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Con report. FA:United.
May. 23rd, 2011 11:00 pmkind of a last minute whim, brought on by an acute need to go walkabout for a bit, nothing else planned for the weekend, and my income tax refund arriving. So I took friday off from work and drove down to lovely Mount Laurel, NJ for the weekend.
The drive down was rather annoying. My GPS, which was in my dad's van for the last couple of months so my brother wouldn't get lost, had a broken connector on the power supply. No problem, thinks I, just stopped at an office supply place and bought a generic USB car power supply. Plug it in, fire up the GPS, program my destination and off I went. Around New york, the thing informed me that it was shutting down now due to low battery. Apparantly I had to buy the special Garmin replacement power supply for it. *grumps* Garmin gets dropped from my list of acceptable vendors.
There were a couple of construction zone holdups on the Merrit and Wilbur Cross parkways in CT. More traffic jams on the NJ turnpike to further delay and annoy me. Local driving around the hotel without a decent map was also rather an adventure.
Friday night, opening ceremonies. There was bacon served. WIN! Everything is better with bacon. While I was standing in the bacon line, I asked about open parties at the con to the folks nearby. No open parties, other than the con suite. This was just wrong, I thought, so I found the path to a nearby BJs Wholesale club and got some cake, and beverages, and nibbles for a party. (this is also where I got semi-lost trying to find the place. Thank you NJ and your jughandle turns and confusing highway signage)
Got back to the hotel, schlepped the stuff to the room, drew up a couple of quickie party notices and put them out. When I got back to the room, I found I had somehow managed to lock myself out of the room. Not by forgetting the key, but by somehow telekineticly flipping the burglar latch over when I was on the other side of the door. Called hotel engineering, and when he responded, he bent the loop open enough to get the door opened, then squeezed it back into shape. his only tool, a screwdriver.
The party theme was "There's cake. No lie." Had a light crowd there for a couple hours. I was expecting more folks, but apparently there were a lot of closed parties to attend.
Since I still had plenty of cake and food, there was another party saturday night. "Cake 2. The cakening." Again, light crowd, the party never really achieved quorum, so it was not what I considered a success. Leftovers went to the con suite sunday morning when I was checking out.
Got a few things in the dealers room. Tried dealing some blackjack in the game room, but only got a couple of takers, so gave up after an hour. Got a new furry name badge (see icon). It felt very odd to be at a con and not be busy working on the con. I didn't know what to do with myself sometimes.
The drive down was rather annoying. My GPS, which was in my dad's van for the last couple of months so my brother wouldn't get lost, had a broken connector on the power supply. No problem, thinks I, just stopped at an office supply place and bought a generic USB car power supply. Plug it in, fire up the GPS, program my destination and off I went. Around New york, the thing informed me that it was shutting down now due to low battery. Apparantly I had to buy the special Garmin replacement power supply for it. *grumps* Garmin gets dropped from my list of acceptable vendors.
There were a couple of construction zone holdups on the Merrit and Wilbur Cross parkways in CT. More traffic jams on the NJ turnpike to further delay and annoy me. Local driving around the hotel without a decent map was also rather an adventure.
Friday night, opening ceremonies. There was bacon served. WIN! Everything is better with bacon. While I was standing in the bacon line, I asked about open parties at the con to the folks nearby. No open parties, other than the con suite. This was just wrong, I thought, so I found the path to a nearby BJs Wholesale club and got some cake, and beverages, and nibbles for a party. (this is also where I got semi-lost trying to find the place. Thank you NJ and your jughandle turns and confusing highway signage)
Got back to the hotel, schlepped the stuff to the room, drew up a couple of quickie party notices and put them out. When I got back to the room, I found I had somehow managed to lock myself out of the room. Not by forgetting the key, but by somehow telekineticly flipping the burglar latch over when I was on the other side of the door. Called hotel engineering, and when he responded, he bent the loop open enough to get the door opened, then squeezed it back into shape. his only tool, a screwdriver.
The party theme was "There's cake. No lie." Had a light crowd there for a couple hours. I was expecting more folks, but apparently there were a lot of closed parties to attend.
Since I still had plenty of cake and food, there was another party saturday night. "Cake 2. The cakening." Again, light crowd, the party never really achieved quorum, so it was not what I considered a success. Leftovers went to the con suite sunday morning when I was checking out.
Got a few things in the dealers room. Tried dealing some blackjack in the game room, but only got a couple of takers, so gave up after an hour. Got a new furry name badge (see icon). It felt very odd to be at a con and not be busy working on the con. I didn't know what to do with myself sometimes.
