Surviving the Con

Well, it’s over. We survived Gen Con 2006, and it was great.
Rather than making a mondo-post, I’ll post a summary of each day separately.

Let’s start with Thursday night.

Our late-afternoon flight out of Newark Airport was a nightmare. I’ll spare the gentle reader most of the details, but the London business meant that the morning of our departure we suddenly had to leave behind all the travel-size cosmetics and such we had purposefully purchased ahead of time. No shampoo, toothpaste, hair gel, deodorant … you get the picture.

Fearing the long security lines at the airport, we left early, very early. We ended up zipping through security and having nearly 2 hours to kill in the airport. (We also spotted Lee Iacocca standing on the sidewalk a few feet away, thanks to A's sharp eyes, but that's another story.) We then boarded the plane and sat there on the tarmac for 2 and a half hours before the plane even took off—for a less than 2-hour flight! At one point, after an hour of taxiing around the runways, an exasperated passenger across from me asked the flight attendant for a status update. “Well, we’re number ten, and there’s a 7-minute space between flights. Do the math,” came the brusque reply.

Eventually we landed in Indianapolis and a quick taxi ride brought us to Embassy Suites. My expected arrival time of 5-o-clock was shot to hell; it was now 7:30 and we hadn’t eaten since grabbing fast food in the airport at 1-o-clock. So much for my industry party that began at 7:30! Down the street from our hotel was the Rock Bottom Brewery. There we grabbed dinner, including ribs to die for. We resolved to return.

Downtown Indy was nice; elevated walkways, plentiful microbrew restaurants (I made a private note of the location of The Ram, a place known for its Gen Con attendee -friendly atmosphere), and friendly folk. Everywhere milled many young people, many of them bearing backpacks, costumes, or other assorted gear that marked them as fellow gamer geeks in town for the Con.



We eventually arrived at the party at nine-thirty. The party was held at Jillian’s, an eclectic place that I described that night as “a Chuck E. Cheese’s for adults.” I embarrassed myself “shooting” pool and we chatted with our host and assorted folks including Andy Barlow (miniature sculptor for Magnificent Egos, etc.), Luke Johnson (Etherscope developer), Todd Rooks (tournament GM extraordinaire), and his friend Brett.

It was well after midnight when we headed back, but the halls of Embassy echoed with the cries of gamers. (My mind instantly harkened back to the "old days" when I used to spend a full weekend playing D&D with no thought of sleep...) Youngsters!