2013-09-25

All,

So here we are with another blog post.  I have a ton of topics that I want to do but between finding time to write them all (it takes a while to dump this much “verbal vomit” on a page, trust me) and not wanting to overwhelm you all with too much at a time, I’ve been spacing these out.  This one however needs to be done now, while its all still fresh in my mind.   This one is actually going to be done as two separate posts.  The fist entitled “What the NST did at LAbN…” followed by “And why you should care.”  The first part is going to be mostly personal without much in the way of lessons, or inside dirt.  It will literally be me sharing my awesome (and I cant stress aweseome enough) time I had at LAbN.  So if you are genuinely curious where I was each day and what I was doing, please read on.  I’ll try to spice it up a bit, make it an entertaining read, but mostly this section will be me just saying “Wow! So! Much! Awesome!”  It wont have a TLDR because really it would just say that.  The second post will parse that info down into items that I think you all will genuinely find interesting and helpful as information on whats going on.  That one will have a TL:DR So, without further ado….

What the NST did as LAbN……

I was scheduled to depart Will Rogers world airport at 2PM CT on Thursday the 19th.  I’m horrible about last minute packing, but I’ve become pretty good at it.  I usually only forget one to two items.  That was not the case this time.  In my rush out the door I managed to forget….

1) One bottle of wine (to be used at a party I missed anyway)

2) My cell phone charger

3) My “pseudo-nice” jacket (intended for fancy dinner)

4) My E-cigarette charger

5) Real cigarettes

Despite all this I make it to the airport on time, excited and looking forward to a great weekend.  I get on my plane, a straight shot out to LA (which is impressive, normaly you cant fly out of OKC or into OKC without having a layover in DFW, Denver, Chicago or Atlanta). I was scheduled to arrive at 3PM PT. The magic of Time Zones. Gotta love it.  So I get on my plane having seen off in the distance a storm rolling in.  Now I think Oklahoma made news enough this spring with our storms, so ya’ll have an idea what a storm means.  So yeah, me and a few other passengers are all like “Um, can we take off. Now. Immediately. Please.” But of course not, they are dealing with some thing or another, and just as they finish and close the door to the plane – BLAM! The storm hits us.  The captain comes on all smooth and debonaire “Ladies and gentlemen it seems there is a storm overhead (Glad you noticed) and the tower has advised us they are looking at extreme windsheer conditions.  (Do ya think?) So we’re just going to wait this out on the runway, and we should be off shortly.” Shortly?  Yep, real short, just a brief, barely-noticable hour and 15 minutes later (keep in mind we were already 15 minutes late) we get to take off.  This is all made more entertaining by Hannah the Amazon.  Hannah is a very sweet young girl who appears about 15 or so, comes up to my chin.  She also looks like she’d make a great roller derby player.  Hannah it turns out is in 3rd grade.  They must grow ‘em big in her home town.  This is Hannah’s first plane ride and she’s a bit excited.  She’s flying to Alaska.  I’m fairly certain after spending 4 hours with Hannah that either she or her mother never made it to Alaska.  Just making it to LA had her mother was on the edge of a complete nervous breakdown.  Please dont get me wrong.  Hannah was a dear sweet girl, really. I’m sure that so long as you are not trapped on a plane with her for 4 hours straight you’d find her company pleasant, maybe even thoroughly enjoyable. Anyway, I arrive into LA – Hurrah!!!  Now, my shuttle that I had scheduled to pick me up an hour and a half before I actually landed – lets see if I can find it.  No, wait. First, I need a cigarette. Yes, I definitely need a cigarette. So I try to purchase a pack of cigarettes at LAX.  The gentlman is very nice and pleasant when I ask for the pack, and then he scans it in and smiles at me “That will be your left arm and right testicle please.” At least, thats what I heard come out of his mouth. It turns out he just wanted to charge the equivelant of a monthly morgage payment – not near as bad.  I choke it down, suck it up, hand over my left arm and right testicle, get my cigarettes and wander outside to find a nice smoking spot (why hurry right? I’m an hour and a half late.)

