Nearly Two Weeks

Yes, it's been a while, but I was out of town for two weeks and then getting settled again for the past few days. I posted a bit last time about all the goodies I picked up at GenCon, but what I didn't post about was what a great time I had.

On the business side of things it was successful because I met with a lot of people about upcoming work and I got a lot done for the new endeavor; much of which is filling my time now, so that's good. but apart from that I had a great time seeing Rob, John, and Scott again. It's been a year and a half since I've seen Rob and Scott, which is pretty unbeleivable to me. I mean, I used to live with them and now I only see them every year or so. Ridiculous. Clearly they need to move to Seattle -- or wherever I happen to live. Next year Seth and I hope to get a few more people to the show, so we can hang out together.

After the show I went to Burlington and visited with family for a few days before Julia came to town. Then we spent a lot of time introducing her to everyone and everyone to her. The introductions included a weekend in Madison where we managed to get together with a good dozen or so my my friends for lunch at the Nitty Gritty. The whole trip was a whirlwind of social activity, but overall I think we weathered it well and had a very good time. Julia really enjoyed hanging out at Kim's place and she can't wait to see her and John again.

The trip home went flawlessly and we even managed to bring a fair amount of Fiestaware back in our carryon bags. It's unpacked and waiting on the dining room table for me to wash it and put it in the cupboards. I just have to remember not to eat off the orange pieces due to radioactivity.

Julia had a show on Saturday, so I helped her set that up and then met with Seth to check out the Penny Arcade Expo (or PAX) 2006. It looked like a very successful show, but it also looked like they needed to find a larger place because it was wall-to-wall people. And I've been to many conventions before and this one was packed. Way too full for my comfort, or Seth's, so we walked the floor once and then got the hell out. I hope next year they'll find someplace with about twice as much space, because they need it badly. I was happy that Seth and I were both able to mooch badges off the show. It would have ticked me off to pay money for a badge and then only stay for an hour.

I came up with a few game ideas while I was away, so I've been mocking up one of those for the past few days. It looks like it'll be pretty cool, but I'll have to let you know how it looks once it's completely designed.

It's funny, now that I'm not at WizKids and not as constrained by coming up with something that will be collectable (or more accurately, that will make enough money to support the overhead represented by an office of 50 people) I'm coming up with some really good stuff. Admittedly, it's all stuff WizKids couldn't do because it wouldn't make them money, but it's very liberating to be able to work on anything I want to. Hopefully some of them will make me some money.

Congrats to Glenn on a year of Photos of the Day. I love that he's doing this and it's one of the things I check on every morning. Now if we could just get him to write a little more often...

Okay, that's enough for now. I'll post more soon.