Coast to coast weekend.

So this weekend saw the fulfillment of plans laid (and purchased) back in September while I still had a job. :) Tursday I got on a plane and flew through Chicago to Boston, where I met up with innocent_man and took in the convention known as Arisia.

I had initially tried contacting some of the people I knew in the are, but fate did not smile on any of those get-togethers, so instead it was just me and a few hundred strangers and Matt. Oh, and some friends of his (and one I'd previously met at GenCon, jadasc). This wasn't really a bad thing, mind you, but it did mean that I wasn't entirely in my element most of the time.

As far as the con goes, it was fun. It's the last year for it at this hotel, which is just as well since it wasn't really a convention hotel. The dealer's room, for example, was not a room but the better part of the third floor, and each "store" was in a hotel room, some with beds still in there, some without. In talking with one of the retailers, those rooms were also their accommodations for the con, which frankly struck me as nightmarish. Poor vendors. I suppose it could be worse, but still, it was a very odd sort of shopping experience.

Gaming was a sort of small part of the experience, but well attended and hopping most of the time. Matt was supposed to run a game Friday at 5 PM that he didn't end up with any players for, but registration didn't even open until 3 PM on Friday, so most people weren't even there yet. It's all a learning experience. :) I did get to game a bit, though. In addition to playing a few games of Set (I really like this game) and a game of The Haunting House (I think that's the right name), I also got to play a demo and a real game of Eclipse Phase (finally!) run by one of my favorite new line authors, Jack Graham. Really good writer, ya'll. I also finally got to meet Evan Jameson, which was very nice and which let me feel sort of back on familiar ground again. Oh, and I got to play Encore, which was an older singing game based on knowing a lot of song lyrics and being willing to sing them. It's a teams game, and it went for apparently a lot longer than an average game because the players were all HARDCORE. Seriously. A couple of songwriters, a bunch of performers, some at least semi-pro... I was the newbie and the pretender in the room. It was a lot of fun, though. We didn't manage to finish the game despite staying there until nearly 1 am.

The weather was really good. We did get out and about just a little, looking around the area. We were right in around BU, MIT, and Harvard. I saw the Miracle of Science Bar and Grill, which I didn't get to go into but the name just struck me. :) The Charles River was frozen the whole time, which was bizarre to me as I've never seen a frozen river, especially during days when the temps were in the high thirties, low forties. Craziness. :) Oh, and on the way back to the airport, the cab driver was apparently having this dominance struggle with another cab driver, jockeying for position and nearly getting into a wreck. That was a bit more excitement than I was looking for, frankly. We survived, though.

It was a good weekend, and it was wonderful to see Matt again. I think I'm going to go fall over now, though. See y'all tomorrow.