 

That’s when it hits me… I’m in California.  The state with draconian smoking laws where it seems you are only allowed to smoke inside your own house, in a special room which must be accessed through a environmentally sealed door labeled with haz-mat signs and a message from the surgeon general that reminds you that smoking has been determined to be the root cause of all deaths on the face of the planet and by the way, how could you disappoint your mother like this? Greeeeeat.  So I give up looking for a nice friendly sign that says “Dying by smoke inhalation allowed here” and just start looking for my shuttle.  Shortly I find my shuttle stop and I ask the nice man there if its possible to get a ride even though I am hour and 45 minutes late (it took me 15 minutes to give up on finding a nice place to put a nail in my coffin).  He asks me if I have my confirmation number.  Of course I have my confirmation number its on my phone.  Which is dying.  I quickly force my phone to search my emails for the confirmation number and get him that precious life saving string of random numbers.  Yes he says, a shuttle will be here in 20 minutes.  Awesome!  And I get brave enough to ask him, “Is there a designated smoking area somewhere here?”  I’m ready for his face to peel off and fire to shoot from his eyes as he lets out a hideous “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” noise.  Instead he looks around, shrugs his shoulders and smiles, “Hey man, as far as I know you can smoke anywhere around here.”

Victory is mine!

I carefully pack my precious, gold-plated pack of cigarettes, flip my lucky, draw forth a cigarette and light up. I stare around just daring the state of California to rise up against me. I am smoker!  Hear me *cough* *cough* *hack*.  Well, anyway…I get that first precious drag in, and then the shuttle pulls up. Wow, that was a fast 20 minutes.  I quickly crush out my barely smoked gold-plated cigarette, grab my bag and head for the shuttle.  The wonderful man who has promised transportation and granted me the right to destroy myself through sucking on burning leaves smiles and says “Oh no sir, this one is not for you.” But, but, but…. I crushed out my cigarette for this! This single cigarette cost the equivalent of an entire years wages if I was a Nepalese Sherpa.  How could this not be my shuttle? I knew he must be incorrect.  I would make him double check! I would make him see reason!  So I turned to him and said, “OK, thanks.” And quietly returned to holding up a large column, pulled out my second cigarette, and realized I could have bought a share of Apple stock for it.

Eventually my Shuttle arrives three shares of Apple stock later.  For those who don’t smoke, the average smoker takes 7 and a half minutes to smoke a cigarette.  Ever wonder where fifteen minute breaks come from?  Now you know.

The ride to the Queen Mary is an amazing bit of insight to why Road Rage shootings happen on LA freeways.  It was 5pm Pacific.  Rush Hour. I’m watching ten to twelve lanes of traffic going nowhere really fast (well, fast if you are a tortoise with a hangover).  The only guys getting anywhere are the sporadic motorcycles which go zipping between the lanes. I am amazed none of them end up dead because not infrequently people jump lanes for no obvious reason.  All I can grasp from the bizarre lane changing is that somewhere in the lizard part of their brain they hear a voice saying. “I know that other lane looks to be going as slow as this one, but if you change lanes, it will magically speed up!”

Eventually I make it to the Queen Mary – exhausted but ready for AWESOME to begin.  I am almost immediately greeted by Roo Wetzel.  Now those of you who don’t know Roo and her husband Nate, you all need to met them.  They are classic examples of great cammies. Seriously.  So Roo helps me find the check-in desk and tells me her room number.  This becomes important later. I get up to check-in and my card gets declined.  Seriously? I saved up big time for this.  I even got a bonus from work a week before the event, I was planning to spend like a mad man (Can’t you tell? I bought a pack of cigarettes at LAX).  So I check my account on my phone (which thank God is still kicking) and all the money is there.  So the check-in lady talks to me about cash and other options, and I get directed to an ATM.  I get declined at the ATM.  I call my bank, praying the phone lasts long enough to find out what madness is plaguing me. I get ahold of customer service, explain politely to the man on the other end of the phone that I am stranded in LA with no money if he cant help me.  He apologizes profuse and says he’ll look and see what the problem is.  “Ah,”  he says “I see the problem.  You have a block for being overdrawn on your account. DAMN! That pack of cigarettes was expensive! So I ask him how much my account says its overdrawn.  He says, “The current balance is $XXX”.  The amount he says is oddly enough exactly equal to the amount my phone has reported previously, and plenty of money to pay for the room hold.  So I ask him, “so how am I overdrawn again?”  And he politely replies “Yes, sir.  I see that doesn’t make sense.  Let me check on this.”  So I wait. Eventually he comes back and explains that has been taken care of I should try my card in the ATM again.  So I do.

Declined.

