Gen Con Indy 2014 Recap
Joe and I have been to Gen Con Indy again and we have returned safely. Life returns to normal for a week or so before Labor Day weekend comes...
Tuesday, 12 August 2014
In the past, we have left town after work on Tuesday and stopped in Chattanooga, TN very late at night. This year, we both took the whole day off and started driving early. We were through Atlanta before lunchtime and drove clear through Tennessee with minimal traffic or other issues and arrived in Bowling Green, KY by the late afternoon. We stopped there for the night at the TownePlace Suites, where we had a reservation for a 2-bed studio suite but it was upgraded for no extra cost to a full 2 bedroom suite, which was an excellent surprise. We ate supper at the local Smokey Bones and pretty much just hung out and relaxed after driving 447 miles to get there.
Wednesday, 13 August 2014
Since we started driving to Indianapolis in 2008, we have passed the National Corvette Museum along the way. Joe's a fan of cars, so we ate breakfast at IHOP and drove to the northernmost interstate exit in town to visit the museum. It cost $10 and had a lot of very beautiful cars, including one that belonged to Roy Orbison. We got to see the massive sinkhole that opened up in one of the display rooms, and the damaged cars that were recovered from it. All told, the museum took about 90 minutes to get through and was a pleasant way to start the day.
That didn't last. We only had 223 miles to drive in order to get to our hotel, but shortly after we left Bowling Green, we entered into a daisy chain of road construction, lane closures, and traffic that made the rest of the trip to Indianapolis very unpleasant. We should have needed less than four hours to get to Indianapolis. Instead, it took nearly 6.
Once we were in Indianapolis, things went pretty smoothly again. We stayed at the JW Marriott hotel again, and it only took me twenty minutes to pick up my badge and event tickets from Will Call despite the line. I talked briefly with Dana & Lisa DeVries. Joe and I ate supper at the Rock Bottom Brewery. Joe retired to the hotel room and I went out looking for familiar faces. I went from one bar to another until I tracked down corone, nezumi_sama, and their friend Simon. We chatted for a bit and they gave me a strip of bacon on a stick.
Thursday, 14 August 2014
In the morning, we noticed mosquitoes outside our window on the 10th floor of the hotel.
We made it to the Exhibit hall just in time for the opening ceremonies. Usually, we stand at a side entrance so we don't have such a crowd and don't have to listen to the blather. This year, that side entrance has a sign stating that those doors will open 15 minutes later than the others, to deter such ingenuity. When Peter Adkison instructed the Gen Con veterans to welcome the newbies in the crowd, I jokingly called out "Get off of my lawn!" which got some laughs in the immediate vicinity.
The hall was packed. I decided to skip my 11:00 seminar to focus more on the shopping. I was trying out my new headcam. It worked pretty well, and the wristwatch remote control worked very well, too. I bumped into a lot of old friends over the course of the show, so I cannot distinctly remember which I saw on which days in each case.
After a lot of shopping in the Exhibitors' Hall and the Auction Store, Joe and I joined corone, nezumi_sama, Simon, James Hata, and Kevin Wilson at Fogo de Chão for our annual feast. The British members of this group joined Joe and I in our hotel room for some card games, discussion and an exchange of Mtn Dew & candy corn for Jaffa Cakes & Jammie Dodgers.
Friday, 15 August 2014
More shopping. Again, I skipped an early seminar I'd been interested in to spend more time looking through the goods available for sale. In the evening, I went to the Friday Night Live concert where I saw marcgunn, Dan the Bard, Mikey Mason, lukeski, Sarah Donner, and the Damsels of Dorkington perform. Then I went to see lukeski perform a full concert of his greatest hits, celebrating 20 years of him performing at Gen Con.
Saturday, 16 August 2014
Yet more shopping! The increased crowd included a lot of wifi traffic that kept interfering with the communication between the camera and its remote control. I discovered that I had inadvertently captured my glasses, eyebrow, etc. in most of the shots from this camera and then started to wear it further forward on my head, which worked pretty well, but once the communication issue reared its head, I pretty much switched to my normal digital camera for the rest of the day.
