Steps taken forward...

I am home. Tomorrow I have an interview. Good night.

We're just south of the Oregon board. And yes, posting without reading is cheating. ;)

And no, I'm not driving at the moment.

If you're going to BayCon and you enjoya a fun LARP, you should consider our game. The people who played in it at Norwescon all said how much they enjoyed it!

(Click to enlarge image)

To sign up for the game and have a better chance of getting the character you want to play, go to the Stranger Concepts website and register!

First, a note: My connection to the internet has been spotty at best during my time here and then I was generally busy. That being said, I am not going back and reading some 300+ posts. If you need me to be aware of something, please bring it up here and I'll go look at that specifically.

BayCon is done and I fly home tonight. princessmei is taking me out to Dark Garden as she has an appointment there this afternoon--I'm hoping to see a variety of pretty corsets today--and then she's taking me to Piedmont Boutique in San Fransisco as well.

I will have a couple of posts to follow this one up in my Growth and Kink filters, as usual.

Over all, I had a fun, fun time at BayCon and made a lot of friends whom I cannot wait to see again. Of course, that generally means a year at least. Working in Programming Operations was a blast, and I was able to as Chris lots of questions about how BayCon does their program scheduling and the things that worked for them and the pitfalls they encountered. So that was good.

Something that BayCon does that I would love to see Norwescon do is what I can only call "Ribbon Madness". So Norwescon, in the recent years has started doing ribbons for staff and concom members, artists, and so, but this isn't really brought over to the general convention membership too much, except for one instance and that was the "Betty's Boobies" ribbons from last year. What BayCon does is that they have ribbons for the general membership that are free. Big deal you, say? Well, there is more to it than that. They also encourage the membership and staff members to bring their own. For example, in the cabal that is "ProgOps", they had several ribbons, one of which was the "Bathroom Ribbon" which was left in the bathrooms on the sink, sometimes in small puddles of water. If someone was seen wearing a "Bathroom Ribbon", they were sent to ProgOps to get the companion ribbon, "Ewwww Bathroom Ribbon".

While the ribbons can be fun, they can also be used to help fan find other fans of a show or a movie or even of a similar interest. One of the staff members, Boris, was able to make ribbons on site and made a few for me, including "Yes, but buy me dinner first" and "Corset Whore". A vendor who specializes in chainmail and scalemail art had the ribbon "I Got Clawed".

What I think I liked most about this is that it became a fun scavenger hunt out where to get a ribbon that someone was wearing. If you had recently taken a shower and showed up in the gaming room, you could get a "Washed Masses" ribbon or if you went in with a caffinated drink, the "Highly Caffinated" ribbon.

Even the hotel staff was in on the fun and they had an internal competition to see who could get the most ribbons. Some of them had even hatched nefarious plans, though never implemented to my knowledge, to acquire more. "I would be glad to bring your food to you, if you have a ribbon to give me."

One ribbon had a rubber ducky on it with the phrase done up like a bible verse, "Rinse. Lather. Repent. Hygiene 6:2:1"*.

The biggest single, tangible benefit that this practice brought is the building and re-enforcing of the sense of community and that is something that every convention can never get enough of.

The Firefly LARP, Harlequins and Hellfire, we ran on Sunday was a smashing success and we had many, many people askng us to do it again for next year. The end of game "post mortem and reveal" went on for about an hour and a half. And the quality of the players was just outstanding! I cannot say that enough. We had more than a few players attain their goals

In spite of having a lot of fun this weekend, there was something that was off for me and I couldn't put my finger on. I figured it out on Friday evening: I missed my family. How this is different from RustyCon is a difference of 800+ miles. At RustyCon, I could go home if I needed to. Here, that's not an option. Right now, I am working on not thinking about being away from them. I long to be home at this point. To see The Boy, Girly Girl, gypsiequeen, zorgaulf, and, of course, the cats. Yes, I'm missing my family. I am sooooo looking forward to being home. And yes, digitaleopard, I'm even looking forward to seeing you as well.

* The 6:2:1, for those not in the know, refers to 6 hours of sleep, 2 meals, and 1 shower. If you are unable to complete first two numbers, that's your problem. If you can't fulfil the second one, that's our problem. :)

Yes, we are on our way down south. J is as the helm of this boat and johnathan is in the passenger seat. I'm in the back with the laptop and the data connection. My next plan post is after we cross the Washington/Oregon border.

If I was was coming from the Santa Clara Hyatt Regency, which airport is easier to get to? According to my map, the difference in distance is less than 2 miles with the Oakland airport being just over 25 miles from the hotel and the San Francisco airport being just under 27 miles.

Yes, this is for BayCon in May, I am driving out with Phil and Joyce and then flying back into Seattle on Tuesday morning. The price difference between the two airports is literally just a penny with San Francisco clocking in at $83.49 as opposed to Oakland at $83.50, both on airlines I have never flown on, Virgin America and Alaska Air.

Of course, is there someone willing to drive me to the airport on Tuesday? :)