Seriously?  So I explain to the man it is still declining.  And he explains its not a problem on the banks end.  Must be the ATM.  I should try another.  So back to the front desk I go, asking about a different ATM.  I get directed to one, bump into a few people along the way, all of whom are trying to greet me and be friendly and all I can think is “How am I going to eat?”  I could make a little sign that says “Homeless NST.  Will grant approvals for food”  At least I have my cigarettes.  I get to the second ATM.  This one is all modern and fancy looking (the other looked like it might have been created when the Queen Mary was commissioned).  Surely this one will work and life will be good.  I insert my card, and it gets immediately rejected.  Doesn’t even ask for a PIN.  Straight up denied.  Then I hear it laughing at me. Its evil digital laugh relishing my despair, frustration, and utter lack of composure.  My card drops from my hand, the camera of my life pans out for a wide angle top down shot, all the people disappear and I let out a bellow of complete and total failure, “WHY???????????????????”

Resigned to my fate, I check my back up card, knowing it wont have enough credit on it.  Yep.  $100 short for being able to use that card.  Card A, lots of happy numbers all denied me.  Card B much smaller number and not enough to make magic happen.

So, hat in hand, I trundle down to the front desk to plead my sob story. My bank says its not a problem with them or my card, the ATMs and front here say its my card.  I get to speak with Mario, and explain my sob story to Mario.  Mario turns out to have a heart of gold, and the magic button pressing powers.  He cuts down my deposit by $150 bucks leaving $50 to live on for the weekend.  But I have a room, and a pack of cigarettes.  That’s all I need! And this thermos! (and kudos to the three of you in this club that actually get that joke).

So, room key in hand, hat back on my head, I spot Roo.  I wander over and ask her once more for her room number.  With all the numbers I had just dealt with – magical numbers which appear in one place but not in another seemingly – I needed a reminder.  Roo very graciously provided me the number once more, and off I go to my room to freshen up and relax a bit.  Except this ship is big. I mean “that’s no moon…” kind of big. So I’m a bit lost.

I find this amazing looking gentlemen who is obviously staff by his ultra cool historic naval style uniform and name tag, and ask him if he can help me.  Now, please keep in mind the grand adventures I have previously described.  By this point in time I looked a disheveled mess, and reek of travel and quiet desperation.  This gentlemen, kindly explains to me how to find my room (because I couldn’t follow the simple directions given to me by Mario at the front desk) and at one point he uses the word “Sir” when addressing me.  Now, I use the words sir and ma’am a great deal. Its a southern thing. I know southerners don’t consider Oklahoma the south (I don’t either) but my mother is from Atlanta, and she raised me.  I have been to GA more times than I can count.  I have met an 8th cousin (her name was Harmony and she was cute). Try topping that! (Members from Kentucky not allowed to participate – you have an unfair advantage). And its a running joke in my family that we are related to half the state of GA. So, yeah, I get the whole southern use of the words sir and ma’am.  But when this gentleman called me sir, it came out as Sir Member-of-a-royal-order.  It came out as Sir gentleman-of-distinction-and-honor.  It shit you not, he managed to pack into the tone and inflection of one single word the sense that I was a first class passenger on a luxury liner in the first half of the 20th century.  It was awesome!  The Awesome had finally begun!

As I’m walking to my room a player that I had been working with just that week to resolve some issues stops me.  He’s obviously excited and seems to be ready for a great weekend.  He lets me know he had just finished talking with my ANST and they had things quite well worked out.  He explained the situation, and indeed, it sounded like things were now headed in a genuinely positive direction.  The Awesome was continuing.

I finally got to my room, and it was full of Awesome and Win. I had decided to splurge on the room (OK, because I didn’t book the instant the rooms became available I kind of had to splurge, but I was OK with it).  It was really evocative and full of ambiance.  I begin to unpack, discover all the things I left at home, and decide not to sweat it.  After freshening up a bit, I review the schedule. Mummy at 8PM!!!! MUMMY!!!!!!!!! table top of course, but MUMMY!!!!  Now I have plans for 930-ish, but still, I’m not letting mummy go without stopping by at least.

So I head off to find Exhibit Hall F.  I look at the map of the ship, and see its on the first floor. So I head down to the first floor, where I find…nothing! No exhibit hall, just the elevator up.  So obviously I took the wrong elevator. So I begin riding elevators.  And continue to fail to find this magical mythical Exhibit Hall F. So, ladies, I know what you are thinking “Typical guy! He wont ask anyone for directions.”  Not so!  I ran into Tracy Soldan (yet another amazing cammie) and we discussed the mystery of Exhibit Hall F.  Sadly, neither of us solved the great enigma and I continue wandering.  As luck would finally have it (30 minutes later) I run into a lovely couple from Canada who had just received their Mummy Deluxe edition and were on their way to the mummy game. And they knew the secret to unlock the gateway to Arcadia.