In the afternoon, I saw Mikey Mason's concert set, which was awesome. Someone scheduled it down the hall from the speed dating event, which was poor planning.
I knew the Auction Store was closing at 8:00 that night (because I had checked the signs outside that morning), and I was going to check one last time after supper. However, I got there at about 7:20 and it was already closed. The sign outside one door to the auction room still said "8" but the one closer to the store had that marked out and a "7" written nearby. I was disappointed, but it is what it is.
In the evening, I saw concerts by marc_gunn and lukeski, whose set was mostly new material. He brought up Whitney Avalon, who performed one of her own songs in the middle of his set.
Sunday, 17 August 2014
Instead of starting the day with more shopping, I saw Dan the Bard (and Granger the Ranger) in concert in the morning. Then I went shopping and picked up a few more things. I went back after lunch and roamed the hall until just after it closed, making a literal last-minute purchase before making my way to an exit. When there were only about 6 minutes to go before the hall closed, I witnessed corone running through the hall in his Cthulhu slippers, which did not look like the most effective footwear for that task.
Joe and I packed up our things and made plans to change our route back home to avoid I-65 and its insane construction. Unfortunately, the only route home that could do that was a bit more mountainous and violated my longstanding effort to avoid going back to or through Ohio ever again in my life. Still, it was the only alternative.
I stepped out to spend some time with Patrick and the rest of the guys who hang out and play games on Sunday night, but I had to leave before midnight to be ready for the journey. We were playing a card game by Cryptozooic about combining cards to make spells, which was fun but there were some questions that the rulebook just didn't seem to be able to answer to our satisfaction.
Monday, 18 August 2014
We ate breakfast, finished packing, and checked out. We were out the door and on our way earlier than usual. We took I-74 to I-75 to I-40 to I-26 to I-20 to get home. It's 650 miles, and it rained the last 50 or so of them. Joe's Sirius radio signal kept being dropped by forests and mountains during the drive. It took us about 12 hours to get to my place, including stops for meals along the way. We both agree that this is a viable return route in the future, but because of the steep grades in some areas it would not be a good route to take to get to Indianapolis. Besides, we really liked our stop in Bowling Green on the way up.
Tuesday, 19 August 2014
I was very tired, but so sore from all the activity and the long drive home that I could not find a way to lie that was comfortable enough to sleep. I finally dozed off after 4 in the morning. I slept through both of my alarms and when I did wake up, I was still so sore that I gave up any hope of being able to get around and drive myself to work on time, much less make it through a day at the office (which is upstairs these days, ouch). I sent in an e-mail explaining the situation and took an extra day off.
The Haul
I was mostly focused on picking up old, out-of-print RPG books that I wanted in my youth but missed out on.
Card sleeves that will fit theglen's "CON!" game.
Ars Magica 1st Edition (Revised)
James Bond 007 RPG's Thrilling Locations
RoleMaster Martial Arts Companion
Three new T-shirts
DC Heroes RPG's H.I.V.E. adventure
DC Heroes RPG's Come On Down adventure
Batman Role-Playing Game
Runequest 2nd Edition boxed set
Boot Hill (the 1990 edition)
Marvel Super Heroes RPG's MH-AC-2 "Avengers Assembled"
4 CDs from Mikey Mason
1 CD from lukeski
2 CDs from marcgunn
7 CDs from Dan the Bard
Some dice
Book Zero of The Devil's Panties (The Institutional Years)
Alloy of Law supplement for Mistborn Adventure Game
Dice Crawl
A vinyl-coated map of a ship's decks and crow's nest
Protocol by jim pinto
The Carcass: a game of post-apocalyptic community by jim pinto
Standard Action Season 2 DVD
Dark Dungeons DVD
The Gamers: Natural 1 and Humans & Households DVD
A ton of Sentinels of the Multiverse materials
The Chronicles of Amber vol. 1 (again... I had 3 copies of this, but friends borrowed it and didn't return it)... my last-minute purchase.
The Damage
I only got one blister this time around. As usual, it is on my left little toe. I'm treating it carefully so it should be healed before my next con in a week or so.
