The rise of the Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle has been pretty spectacular. It's gone from something small to an event that tops 60,000 people in just a few years. Then they did it again in Boston, pulling in similar numbers after just two years of PAX East. The focus is on video games, but there has always been a tabletop gaming element as well and ( Read more... )

Saturday was Dragonmeet. Since it's one day show, I made sure to get up early and fortify myself with a classic English breakfast in the hotel's restaurant. This was such a calorie fest I skipped lunch, but that was fine because it let me spend all day at the con. I had two seminars to do. The first was a general Green Ronin Q+A in the early ( Read more... )

It’s the Monday morning after my 21st GenCon and I’m sitting in the lobby of the hotel grabbing some free wifi. Nicole is crashed out upstairs. She went to the Dead Dog party after our traditional Green Ronin dinner and then it seems to Steak & Shake in the middle of the night. I don’t expect her to get up for a bit so I thought I’d scribble down ( Read more... )

Tomorrow I'm heading up to Vancouver for Conquest BC. There are Conquest shows up and down the West Coast, and I've been a guest at cons in Vegas, Sacramento, and here in Seattle. I should be on some seminars, and other than that you'll likely just find me around the con playing games and hanging out. A high pressure event this is not, which is why ( Read more... )

A few years ago I was a guest at a convention that didn't really have its game stuff together. They planned a Q+A session for me, for example, but didn't put it in the con booklet so anyone would know about it. Surprise, surprise, only one guy wandered by and he had only a vague idea who I was. He half-heartedly asked me one question and while I ( Read more... )

I was in Las Vegas last week for GTS, the main trade show for the hobby game industry. This was the first time I've been able to go in 3-4 years, since it never seemed worth burning vacation days for when I was working at Flying Lab. We did the show lean and mean this year, with just Hal and I there to rep for Green Ronin. I wish Nicole could have ( Read more... )

Since leaving Flying Lab I find that the thing I want to do most is travel. During the three years I was working two jobs, I had to plan my travel carefully and husband vacation days. I spent some every year on GenCon and then of course there was our epic trip to Finland for Ropecon. For the time being at least my schedule is more free, and I just ( Read more... )

We got back a few days ago from our first official family road trip. We decided to go on short notice because Kate's mid-winter break, Dundracon, and Nicole's mom's surgery all coincided in a workable way. So we spent a couple of days in Portland, the weekend in San Ramon for Dundracon, and then the final few days in San Francisco. Overall, the ( Read more... )

A few quick notes before I get back to packing ( Read more... )

Weeks continue to fly by. Last weekend was the Penny Arcade Expo, which by all accounts was a huge success. My PAX was more miss than hit. I woke up Saturday feeling crappy. I made it in to the con in the afternoon because I had a meeting and needed to touch base with a few people. I did what I had to do, spent maybe an hour in the exhibit hall, ( Read more... )