So they led me back down to the first floor, out the main entrance, over through the creepy large gates, down towards the stern of the ship, and onto a little jetty connecting you back to the ship where you could enter into the enourmous bowels of the ship.  I had arrived at the Exhibit Hall!

I get my mummy on with a great ST from Dead Gamer Society (I told him at the start I had to leave early) and some equally awesome folks that didn’t know in the least.  But trust me.  They were awesome too.  At 9:15 I’m off.  I head toward Roo’s room when it dawns on me – I have forgotten the number – again.  I’ll just wander up and down the halls and eventually I’ll run into somebody who can help me, right?  Well, I do run into people.  Plenty of  amazing people. And I have lots of quick conversations and get lots of excitement vibes from folks.  Eventually I head up to the Sun Deck for a smoke, where I realize I’m just not going to find the room.

So it is that I decide I’m going to just wait around for the scheduled VIP party (like I said earlier, I decided to splurge so I bought one of those fancy VIP tickets) So at the appointed hour I trundle on off to the VIP party.  I wasn’t especially surprised at the crowd that was there, several folks I would have expected, and several folks I didnt know.  I spent most of the evening with folks I didnt know, which was kind of cool actually, meeting new people.  I also finally got to meet my ANST Apocalypse in person.  This is also where I first ran into Ms. Adler (name changed to protect the innocent) at the con.  More on that later.

I spent the evening drinking made up cocktails, chatting with folks I didnt know and a few I did – I had some NST business that I dealt with and listened to a few folks talk about what they disliked about this or that which was coming out of my office.  And that was actually good.  I like to hear what people think when its constructive. And I got that in spades. It was (you know its coming) awesome!

Eventually Ms. Adler wandered off, so I decided to head to my room and called it a night. On the way I run into some San Diego folks I met at NCRE and we sit and chat for abit.  They are having pizza and offer me a slice. Victory! Great company and food.  Sorry, I mean Awesome company. We chat for a bit and eventually I head off to bed.  And that was all just day 1.

Friday I wake up at 7AM.  No alarm, just me waking up.  Gotta be the time change. So I SSS and get ready for my day.  Checking the schedule, I need to be at Requiem at 6pm, and there is the BoD announcements/meeting at 10AM. I’m excited to see who gets the Of The Year awards.  Before this though I decide to take a little of that precious $50 I have for the weekend, and see about breakfast.  I head on to the Cafe on the Queen Mary, and get seated.  They ask me if I’d like coffee.  Of course I’d like coffee.  And then I take a look at the menu.  That coffee just cost me $4, and it only gets better from there.  I quickly begin scanning the exits.  Can I make a break for it?  Any chance I can get out of here with my wallet in tact? I begin to examine the table and settings, going all Man vs Wild as I plan on how to optimzie the available utensils to aid me in my mad dash to freedom.  Just as I’m ready to make good my escape, they return with my coffee. “Would you like to take advantage of the breakfast bar?”  Is it a large object I can swing about me as I flee the scene? No, sadly it is all you can eat eggs and sausage and bacon and…hhhmmm, perhaps I can go all Grizzly bear and stuff myself silly to hold me over till Sunday night? Yes, thats the plan.  Obviously I was delirious with hunger, because that thought actually crossed my mind.  Eat until I explode! “That sounds fine, thank you.”  And off I go. I have my fill and finally exit, almost half my remaining funds drained.

I make my way to the super secret hidden Exhibit Hall F, now that I know the special handshake.  Seeing all the BoD lined up and finally getting to try and put faces with names is pretty exciting for me. I speak with these folks on a regular basis, and let me tell you we have some really amazing folks on the BoD (are you noticing a trend here about amazing people? I noticed).  So as they are getting ready to get started I’m looking forward to their introductions so I can nail down who is who.  I don’t know about you all but for me, people almost never look like their profile pictures.  They jump right into it.  Well, thats OK, surely I’ll be able to pick out who’s who as we go through.

They handle the Trustee Awards, which were no suprise to me, and well deserved.  I think Drew almost cried.  I love that we have an award that carries that much value – that says “You have made a serious long lasting impact on this club, and we want to thank you and recognize you for it.”  There’s a lot that has to happen to become a Trustee, and the nominee is not involved in one single step of it.  Its all a lot of work by other people who feel jumping through a lot of hoops is worth it for someone.   It was an honor to meet both Todd and Drew in person finally.

