WinCon recap!
Awesomesauce rynnalyn picked me up at school at 2:30 to take me to the airport. I had to throw a few last minute things in my bag - an undergarment to wear to prom and my “dress like a Winchester” army jacket - and then we were off! I had an easy-peasy curbside check in so I didn’t have to schlep my bag all over creation. The security line was very long, but moving. I expected that so it was no big deal.
The plane trip was uneventful. It took a little longer because we were flying into a headwind, but nothing major. My two seatmates were very quiet. The girl on the aisle was very studiously reading for an exam she had coming up (she should get extra credit for spending nearly four hours of the flight highlighting and taking notes). The man sitting next to me was reading a Danielle Steele book when he wasn’t napping. The best thing about him was his slim hips - I took up too much room in my seat, but it didn’t impact him because he was so slender.
I watched the in-flight movie Up and only cried a little - thank goodness I knew what was coming. The earphones were the crappiest pieces of crap ever, and the radio selections on the armrest were incredibly lame. I miss Jet Blue!
One of the funniest things was when the plane landed, all I could hear were various pings and bells indicating that everyone had taken out their phones and turned them back on. When I turned my phone on I had messages from Ryn and gigglingkat Kat, who is also awesomesauce, offered to pick me up from the airport. It took a little phone tag for us to work it out, but then there she was! \0/
We got slightly lost on the way back to the hotel, but the guy from the bus tour was late too so it all worked out. I was glad I got to see a bunch of the girls before they went out on the tour - laivine [aka Krista], sinnerforhire, velithya among others and KatMom - lots of hugs! Then I rolled my stuff upstairs and got ready for bed. I tried to jump on the internet to check messages and update, but no dice. Krista filled me in later that we had no internet in our rooms, but that we can get it down in the lobby.
While I was unpacking to take out the inflatable bed I figured I would charge my phone. I had cord after cord in my various bags - USB camera cord, camera charger, laptop plug, other random cords….no phone plug. This made me very unhappy because having a charged phone decreases my travel anxiety greatly. My plan was to go down to the registration table and ask if any of the fangirls had a compatible charger I could borrow. (turns out KatMom has a charger that will work for me. \0/)
The best spot for my bed was by the window because it was out of the way and no one would have to climb over me or be in danger of tripping. Unfortunately it was 26 degrees and the windows weren’t fabulously insulated. I had the sheet, fleece and one blanket from the bed on when the girls came back from the tour. At that point KatMom gave me another blanket from her bed. Since we were all awake anyway I got up to use the bathroom and before I went back to bed I put my black woobie hoodie ™ on over my pajamas. I was STILL freezing. Finally, around 2:30 AM I pulled my “dress like a Winchester” army jacket on top of the whole pile and THAT was the thing that finally warmed me up. See, layering works!
This morning we’re all taking our time to start, but soon we’ll be heading downstairs for breakfast and fangirls. Yay!
Saturday
I didn’t have a chance to register Saturday night because I got in too late, so I didn’t have my card for the breakfast buffet. Happily, the hotel staff was really accommodating and let me bring back my card after we ate. Let me take a moment here to rave about how fabulous the hotel staff was - they were fantastic! The hotel itself was beautiful and the people who worked there not only let us do our thing, but did all they could to make it run smoothly. If you’re ever in the Denver area and need a place to stay, I highly recommend the Renaissance off of Rt 70.
The hotel is set up so the lobby/restaurant is the center of the atrium. The rooms are arranged in an open square around it. So whenever you’re walking to or from your room you can look down and see what’s going on, which is why on our way to breakfast we could already hear the fangirls who’d gone to breakfast before us. I love that fangirls clump and can just slide in at a table next to an already established group and have cross conversations.
After breakfast we wandered over to registration to get my stuff, but because there were so few people left to check in, the table wasn’t all set up. I went upstairs with coiledsoul to the special, organizer’s suite (which was very impressive) to pick up my folder and “Surviving the Apocalypse” kit which may be the best event schwag I’ve ever received.
Because the internet only worked downstairs in the lobby area, there were pockets of con goers, in groups on couches or lined up against the wall near outlets, just sitting side by side typing away. I love that. For whatever reason, mine was the only laptop that wasn’t able to recognize the hotel’s wi-fi so I remained internet-less. I entertained myself by making my entry in the Second Annual Tin Hat Parade.
My hat turned out so awesome. When I was a kid and brought lunch to school, I would often take my foil when I was finished eating and smooth it out; really scrape it flat with my fingernail. So I had this inspiration - what if I used something bigger like a credit card, but pulled it fast to make it curl? I used my WinCon badge and started scraping strips of the foil and it made these awesome curls. I discovered that if I scraped the foil on the bias it’d make a corkscrew curl. So I spent the next hour our so happily curling foil and chatting with the other gals who were crafting too. The only trouble I ran into was once I started attaching the longer curls on the bottom, I couldn’t put the hat back down on the table. tenatiousmetoo” to the rescue! She found me a bottle of white board cleaner to prop my hat on and it was all good!
