Out of Control
Aug. 18th, 2007 04:01 pmI came home from GenCon today. Everything I wanted to get out of the trip (and more) was achieved. The ol' creative fires are restoked.
But, it was not without incident, and my usual mix of good and bad luck. Settle in, friends, and hear my story.
On Tuesday afternoon, Erin called to tell me that she wouldn't be able to go, after all, since her mom was going to be in Kentucky this weekend. I was disappointed, and briefly considered scrubbing the whole darn trip, but that e-mo-ment didn't last. On a whim, I checked the looking for rooms/roommates GenCon forum, and found a promising entry. Now, I'd reserved a room at a Days Inn at the I-70/I-465 interchange, about 7-8 miles from the convention center, and costing about $210 for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights. This posting was for a hotel 1.3 miles from the convention center, with a free downtown shuttle, and was going to cost me $150 for Wednesday-Saturday nights. E-mailed the poster, got a quick response, we arranged things by phone, and things looked good. I called the Days Inn, cancelled the reservation, and headed to bed.
Wednesday, I pack up my stuff, load the truck, and head to Indianapolis, by way of Danville, Kentucky - meeting Mom for lunch and borrowing her camera. The day was hot. Hot, hot, hot. Sufficiently so that the truck started overheating. When passing through Louisville, the air temp was 104F. Had to get off the road at exit 16 on I-65 to let the truck cool down. Finally made it to Indy about 8:15 p.m. after stopping at a truckstop and flushing the truck's radiator - God bless the Pilot chain and their high-pressure external faucets. Met up with my two roommates for the weekend (Michael from Portland and Britt from Iowa) and we headed towards downtown. The walk wasn't bad, but the heat was a little more than I wanted to face for long, even after nightfall.
[Aside to Jenn - did check out the Indy Canal Walk. Very cool, and thanks for the heads-up.]
Thursday, it was time to do some real con-stuff, and by that, I mostly mean wandering the exhibitors hall. Bought three of the books on my shopping list - Hero High and Paragons for Mutants & Masterminds and the Unhallowed Metropolis core book. Was going to snag a copy, possibly free, of Combat Missions, but my name wasn't in the credits, so I decided to wait for the mail on that one. Agonized over Monte Cook's World of Darkness and Scion: Demigod, but decided to wait until those show up at FLGS. Lots more milling around. WotC didn't place their booth in the center of the hall this time, instead tucking themselves in a corner. Their big announcement was D&D 4th Edition for May 2008. There were some boos, but mostly, people were expecting it. Linked up with Alex Flagg and Scott Gearin from Crafty Games for dinner, and we were joined by Dave McAlister - good fun.
Friday saw the only scheduled events I had planned on attending - seminars from Green Ronin and Crafty Games about the upcoming product plans. GR had some terrific news - George R. R. Martin has granted them the license to do Wild Cards material for Mutants & Masterminds. The Crafty seminar was in the same room, a few hours later. Met up with the genuinely witty and charming![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
cybogoblin prior to the Crafty seminar, and we spent some time catching up. Announcements at the seminar - quite a few new products, World on Fire on shelves in September (some copies had been shipped from England for the show, but a book on terrorism was getting some close Customs attention, and would not make it to Indy), Ten Thousand Bullets is go for end-of-year (we saw page proofs, and one was a section I worked on, and yes, I squealed with delight), FantasyCraft is planned for summer 2008. Also at the seminar was Ol' Gaming Buddy Jim, from Lexington. Post-seminar, dinner with a dozen or so Spycraft fans as well as Alex and Patrick Kapera. The Rock Bottom Brewery in Indy has a drink advertised as starting like a margarita and ending like a mojito - it delivers on the promise, dear friends. Lots of cutting up and good conversation and suchlike until about 1 a.m., and the informal bull session ended with some good news for me - I'm back in the freelancer fold.
This morning, packed up, reloaded the truck, drove home. No heating problems with the truck (air temp being about 70 when I left). Have some swag to redistribute. Goodies I got (and am keeping): 2x Axis & Allies CMG packs, slated for desk decorations; 4 new dice (GR-extremely-green d20, GenCon d6, and two Crafty Games d6 Action Dice), a Star Wars CMG figure.elalyr and tegyrius get the World of Warcraft TCG starter decks, because some of the cards include codes to unlock WoW MMO goodies. Must wash rather sweaty clothes tonight, after dinner and more catchup with Tegyrius.
Also met up with Jon Bancroft, who updated me on Archon, and Colin Moore of The Louisville Game Shop.
I had a tremendous time. I'm so glad I went, and am proud of myself for keeping spending under control. I don't know if I'm going back in 2008, though, to be honest. With Archon moving back to early October (and returning to the all-aspect program), Collinsville is more appealing than Indianapolis.