The Of The Year awards were fun.  Roo Wetzel is the BoD secretary type person (thats a technical term), so as they are going through all the announcements she is dutifully typing away taking notes.  When they announced her for Member Of The Year, she litterally jumped, the shock and surprise obvious on her face.  It was a priceless moment.  She really is that kind of humble, no games, straight up friendly, and dedicated to making things better for others kind of person. Yep, I’m talking about another Amazing Cammie (thats goona need caps from here on out I think).

After the meeting I get to meet Chris Williams from the NW.  Folks, if you have never dealt with Chris Williams, you are missing out.  He is cool and collected, considerate, and all together awesome.  (Who’s surpised I used the word awesome again? But seriously, he is.) After a great but brief conversation with Chris, I got to chat with David Bounds in person (finally).  I know many of you are familiar with Mr. Bounds, but this was my first time to chat with him in person.  You all know its coming….He’s awesome.

I dont exactly remember the next few hours aside from wandering about the boat meeting people, having a great time, checking in on games.  Eventually, I head back to my room to change for Requiem.

Requiem was awesome.  I wish I could name off all the great folks I dealt with.  I do specifically want to call out all the players of Sons of Carthage, and the young lady who was playing the head of the Invictus for the night.  I had such awesome interaction with all of you.  Playing wasn’t my primary point in coming to LAbN, it was primarily social for me, meeting people OOC, but wow – the Requiem players helped me have a fantastic time.  You all rocked!

After the game I’m chatting with a few different groups of awesome people when I get approached by a trio from Hawaii.  They wanted to thank me for helping them out with their recent FGoTM.  I asked them if they had some time to hang out because I wanted to know what they felt National could do to help them feel incorporated into the larger game.  I spent a good hour talking with these folks.  I wish everybody could meet these people.  They were just awesome, and loads of fun to talk to, and they wanted to invite every cammie to come on out and visit them in Hawaii.  How many of you ever thought you’d say “Yeah, I have friends in Hawaii that want me to come visit.”  Well, you do, trust me.  They gave me all kinds of tips and tricks about how to make the trip cost effectively.  Thats info they are willing to share with any other member who wants to know. Hawaii folks.  Hawaii.  You have a standing invitation to Hawaii with awesome people who want to help you get there for a lot less than you might think, and help you keep your costs down while you are there, and generally want to show you a great time in Hawaii.

I know I’m taking advantage of that!  How much cooler can it get than having really awesome folks from Hawaii invite you to come visit? Gorgeous islands, awesome friends, great LARPs. Yeah, I’m sold.

After that I end up hanging out with more folks, chatting it up and having a great time. So many Awesome Cammies.  Eventually I head off to bed.  Day two down and one to go.

Day three for me is planned to be about the seminars.  I am again awakened at 7AM for no particularly good reason.  Insert morning routine, and off to the first Seminar I want to see.  Eddy Webb discussing types of players.  Neat little lecture, I enjoyed it.  It was nice to see his take on things, and it gave me some things to think about.

Next up, Jason Andrew giving us some practical steps on how to start writing.  He doesnt just lecture mind you, he gives us proven ideas, and has us put them into practice right then and there (writers write).  Now, when we are done with our all to brief time getting practical usable tips on getting things rolling, he does something I would never have expected.  He provided us with his direct contact information, and let us know that the group we had just been starting a writing assignment for had a deadline of two weeks from now (short stories – so very do-able). He would review our submission for us if we finihsed it in time and sent it to him.  I want you all to really appreciate what kind of offer that is.  I know that successful published authors get requests to review things for aspiring authors all the time.  They dont have time to do that, really even if they wanted to. And then how do you choose who you will review and who you wont?  Well, it looks like Jason decided he would choose the route of “If I give you advice on how to make it happen, and you show me you put that into effect, I will help you on the next step too.”  FOR FREE folks!  How totally awesome!!!! Jason blew me away.  Really.  I cant imagine a more generous offer from a published author, on top of his taking time to work with us to get us started.  It was an amazing hour.

Next up, Rich Thomas of OPP and what they have planned.  He went over their whole schedule (which I was already fairly familiar with – I am a fanboi) and just generally talked about how things are going with OPP.  I enjoyed it.

