Natterings From Nepantla

After illness, an emergency, the SO being unable to make it, and other business failed to stop me travelling, what finally got me was a taxi not showing up.

( Detailed travel woes )

So a matter of a few minutes turned into a 24-hour delay. I reported the situation to the Westercon mailing list, changed my bus reservation, and started looking at hotels near the Reno airport. Not long after, I heard from the con chair, who was putting the word out to other staff members who might be passing through Reno to see if any of them might be able to pick me up on the way.

That did not pan out, and I had figured it probably wouldn't, so I used part of my unexpected time at the airport to convert the gaming signup sheets into a format that could be printed from any modern computer, figuring I'd probably be asking someone already at the con to print them out for me. Once in Reno and at my hotel, no last-minute chance encounter with someone who happened to be travelling to Westercon from the Reno airport having occurred, I sent them to the head of programming, along with a separate note about them in case the e-mail with attachments got caught in a spam filter. Then a couple hours later I realized that what I really should do was send them to the staff mailing list, which would allow me to see whether they got though, plus it would let them get to whoever was still able to check their e-mail, which busy people like the head of programming might not be. Not my most organized moment, there.

Anyway, the signup sheets did get printed and I'm now at the Reno airport again, able to catch the bus and get to Tonopah this evening. The net effect is that there's no game library at the con today, and the Friday afternoon KeyForge session had to be cancelled. There is at least no effect on the two games being run by one of the guests of honor, since the signup sheets are in place and his first session isn't until Saturday afternoon. So it could be worse, but I have still caused a program item to be cancelled, and made extra work for multiple people, and I feel like I've let the whole convention down.

So, stuff happens, but the next reasonable question is what do I do to make sure this doesn't happen the next time I'm on a con staff? I have managed the early-morning hustle down to the bus stop before, but travelling with enough luggage for a full convention, probably the better solution is to order the taxi an hour earlier from now on.

It is inevitable that as you get close to a convention, someone will wind up having to back out at the last moment. The Westercon gaming track has lost an RPG session because the GM won't be able to make it. That's okay, there's a backlog several ideas that didn't make it onto the schedule, so its replacement is a session where I see if anyone wants to learn to play KeyForge. Or maybe where I encounter someone who has, unlike me, kept in practice during the pandemic, and get soundly defeated.

The bigger loss is that the SO, who was going to split gaming room supervision duty with me, isn't going to make it. An item has been added to the "help wanted" page on the Westercon site looking for additional room hosts, but so far no luck. I'm currently figuring that I will just be spending most of the con there and closing the game library when I need a meal break. At least we know this ahead of time so I can be prepared.

After two consecutive years of being cancelled, GameStorm is back and I am absolutely going even if I have to wear a full environment suit.

Actually, late March looks like good timing for the next pandemic lull, which makes it baffling to me that they cut off registration at February 1 and aren't allowing at-con registration. A lot of people are going to be making late decisions that they do want to go, and then being frustrated because GameStorm really did not make the announcement very prominently.

Next up is hopefully Enfilade! in late May. Its official site is still talking about 2021, but there's a Tabletop.Events listing at an easily guessable URL, so my hope is that things are in motion behind the scenes.

PaizoCon is still irritatingly scheduled the same week as Enfilade!, but it's one day longer, and Paizo has promised that it will have an online component in perpetuity, so I can just sign up for some online gaming on that one day.

It did occur to me that I could just try to go from Olympia to SeaTac at the end of Enfilade! and try to have one day of in-person PFS, but the logistical overhead is probably not worth it.

Origins is back to its usual dates in June, and just sent me an e-mail that I have an outstanding balance with them. It took me a minute to remember that I'd registered in 2020 before Origins Online fell apart. With no apparent online gaming component this year, I guess I won't have any use for that.

In July it's Westercon, which I'd better be at what with running the gaming track and all.

Gen Con is back to its usual weekend as well, at the start of August, and is keeping both Gen Con Online and Pop-Up Gen Con. I think it's worth taking a couple vacation days for the first and I may try to go to the second again, if any gaming store on this side of town is participating.

And then Worldcon is back in its usual zone on Labor Day weekend, and I'm hoping to go in person this year.

I'm sure one or more of these plans will fall apart, but my attitude these days is that the more plans I make, the harder the universe must work to frustrate them all, and the less it hurts when I have to cross one off.

It is frequently said these days that freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences. Case in point: the consequences of my post about Westercon and gaming are that people encouraged me to at least try volunteering to run the gaming track, so I did, and I am in fact going to be running gaming at Westercon.

I made it to Kumoricon last weekend, and enjoyed seeing a few people I haven't seen in a couple years, giving a talk about history of conventions, going to a talk about 150 years of trains in Japan, doing a bit of smoffing, learning mahjong, and so forth. The attempt to run a game did not go so well, though.

( A tale of drama and intrigue out of all proportion to what is being attempted )

The one thing I can do directly is take care to ensure that nothing like this happens in my gaming room.