The stiffness is mostly due to walking around so much more than I usually do, and for so much longer. It will pass, too.
Tuesday, 12 August 2014
In the past, we have left town after work on Tuesday and stopped in Chattanooga, TN very late at night. This year, we both took the whole day off and started driving early. We were through Atlanta before lunchtime and drove clear through Tennessee with minimal traffic or other issues and arrived in Bowling Green, KY by the late afternoon. We stopped there for the night at the TownePlace Suites, where we had a reservation for a 2-bed studio suite but it was upgraded for no extra cost to a full 2 bedroom suite, which was an excellent surprise. We ate supper at the local Smokey Bones and pretty much just hung out and relaxed after driving 447 miles to get there.
Wednesday, 13 August 2014
Since we started driving to Indianapolis in 2008, we have passed the National Corvette Museum along the way. Joe's a fan of cars, so we ate breakfast at IHOP and drove to the northernmost interstate exit in town to visit the museum. It cost $10 and had a lot of very beautiful cars, including one that belonged to Roy Orbison. We got to see the massive sinkhole that opened up in one of the display rooms, and the damaged cars that were recovered from it. All told, the museum took about 90 minutes to get through and was a pleasant way to start the day.
That didn't last. We only had 223 miles to drive in order to get to our hotel, but shortly after we left Bowling Green, we entered into a daisy chain of road construction, lane closures, and traffic that made the rest of the trip to Indianapolis very unpleasant. We should have needed less than four hours to get to Indianapolis. Instead, it took nearly 6.
Once we were in Indianapolis, things went pretty smoothly again. We stayed at the JW Marriott hotel again, and it only took me twenty minutes to pick up my badge and event tickets from Will Call despite the line. I talked briefly with Dana & Lisa DeVries. Joe and I ate supper at the Rock Bottom Brewery. Joe retired to the hotel room and I went out looking for familiar faces. I went from one bar to another until I tracked down corone, nezumi_sama, and their friend Simon. We chatted for a bit and they gave me a strip of bacon on a stick.
Thursday, 14 August 2014
In the morning, we noticed mosquitoes outside our window on the 10th floor of the hotel.
We made it to the Exhibit hall just in time for the opening ceremonies. Usually, we stand at a side entrance so we don't have such a crowd and don't have to listen to the blather. This year, that side entrance has a sign stating that those doors will open 15 minutes later than the others, to deter such ingenuity. When Peter Adkison instructed the Gen Con veterans to welcome the newbies in the crowd, I jokingly called out "Get off of my lawn!" which got some laughs in the immediate vicinity.
The hall was packed. I decided to skip my 11:00 seminar to focus more on the shopping. I was trying out my new headcam. It worked pretty well, and the wristwatch remote control worked very well, too. I bumped into a lot of old friends over the course of the show, so I cannot distinctly remember which I saw on which days in each case.
After a lot of shopping in the Exhibitors' Hall and the Auction Store, Joe and I joined corone, nezumi_sama, Simon, James Hata, and Kevin Wilson at Fogo de Chão for our annual feast. The British members of this group joined Joe and I in our hotel room for some card games, discussion and an exchange of Mtn Dew & candy corn for Jaffa Cakes & Jammie Dodgers.
Friday, 15 August 2014
More shopping. Again, I skipped an early seminar I'd been interested in to spend more time looking through the goods available for sale. In the evening, I went to the Friday Night Live concert where I saw marcgunn, Dan the Bard, Mikey Mason, lukeski, Sarah Donner, and the Damsels of Dorkington perform. Then I went to see lukeski perform a full concert of his greatest hits, celebrating 20 years of him performing at Gen Con.
Saturday, 16 August 2014
Yet more shopping! The increased crowd included a lot of wifi traffic that kept interfering with the communication between the camera and its remote control. I discovered that I had inadvertently captured my glasses, eyebrow, etc. in most of the shots from this camera and then started to wear it further forward on my head, which worked pretty well, but once the communication issue reared its head, I pretty much switched to my normal digital camera for the rest of the day.
In the afternoon, I saw Mikey Mason's concert set, which was awesome. Someone scheduled it down the hall from the speed dating event, which was poor planning.