But, it was not without incident, and my usual mix of good and bad luck. Settle in, friends, and hear my story.
On Tuesday afternoon, Erin called to tell me that she wouldn't be able to go, after all, since her mom was going to be in Kentucky this weekend. I was disappointed, and briefly considered scrubbing the whole darn trip, but that e-mo-ment didn't last. On a whim, I checked the looking for rooms/roommates GenCon forum, and found a promising entry. Now, I'd reserved a room at a Days Inn at the I-70/I-465 interchange, about 7-8 miles from the convention center, and costing about $210 for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights. This posting was for a hotel 1.3 miles from the convention center, with a free downtown shuttle, and was going to cost me $150 for Wednesday-Saturday nights. E-mailed the poster, got a quick response, we arranged things by phone, and things looked good. I called the Days Inn, cancelled the reservation, and headed to bed.
Wednesday, I pack up my stuff, load the truck, and head to Indianapolis, by way of Danville, Kentucky - meeting Mom for lunch and borrowing her camera. The day was hot. Hot, hot, hot. Sufficiently so that the truck started overheating. When passing through Louisville, the air temp was 104F. Had to get off the road at exit 16 on I-65 to let the truck cool down. Finally made it to Indy about 8:15 p.m. after stopping at a truckstop and flushing the truck's radiator - God bless the Pilot chain and their high-pressure external faucets. Met up with my two roommates for the weekend (Michael from Portland and Britt from Iowa) and we headed towards downtown. The walk wasn't bad, but the heat was a little more than I wanted to face for long, even after nightfall.
[Aside to Jenn - did check out the Indy Canal Walk. Very cool, and thanks for the heads-up.]
Thursday, it was time to do some real con-stuff, and by that, I mostly mean wandering the exhibitors hall. Bought three of the books on my shopping list - Hero High and Paragons for Mutants & Masterminds and the Unhallowed Metropolis core book. Was going to snag a copy, possibly free, of Combat Missions, but my name wasn't in the credits, so I decided to wait for the mail on that one. Agonized over Monte Cook's World of Darkness and Scion: Demigod, but decided to wait until those show up at FLGS. Lots more milling around. WotC didn't place their booth in the center of the hall this time, instead tucking themselves in a corner. Their big announcement was D&D 4th Edition for May 2008. There were some boos, but mostly, people were expecting it. Linked up with Alex Flagg and Scott Gearin from Crafty Games for dinner, and we were joined by Dave McAlister - good fun.
Friday saw the only scheduled events I had planned on attending - seminars from Green Ronin and Crafty Games about the upcoming product plans. GR had some terrific news - George R. R. Martin has granted them the license to do Wild Cards material for Mutants & Masterminds. The Crafty seminar was in the same room, a few hours later. Met up with the genuinely witty and charming
cybogoblin prior to the Crafty seminar, and we spent some time catching up. Announcements at the seminar - quite a few new products, World on Fire on shelves in September (some copies had been shipped from England for the show, but a book on terrorism was getting some close Customs attention, and would not make it to Indy), Ten Thousand Bullets is go for end-of-year (we saw page proofs, and one was a section I worked on, and yes, I squealed with delight), FantasyCraft is planned for summer 2008. Also at the seminar was Ol' Gaming Buddy Jim, from Lexington. Post-seminar, dinner with a dozen or so Spycraft fans as well as Alex and Patrick Kapera. The Rock Bottom Brewery in Indy has a drink advertised as starting like a margarita and ending like a mojito - it delivers on the promise, dear friends. Lots of cutting up and good conversation and suchlike until about 1 a.m., and the informal bull session ended with some good news for me - I'm back in the freelancer fold.This morning, packed up, reloaded the truck, drove home. No heating problems with the truck (air temp being about 70 when I left). Have some swag to redistribute. Goodies I got (and am keeping): 2x Axis & Allies CMG packs, slated for desk decorations; 4 new dice (GR-extremely-green d20, GenCon d6, and two Crafty Games d6 Action Dice), a Star Wars CMG figure.
elalyr and tegyrius get the World of Warcraft TCG starter decks, because some of the cards include codes to unlock WoW MMO goodies. Must wash rather sweaty clothes tonight, after dinner and more catchup with Tegyrius.Also met up with Jon Bancroft, who updated me on Archon, and Colin Moore of The Louisville Game Shop.
I had a tremendous time. I'm so glad I went, and am proud of myself for keeping spending under control. I don't know if I'm going back in 2008, though, to be honest. With Archon moving back to early October (and returning to the all-aspect program), Collinsville is more appealing than Indianapolis.