A Simple Yet Functional Journal

mood:

cold

music: Erin Boheme - Let's Do It

All the gamers -- being surrounded by my people. Meeting the folks I know from online or never manage to see in person. Meeting the same folks from convention to convention. I love you guys!
The nice folks at the Westin Starbucks, who laughed with us despite all the extra overtime we made them work
Running all of my games at capacity (with a little help from generics)
Getting to play with some old favorites from past cons, and some new games I don't get to play at home.
Being able to make it to the 25th Anniversary Champions celebration (even if I had to miss the Sunday night HERO meetup).
The dealers room. I was finally able to pick up the raised-pip 6-siders I've been looking for (Our gaming group has a blind player. Fortunately, we're HERO gamers, so d6's are all we need.) I couldn't spend much time in there due to a bad reaction to crowding, but what I saw was fantastic!

Once again not being able to get a badge reading "Game Master" despite running 16 hours of events. What's an Independent GM got to do to get a little recognition?
Losing three players (out of seven) halfway through a game due to a personal emergency.
The NOISE level in the rpg rooms. Oh my Deity, the noise!!!! It's really hard to do roleplaying-heavy module when nobody at the table can hear each other at anything less than a yell, and sometimes not even then! Not to mention the headache induced by the volume level. After running my second module I was working so hard on a migraine I was afraid I was going be sick. It's been bad for a while, but it was even worse this year than previously.

I hope the cubible wall idea works out, although honestly, just giving each table as much space as the "game room of the future" had would have helped. I can't quite work out how they're going to fit as many game tables in with the greater per-table space requirement, especially with the impending construction, but I have to applaud any chance at improvement.
Net access at the Westin. It was nice to have free wireless in the lobby, although free wireless in the ROOM (or wireless in the rooms at all) would have been nicer. The business center, which had been free last year, now charges an arm and a leg, $1.99/minute to use the printer! $0.69/minute to use one of the PCs! It wound up costing me $4 just to print out my boarding pass. I hope they have the convention center business center up by next year -- even a convention center rate can't be that insultingly high.
Flight rest ructions. As it happens, the worry far outstripped the actual problems. By Sunday, electronics were allowed on the plane, and it was only liquids/gels forbidden. As I was checking a bag anyway, and pack my toiletries in my checked bag anyway, I wasn't really affected.
I know I'm getting old; I wasn't carded ONCE all week!

Just another one of those things.