The weekend officially begins
I drove back to Blacksburg in a much happier car. On the way, jsciv called and set up a meet, wherein I found that for $10 more a night I could have had a suite twice the size (not that I would have used it for much). We hit Christiansburg’s new Panera with Lucy, and talked a lot of game industry shop. Joe seems to be doing quite well for himself these days, which is great; we made hyper-flimsy plans for a Disney run out there sometime in the hazy future. (Flying. Not driving.)
Made it to the con, and picked up my Staff badge. I think I’m permanent TCon staff now… not that I mind, it’s a pleasure every year, but it amuses me nevertheless. I did not recognize tltrent at first, gomen, gomen! But I traded a lot of greetings with lots of great folk in those first minutes. I remember yubbie looking quite distracted, for reasons I would later discover…
I spent most of Friday re-learning my way around McBryde Hall on the Virginia Tech campus, location of many VTSFFC and USS McKay events. I socialized quite a bit, catching up with long-time fandom friends. In a lot of ways, Technicon for me is like getting to be 25 again, and getting to spend time with all these fun, intelligent people without being a broke, know-it-all slacker fanboy. I don’t miss that aspect of myself much!
Dwight’s Friday night dance was short and unfortunately-scheduled, turning more into an excuse to play exotic cuts really loud in a University auditorium while the iTunes Visualizer hypnotized the small crowd. nius‘s quote, “We’re rocking McBryde 100, bitches!” ended up on buttons for him and Dwight and me.
Shut down con and move to the Microtel conference room, where I snagged ursulav, Meche, and Bert for Saturday night’s panels, and finally caught up to shrewlet. First, colleenk and I got some long-awaited personal chat time – let’s not make it so long before the next one! – and then Cindy and I got a little conversation in before she had to take a guest home for the evening.
An excellent Technicon Friday! Saturday would be a bit rougher…
Technicon 25 Pre-Show
I have driven to Orlando. I have driven to upstate New York. In neither of those cases was I responsible for the steering wheel the whole time, if at all; so, yes, a five-hour drive can absolutely wear me out!
Since NASA Langley is practically sitting on I-64, I packed the car on Wednesday night and headed right to Blacksburg from work Thursday. 64 and I-81 aren’t too unpleasant on a Thursday evening; my CD player may be broken, but the iPod plays through it nicely except for the pauses when it tries to eject nonexistent CDs.
Unfortunately, my transmission started throwing fits around Afton Mountain (who could blame it?) slipping and locking into third gear three times on the trip down. Pulling over for 10 minutes each time seemed to reset things, but that’s no way to run a railroad.
I made it safely to the Microtel, where I was informed that the wireless access was a bit spotty on my floor 🙁 Nevertheless, in an effort to adjust my sleep rhythms for the weekend, I stayed up for a couple hours unsuccessfully farming Primals in Zangarmarsh, only getting kicked off the server three times.
Friday I headed down to see my Mom (one of the main reasons for my Thursday travel), which was lovely. We traded Xmas presents and had good conversation over a mildly disappointing lunch. Interestingly, I’m still on a hot-rodded Mac G4 tower, and she’s got the latest and greatest iMac Intel Core 2 Duo, which she took great glee in showing me.
Went to the lube place, got the transmission flushed, and had them look at my rear tires, which were making unhappy growly noises. Yep, they needed replacing. Technicon was getting expensive already…
Brief updates
- 09:43 Thought of first thing I forgot to pack for TCon. 90-minute side trip this afternoon not worth it. #
- 21:40 Sitting in the smallest hotel room I’ve rented in 20 years. #
Sent subspace radio by LoudTwitter
Microtel Base reporting
Five-hour drive to Technicon – not from home, mind you, that would have been six – from NASA Langley. (This is why the car was packed last night.) I might have shaved off half an hour were it not for some kind of road work happening on I-81 between Roanoke and Blacksburg. But it’s no big deal. I am super special-plus tired though.
The Microtel is well named. This may be the smallest hotel room in which I’ve stayed, though it’s nice and clean. Glad I’m not trying to run any con events in the room. The good news is that the clerk said that wireless was “spotty” on the third floor, yet I seem to be getting a fairly good signal. So that’s nice.
I am here today because I promised I would show up, and because you, my fandom friends, are awesome people whom I miss. I don’t drive five hours for just anything 🙂
{wakes} Huh? What just happened?
It’s Wednesday night, and everything for the con is packed in the car except for toiletries and pyjamas.
Clearly, there’s an impostor in this apartment, cunning but not quite cunning enough to impersonate me properly.
(Thanks to panels, did not manage to pack light particularly. Also, someday need real travel gear rather than leftover Decipher gaming bags.)
Catching up
Good morning, all.
My apologies for leaving everyone in suspense about Starr. I’ve pretty much had no Internet access since my last post. (It wasn’t down, I have just had higher-priority matters to handle. Given how high-priority I usually make the Internet, that’s saying something. But anyway.)
Starr is back from the hospital and is doing quite well – well enough to wear me out this weekend staying up late and getting up early. She’ll probably be back at work tomorrow or Wednesday at the latest – I think she’s pretty excited about it. Her doctors say that her condition has probably been present since she was little and masked by other issues, so her treatment might actually leave her healthier than ever. Part of the priority issues from the last week was me being a bit of a jerk – I’ve not been handling events too well the last fortnight, and I needed a bit of a talking-to – but I think I have it under control now. Saturday night we were having a good time together, and she looked happier than she has in a long time. (The hew haircut’s darn nice too!)
I’m preparing for Technicon – as I’ve said, I refuse to do seat-of-the-pants this year – but just last night got a new schedule change, and am trying to adjust for that. (I actually agree with the reasoning behind it – I’m just laughing at Murphy.) There will be a post with further discussion of the TCon panels under my Lifestyle filter. I’m kinda hoping to get a little gaming in this year with jsciv – last year I was so busy, I barely laid eyes on the man. It’ll be awesome getting to see everyone who can attend.
Another loss
Amira passed away yesterday. I don’t have many reliable details, but I know that she was quite ill, and this was not exactly unexpected. Still, losing her and my friend Millie within a few weeks of each other amplifies the lousiness.
The southwestern Virginia fans here should remember her as a fixture and frequent guest of the SWVA convention scene. She always had energy and an opinion, and pitched in often when she felt her talents would be useful.
I’m really glad there’s footage of her bellydancing on the Technicon 24 DVD. It’s not an awful way to be remembered.
Speak “Friend” and Enter
This morning I found a hotel cardkey from a 2007 con in my stuff. I’d feel guilty, except I know they churn these keys out by the millions, and since the whole thing is computer-controlled, they’ve already invalidated the darn thing. So now it’s a memento.
What got me thinking, though, is the memory of when hotels actually handed out metal keys, usually on large plastic keychains with the room number embossed on them. Yes, those were simpler times.
Oh, when I say “enter hotel rooms,” I mean one that you or a roommate have paid for. Room parties, rooms that you’re only responsible for as an event organizer, etc. don’t count.
(Yes, I know. “Auhorized” is a Space Rogues in-joke.)
