working on the build. Again, I think GenCon had screwed up and gotten us in later than they should have. So we worked late that night getting it all put together in a super-short amount of time. The next day, we put on the finishing touches, and started our dungeon runs that evening. We worked until about midnight, running TD.
Friday the dealer hall was open, so we went over early and got some swag, before heading back to spend the rest of the day running TD. The dungeon runs ended earlier on Friday, but we had a big shindig after, so we were up really late. (I might also be on Jay Leno, but I haven't figured out yet if that was a serious film crew or some kind of prank.) The first two days I'd had the final room with the wicked 3-D effects and fluorescent paint and black lights, where one might assume I'd get terrible headaches. But I'd really made it just fine. Having a late room meant that I started later, which had given us more time for the dealer hall on Friday, but it also meant I'd been working later on the first two nights.
For Saturday, I had to start earlier, since I'd been moved to an earlier room, so we skipped the dealer hall and started our day around noon with TD. The Rose Room. OMFG. I will specify next year that I would be happy to DM, even in a 3-D prismatic nightmare, but I WILL NOT run a room for eight hours that smells like roses. I think I'm allergic. I didn't like the smell, but by the time that night was over, I had a sore throat and felt really crappy. They refreshed the rose oil half-way through the day, and I swear, by that night the whole first floor of the hotel smelled like roses, and there I was at ground zero. Other than that, though, it went well. The folks from Seaborn Games ran through that night, and I got to DM for them, which was cool. I 'finished' early that night, but when my dungeon runs were over, I had to get to work breaking the set. Even as the last groups were running through, we were tearing down the dungeon behind them. We worked well into the wee hours that night packing everything up.
Sunday, we got up and went to the TD riddle reveal, which GenCon had screwed up and failed to schedule in the right place. After that, we worked on a puzzle that one of the non-TD guys had designed. It was very complicated by TD standards, but he had some great ideas. We made it to the dealer hall just as it was closing, and pretty much missed out on swag for Sunday, but they weren't offering much that day, anyway. We caught wind of a post-GenCon staff party that night, that we planned to go to, but it was later than we'd thought. We ran into the Seaborn folks (Ben, Renee, Patrick, and Jamie), and got together with them and a couple others for a game of Werewolf in/near the hot tub. We were flying out soon, so we didn't get in the hot tub, but the rest of them did, and we played through a game of Werewolf. And then we discussed how cool it would be to have a special "hot tub" Werewolf set. Then Brig and I went to the GC staff party. I was starving and had about a foot-long finger sandwich, and some Tom Collins. After less than an hour at the party, though, we had to head out to catch our shuttle to the airport. We got there late that night, caught our red-eye, slept on the plane, and got back to Dallas about 5-6 am. Pete came and picked us up at the airport. He asked us if it felt like it was 4:30 am. No, not really. We didn't actually get jet lagged because we hadn't slept normal hours in weeks. We were tired, but 24 hours before, we'd been awake - 48 hours before we'd been awake... It was just our strange schedule, but we were exhausted, so we slept most of Monday - one of the few days we had to rest.
Although, I was on a very short deadline to get the M-Aura (newsletter) to the printer before Thanksgiving. So, as soon as I got up on Monday, I had to work on that. I worked into the night that night and then finished up by Tuesday afternoon. Tuesday night we had an RG meeting to go to. After that we had a lot of work to get done to finish up on PuzzleQuest for the RG. Brig and I worked on puzzles all day Wednesday, and then I worked all night that night and then we worked most of Thursday to get it all done. And we did get it done, and the end result was very cool.
We headed over to the RG to set things up, and got most of it set up just in time for the first PQ and Cerebral Scavenge info session. After that we did the Rum Tasting, which was very cool and got us fairly smashed, and then we headed back upstairs for the Spades Tournament. We started off playing badly, because we were drunk, but we won our first match, and then went on, slightly more sober, to win our second match. But the games ran long and into the wee hours. One of our opponents for the finals had taken ill and left before the game. We planned to wrap it up later, but we never got around to having that game. We headed home, slept from about 3:30 am to 7:30 am, and got up and finished up everything else we had to do to get ready for the RG. Having had about 4 hours sleep in the past 48, I was feeling very, very crappy.
We got to the RG around noon, which was a bit late. Grabbed some lunch, demoed Zendo, got our room, then I crashed for about another half hour, during the cancelled Scrabble Scramble slot. Kellie and Pete showed up. Seems like I demoed Cranium Hoopla while Brig went to a Screenwriting program. Then we had our beer tasting - Beers of the British Isles. I love British beer, and I'd had (I think) every beer in the tasting except for one. Funny thing I found out though, is that Fuller's ESB is a damn good beer albeit very hoppy. The first time I'd tried it, many years ago, I hadn't liked it at all. But now, I thought it was, oddly, one of the best we tried.
During the Beer Tasting, Kellie had played in and won the Set Tournament. Wasn't long after that we grabbed some supper and headed to the Ten Paces Treasure Hunt. That one's always a blast, and was probably even more fun this year than last. Then, before I could spit twice, we were gathering for the Fishbowl, which ran until about 12:30 am. Then Brig showed some Dr. Who, and I played Apples to Apples with Kara's custom deck. I was exhausted, but determined to be the last one to cave in. So I lasted until about 5 am or so. Thank God we had a hotel room that night, so it was just down the hall, and I crashed. Brig took the morning shift on Saturday. She set up the A/V for the Bridge lesson, then ran the Anachronism demos after Bridge. I got up around lunch time, grabbed a bite and a shower, and was ready to help out by the 1:30 pm Candy Tasting.
The Candy Tasting was pretty cool. We didn't get a huge turnout, but everyone seemed to have fun and they seemed to think we had a pretty interesting collection of candies from around the world. So that went pretty well. After that we did Blokus demos, which is a fun game that went over well. Nobody showed up for Mega-Twister... And then it was time to grab a couple slices of pizza and begin setting up for the dance. I had to run home (d'oh!) and get the new 4' black lights that we'd bought for the RG. I got back in time to get them set up just before the dance started. We gathered up our posse, most of them members of the Serenity crew, and headed down to the dance. And the dance was a BLAST! We won the trivia contest (thanks, Jenni). Then we announced the winners of the other games and tournaments, and then we got back to dancing for a few hours. I did a crazy slam dance for Smells Like Teen Spirit with a couple of other GenX headbangers. Then I headed to the bathroom and wrote on my shirt with a red marker, "IF YOU DON'T MOSH, GET OUT OF THE PIT", accentuated with some blood splatter, and I topped it off by coloring under my nose, so it totally looked like I'd had a nosebleed. When I got back, all bloody, some people who had seen me dancing (I actually did fall down at one point) thought that I'd really gotten a bloody nose. It was a fun joke, though. I'd spent so much energy, that I danced a lot more tamely for the rest of the night.
After the dance was over and we cleaned up after it, we had some late-night Werewolf games, introducing some people who had never played. It's a quick one to pick up, though. After a few games of that, some people had to leave and/or get to bed, as it was probably getting to be around 3-4 am. I went over to the other room and played some more custom-deck Apples to Apples with Kara and company for, literally, the rest of the night. We petered out after dawn. I had some Wheaties and a hard-boiled egg, loaded the van (so I wouldn't have to later), and hit the sack around 10 am. I got almost no sleep, but Sunday was a slow clean-up day. With everyone working together, we didn't have that much work to do, although we stuck around the hotel, talking, until well after sunset. Then we went to La Mad with Andrew for some supper around 9 pm. Then home, and crash. I said I would sleep all day Monday, and I pretty much did. Probably a good 18 hours or so. Wow. I feel like a living human being again.