So, this is my first ever post to my Author website. This goes hand in hand with my first ever publishing, which will be happening 20 September, but closely followed by the publishing of my first ever accepted story, which will be out 11 October. I will post details and links for both once I have them. This DragonCon also saw the first time I was ever on a panel, which I will get to. It was also the first time I have gone without my wife since 2004.
However, most importantly, this DragonCon was my chance to take Donnie, a dear friend of mine and son of my late fiancee Tammy, to his first DragonCon. I cannot explain the range of emotions I went through constantly while I did so. As she had taken me to my very first DragonCon in 2002, I had a desperate desire to walk him through the play by play of (almost) everything that we had done back then. I refrained as best as I could. It was also my first chance to spend time with just him since 2003, when he was four years old. He is twenty now. I can only hope I was not overwhelming. Conversely, I also felt immediate guilt, though I know I should not, every time we wound up doing separate things. It’s DragonCon for cryin’ out loud. It’s assumed everyone’s going to split up to make sure that everyone gets to do the things they want to do. Unfortunately I, for reasons, always imagine I can do everything with everyone.
All told, it was an incredible weekend. It always is, of course, but this one, for all the reasons above, was particularly special. The major absences were the Ezell’s and my wonderful, gorgeous wife. Sorely missed, but we soldiered on nonetheless.
Wednesday
I finally had a chance to pack and decided to stick to my trusty battle tested costumes of year’s past. Out of respect for my non-attending wife I left my one pound sugar daddy and my “Who Wants a Sugar Daddy?” T-shirt behind. I also failed to bring along any games of any kind, an oversight I can only attribute to the years I did not attend DragonCon while we were in England. I will have to re-establish my habits as we resume regular attendance.
I met Donnie at our departing airport but we had separate flights and planned to meet back up at the hotel. He was scheduled to arrive one hour before me, but became subject to the same evil voodoo magic that I encountered when I attempted to travel to LibertyCon earlier this year. He wound up arriving five hours after me.
When I arrived at the hotel, I had more than enough time to fully move in, change into a kilt, and head back down to seek people out. Sadly, by the time I did so, nearly midnight, most were already turning in for the night. I caught a glimpse of Griffin Barber and his lovely way-out-of-his-league wife Karen while I was on the smoking deck of the Hyatt. We chatted briefly but they quickly went off to bed themselves. I finished my cigar and wandered up to the Speakeasy to meet up with Doc, Brian, and the Evil Penguin. Eventually, Donnie arrived, I got him to the room and we promptly passed out.
Thursday
As my millennial slept in, I found a burst of energy in the morning and actually, can you believe, went to the gym. At DragonCon. To re-phrase- I was AT DRAGONCON, and I went to the gym. I’m being serious. This really happened, why are you all looking at me like that?
Moving along, when I said “battle tested” costumes of years past I somehow forgot that the left boot for my Captain Hammer costume had come apart from the rubber base almost catastrophically back at LibertyCon. In Air Force jargon I failed to ops test my equipment when packing. So, when I threw the Hammer costume on, I was immediately walking with a silly limp attempting to keep it from coming clean off until I could get some glue.
In the meantime, Donnie donned his simply brilliant cosplay for Percy from Critical Role. It was very well done and he got a lot of recognition throughout the Con.
We failed miserably to coordinate having breakfast with the Barbers, but they met up with us when we were just about done eating.
We immediately split back up so that I could get my Eternal member badge (I was lying when I told Griffin that eternal members have their badges sent up to their room by an attractive masseuse with a bottle of champagne. Sorry, Griff). Still, it is a walk right up and get your badge situation. It’s pretty nice.
Afterward, I re-learned two DragonCon rules: 1) You have not attended DragonCon until you have stood in the never-ending line for your badge, and 2) if a line comes out of a building and wraps off in one direction, it’s probably best to circumnavigate the building in the other direction in order to find the end of the line.
By the time Donnie had a badge, it was time for us to split up already as I had planned two consecutive meetings at the infamous Meehans Public House to discuss various projects. I made a quick stop to buy some gorilla glue to fix my boot. Crisis averted.
Doc Wohlrab and I made decent progress on my Very Big Idea, though unfortunately that project as a whole will need to wait until we both have fewer immediate term commitments. I met with Kevin Ikenberry to discuss a story I had written for him, or so I thought. Instead, he was somehow able to Jedi mind trick me into writing a novel, based on a different story, much earlier than I was planning. I’m starting to feel he should get as much credit as girl Kacey for his ability to convince people to do things.
Donnie went off to a panel while I was meeting, so I attempted to get us signed up for some RPG sessions. This is when I discovered that such things can be pre-registered, and that if you haven’t the choices are scarce and probably won’t fit your schedule. Again, my DragonCon bag of tricks is empty from lack of attendance and I must re-stock it. I did discover that we could get general use tickets for quick two hour games, so I got some of those.
I grabbed some Chik-Fil-A, met back up with Donnie for a quick dinner, then headed off to the Black Hat Ball hosted by Sherrilyn Kenyon. Good times, and I again met up with Kevin Ikenberry who had a table there.
Upon departing the Ball, I wandered to the Westin bar and found my way to the Great Minds of the Four Horsemen Universe, notably Mark Wandrey with his wonderful wife Joy, Jon Osborne, and Chris Kennedy himself, together with his infamous wife Sheellah. If I am forgetting anyone, please forgive me, my mind is not what it used to be. Chris hinted he was already aware that Ikenberry had mind-flayed me into writing something Chris had not greenlit, but we were consistently cut off by the never ending stream of Chris Kennedy’s great horde of fans. “The Talk” would have to wait until another night. Donnie wished to wander off and I went as well to drop a few things off at the room.
I will say I have learned that Thursday night has become interesting due to the Bunny Hutch in the Hilton. This leads just about everyone, it seems, to add bunny ears to their outfits and creates an abundance of skimpier than usual outfits (which is saying quite a lot). I might have to attend someday.
Thursday night I ended up in the Speakeasy again, but with a greater number of people. In particular, I had a great discussion that night with Griffin, who gave me wonderful insight into this world of writers I find myself jumping into. The discussion began with Griffin joking that he hung out on that particular balcony in the hopes that one day he could catch sight of someone in the International Tower having “relations” with an open curtain. Alas, it had not yet happened, but he remained hopeful. A while later, while talking, I suddenly found myself witnessing just such an event, in the directly adjacent window. We attempted to subtly swap our viewpoints so that he could confirm, which he did. Unfortunately, we must have been slightly too obvious because the curtain was pulled immediately thereafter.
Afterwards, I turned in for a relatively early night, as all knew that Friday was the first major day of DragonCon. Loud as it was, we were actually still in the quiet before the storm.
So I headed to bed with dreams of panels and friends and cosplay and the exhibitors hall and the fact that I was now on the hook to write a no kidding novel much sooner than I had expected.
I will continue with Friday at a later date, hopefully tomorrow.