ETA - Kat got a pic of my hat!
Here she is in her hat!
One of the things I love about WinCon is the ebb and flow of the day. Crafting, panels, chatting in the lobby, hanging in the Roadhouse - you just kind of do what you do, so that’s what I did. As last year, Bad Fic Idol was one of the day’s highlights! Then we had the Tin Hat parade. So many great hats were made! I was thrilled to win second place - hugenkiss beat me out with her Halloween hat. If I can get a decent picture of my prize - I believe from missyjack’s private collection - I will let you see what I won.
After a brief interlude I went out to dinner with a bunch of the girls. Very exciting. Originally Dei suggested that we go for Mexican which was just a block or two away. But one of the girls (Dru?) went to talk to one of the hotel staff about taxi service and bam…van for ten. I don’t remember which one of the ladies is from New Mexico, but she did not want to eat Mexican food in Colorado, so we had Asian.
Dinner was delicious and the company was fantastic! Then, it was time for WINPROM!
We got back to the hotel right around 8:00. gigglingkat was already dolled up in her zombie attire. laivine and I did some pretty quick primping and we were ready to go.
Here’s what I LOVED about WinProm. There were some people, like me, who leaned toward the “prom” aspect. I was all about the pretty dress, curly hair and shiny jewels. My only nod to the “zombie apocalypse” was wearing my sneakers (to run away) and some gnarly slash/stitches tattoos. Then you had other people who leaned toward the “zombie apocalypse” aspect of the prom with dead, grey makeup, dripping blood and ripped and bloody clothing. Then there were angels, demons and everything in between. And all you heard from everyone was, “Wow, you look awesome.” It was fantastic!! Every lady at the prom dressed exactly the way she wanted and no matter what it was she looked great.
The music was great, the dancing was fun, the food was delicious …and a tattoo.
You know me and my pumpkin at midnight tendencies so I didn’t stay all night, but there were many ladies who danced the night away!
On Sunday we got off to a slow start. As ever while packing, it seemed that there was so much more that needed to go into the suitcase. It turned out that Kat and KatMom’s flight was pushed back so we adopted sinnerforhire and went over to IHOP for breakfast. I had a delicious wheat bread French toast, turkey bacon and scrambled egg substitute breakfast. Though I don’t exactly know the point value I copied the info off the menu to figure out when I get home. Did you know that there is a law in Florida that says you can't pet crocodiles becuase tourists are stupid? Then THAT DAY there's a bit on the news about a guy who died when his arm was ripped off!
Once we were back at the hotel, Kat and KatMom were off to the airport and laivine and I drifted between various groups in the lobby to chat before people had to head home.
[Side note of EPIC FAIL - I spent the whole weekend with laivine We were roomies, we had meals together, we made tin hats together and we were both leaving around the same time. But I got distracted because I wanted to take some photos of the hotel (which end up not doing justice to the place and didn’t turn out so great anyway) and MISSED saying good-bye because I wasn’t paying attention. *FACEPALM* I’m so sorry I missed giving you a farewell hug, Krista!]
Spent some more face time with various ladies. Made a new friend in tjournal as we cheered against the Red Sox - we had tentative plans to meet at the airport the following day and hang out on the plane. Then I went to chat with wendy and a bunch of ladies I’d had dinner with the night before. Finally had a chance to chat with tenaciousmetoo and soon my friend in Denver came to pick me up.
I had a great time in Denver hanging with Debbie and meeting her boyfriend, Ryan. Also got some time to bond with Sydney, Deb’s golden retriever. We watched both the football and baseball game and felt badly for all the people freezing their asses off in the stands.
On Monday Deb and I ran some errands and then she brought me to the airport. I wandered through the terminal and then was delighted when I found tjournal in the waiting area. She talked to the Continental people and managed to get us seats together on the plane. It was awesome! She was sweet and let me have the window seat which left her to deal with the woman on the aisle who was having serious issues figuring out how to put her bag in the overhead compartment. Then she sat down and managed to shove her ass in T’s face. o_O
Once we were settled, we literally chatted for three hours. It was AWESOME! I don’t know if the skater boys sitting in front of us found our conversation as entertaining as we did, but we were certainly more interesting than the lame-ass, in-flight movie. Who wouldn’t want to overhear a conversation about television/fictional brothers with daddy issues and lame forensics on various CSI incarnations. I can’t even related a tenth of the hilarity of that conversation - it’s a good thing we both took notes! *g*
With our 100mph tail wind we managed to land on time at Newark…then had to wait close to an hour for our bags. *facepalm* The ride home was much easier than the last time from Chicago with the snow and the blizzard winds. I was so happy to be home in my own bed, but already missing my fangirl friends!