Major Recap

I was gone from last Wednesday until late Sunday night and I didn't have access to a computer, so I wasn't able to update. Sorry about that.

I left last week for the Origins gaming convention in Columbus, Ohio. The show seemed smaller than the past couple of years, but I'm sure they'll claim that their attendance was up. I noted with interest that the people watching the doors to the main convention floor counted me on one of those clickers every time I walked through the door. If that's how they're getting their attendance numbers then I can only laugh since I must have been counted more than 40 times.

I worked the WizKids' booth or in their tournament hall every day since they were still covering my costs for attending, but other than that I filled my time with talking to other companies. I know most of them have zero ability to hire me, but I may be able to get some freelance work from them and it's always good to know what's going on out in the world.

I had a really good time talking to the volunteers at the show (hi, Angus!). It always amazes me how friendly, engaged, and energetic they are. And, since wen all share a lot of the same interestes, how easy it is to sit down and have an interesting conversation about something. Anyway, I had a good time and I hope I helped out.

Jim came down with his daughter and his friend, Gil, so Chott and I hung out with them quite a bit. It sounds like Jim has some good things in the works that I hope will come to fruition. Other than that, I had some nice meals with friends and stayed in the best hotel ever for a convention. (It was The Lofts, if you're curious.)

I was able to play some poker at the show, too. Friday night I played in a tournament for a trip to Vegas that the people at GameStation.net were hosting. I made it to the fifth round, but chips were in short supply, so you had to win early or you were out of luck. After that I took someone else's spot in an eight-person game (he wasn't having fun, so he decided to leave the game and said he didn't mind giving up his five dollar entry fee). I started out a little short on chips, but ended up winning the whole thing (and $25) for free. That was nice, but admittedly, all of the other players were very new to the game.

Saturday night I played in a ten-person, $40 buy-in game. The short version of the story is that I lost $40, bought in again, then walked away from the game with $121. So, I was up $66 for the weekend. And I only spent about $40 on games and interesting tidbits at the show, which I thought was pretty good. Most of the things I picked up were at the Titan Games $5 table, so it wasn't hard to be cheap.

I was very lucky with my flights on the way back to Seattle. I walked up to the gate in Columbus and the attendant was able to move me onto the earlier flight (which was just about to leave), so I didn't have to wait there. I'd hoped to get an earlier flight out of Chicago to Seattle, but no luck, it was already too full, so I had to hang out in O'Hare for a couple extra hours. The flight into Seattle was nice, though, because I was able to snag an aisle seat in an exit row. Ahh, lots of extra leg room.

Julia picked me up at the airport and we had a nice dinner at 13 Coins, then I pretty much crashed. Conventions always exhaust me.

Monday I did all those exciting things everyone does after returning from a trip: laundry, go through the mail, pay rent, file for unemployment, etc. etc.

On the 4th, Julia's parents invited us to a Mariners' game, so we met them at their place around 11:00 and went to the stadium. When we arrived the dome was closed, but the weather cleared up quickly, so they retracted it. That was fun to see, but I can't imagine the power that goes into moving that thing back and forth. As for the game, it was good, but we lost 11-5, I think. Afterward we took off, treated our sunburn and watched March of the Penguins. Neither of us wanted to deal with traffic at midnight. Bleh.

I have to call Liz and Tom to apologize. I completely forgot about their party until later in the evening. I wouldn't have gone anyway, but I didn't RSVP and that was very bad of me.

Today I'm getting ready for my interview tomorrow and at 2:00 I have to take my car to get its brakes done.

More soon.