I knew the Auction Store was closing at 8:00 that night (because I had checked the signs outside that morning), and I was going to check one last time after supper. However, I got there at about 7:20 and it was already closed. The sign outside one door to the auction room still said "8" but the one closer to the store had that marked out and a "7" written nearby. I was disappointed, but it is what it is.
In the evening, I saw concerts by marc_gunn and lukeski, whose set was mostly new material. He brought up Whitney Avalon, who performed one of her own songs in the middle of his set.
Sunday, 17 August 2014
Instead of starting the day with more shopping, I saw Dan the Bard (and Granger the Ranger) in concert in the morning. Then I went shopping and picked up a few more things. I went back after lunch and roamed the hall until just after it closed, making a literal last-minute purchase before making my way to an exit. When there were only about 6 minutes to go before the hall closed, I witnessed corone running through the hall in his Cthulhu slippers, which did not look like the most effective footwear for that task.
Joe and I packed up our things and made plans to change our route back home to avoid I-65 and its insane construction. Unfortunately, the only route home that could do that was a bit more mountainous and violated my longstanding effort to avoid going back to or through Ohio ever again in my life. Still, it was the only alternative.
I stepped out to spend some time with Patrick and the rest of the guys who hang out and play games on Sunday night, but I had to leave before midnight to be ready for the journey. We were playing a card game by Cryptozooic about combining cards to make spells, which was fun but there were some questions that the rulebook just didn't seem to be able to answer to our satisfaction.
Monday, 18 August 2014
We ate breakfast, finished packing, and checked out. We were out the door and on our way earlier than usual. We took I-74 to I-75 to I-40 to I-26 to I-20 to get home. It's 650 miles, and it rained the last 50 or so of them. Joe's Sirius radio signal kept being dropped by forests and mountains during the drive. It took us about 12 hours to get to my place, including stops for meals along the way. We both agree that this is a viable return route in the future, but because of the steep grades in some areas it would not be a good route to take to get to Indianapolis. Besides, we really liked our stop in Bowling Green on the way up.
Tuesday, 19 August 2014
I was very tired, but so sore from all the activity and the long drive home that I could not find a way to lie that was comfortable enough to sleep. I finally dozed off after 4 in the morning. I slept through both of my alarms and when I did wake up, I was still so sore that I gave up any hope of being able to get around and drive myself to work on time, much less make it through a day at the office (which is upstairs these days, ouch). I sent in an e-mail explaining the situation and took an extra day off.
The Haul
I was mostly focused on picking up old, out-of-print RPG books that I wanted in my youth but missed out on.
Card sleeves that will fit theglen's "CON!" game.
Ars Magica 1st Edition (Revised)
James Bond 007 RPG's Thrilling Locations
RoleMaster Martial Arts Companion
Three new T-shirts
DC Heroes RPG's H.I.V.E. adventure
DC Heroes RPG's Come On Down adventure
Batman Role-Playing Game
Runequest 2nd Edition boxed set
Boot Hill (the 1990 edition)
Marvel Super Heroes RPG's MH-AC-2 "Avengers Assembled"
4 CDs from Mikey Mason
1 CD from lukeski
2 CDs from marcgunn
7 CDs from Dan the Bard
Some dice
Book Zero of The Devil's Panties (The Institutional Years)
Alloy of Law supplement for Mistborn Adventure Game
Dice Crawl
A vinyl-coated map of a ship's decks and crow's nest
Protocol by jim pinto
The Carcass: a game of post-apocalyptic community by jim pinto
Standard Action Season 2 DVD
Dark Dungeons DVD
The Gamers: Natural 1 and Humans & Households DVD
A ton of Sentinels of the Multiverse materials
The Chronicles of Amber vol. 1 (again... I had 3 copies of this, but friends borrowed it and didn't return it)... my last-minute purchase.
The Damage
I only got one blister this time around. As usual, it is on my left little toe. I'm treating it carefully so it should be healed before my next con in a week or so.
The stiffness is mostly due to walking around so much more than I usually do, and for so much longer. It will pass, too.