Next hour was BNS.  I know a lot of folks had been waiting for this.  Blood and Betrayal went really well from all I have heard, and they had a decent size crowd on hand for their updates on whats going down.  It was nice to actually see the whole BNS crew.  I already knew a few of them, and have found all the members of BNS I have worked with personally (Jason Carl, Jason Andrew, and Ric Connelly) to be really genuinely great people.  (I did just finish raving about Jason Andrew as you’ll recall).  I enjoyed hearing from them what plans are (But Russ, you’re NST.  Surely you have ALL the inside dope?  Nope, but that doesnt mean I dont try It does mean however that I get an opportunity to reach out to these folks and try to make magic happen.  And these folks (as well as the OPP folks) are all about making magic happen.)

I went ahead and took off before the two hour Q&A with BNS and OPP. I had evil sneaky plans to catch some of these folks one on one later and chat ‘em up.  I wandered around and chatted with more folks.  Sorry, I meant more Awesome folks.  And then, I went to my room to change for dinner.  Remember I had bought that VIP package, so I had a big dinner scheduled for tonight.

As I mentioned very early on, I had left my dinner jacket at home, so I recycled my character’s suit jacket and tried to look half way decent for dinner.  When I walked into Sir Winston’s for dinner I immediately knew this was going to be….wait for it……awesome!  From the minute I arrived till I left, I felt like I had been transported back and I was a first class passenger on the Queen Mary (yep, recollections of “sir” should come to mind).  We were served cocktails shortly after we arrived.  This was followed by an appetizer of fresh salmon, a nice salad (and I dont like salad so thats saying a lot) followed by an intermezzo of sorbet.  Then our entrees.  I chose the Halibut.  It was amazing!  We were served wine thoughout dinner.  The meal finished with dessert and coffee.  It was truly magnificent.  As cool as that might sound (and seriously it was ultra-mega-awesome cool) it was the company that made dinner so spectacular.  Of course the actual con special guests were there (the BNS crew, the OPP crew, some CCP crew) and I got some one on one time with a few of them (Jason Carl, Ric Connelly, Rich Thomas) and it was amazing.  I even ended dinner by heading to the bar with Rich Thomas and having casual conversation over drinks.  At one point I stepped out of the bar to smoke (one of my ludicrously expensive cigarettes).  Apparently I chatted too long outside and they locked the bar on me.  I feel bad about that because it means Rich had to pick up the tab.  Hopefully he doesnt think I’m a horrible cheap skate who skipped out on purpose.

So after being locked out of the bar I decided to head to the Succubus club.  I arrived, got drinks and headed over to the VIP section.  Now, if you think VIP section in a club you are probably imaging private tables and a velvet rope right?  Well thats what we got, with an awesome Cleopatra couch. It was awesmazing! (thats awesome and amazing for those that didnt catch it.)  So I’m wandering around the Succubus Club in the company of a beautiful amazing woman, occassionally sitting in the VIP section, and having the night of my life.  I occassionally wander off to the Sun Deck to smoke, and back to the Succubus Club. I had to be up somewhat early in the morning for my flight out, and I definitely need to not have a hangover for the long trip back.  But I did not want to let that evening end.  We were out at the Veranhda Grill after party all the way till 4AM. I was exhausted, my feet hurt, and finally practicality over came me and I admitted I needed to sleep.

Then I went to bed and slept on cloud nine.  And as truly memorable as all of this was, the greatest highlight of my weekend was Ms. Adler.  Thank you Ms. Adler for an unforgettable weekend.

 

In the morning I got myself ready for my shuttle ride, and got to talk with Charlie Rose on the way to LAX. I had a three hour flight to DFW in which I sat next to a very nice man who smelled somewhat akin to a wet dog.  I managed to be exhausted enough to sleep most of the flight thankfully. With the time difference I arrive in DFW at a little after 6PM

From DFW I flew home to OKC.  When I arrived at just after 8PM, I couldnt find my luggage.  After politely complaining to the nice people at American about loosing my luggage one of the luggage guys pointed to my suitcase and said “Is this it?” DOH! I’m an idiot. I make some feeble excuse about being shape dyslexic, often confusing rectangles for trapezoids, and quickly flee the scene with my bag.

Finally I made it home.  My trip is over, I am worn thin, but at the same time I am so jazzed and full of excitement I end up being unable to sleep till midnight.

It was awesome. Pure unadulterated awesome.

 

So that was my LAbN experience with a few gory details left out.  If you actually read all that, I’m impressed.  Hopefully you got some laughs, and got a chance to experience LAbN vicariously through me for a moment or two.  In the next blog (coming soon) I’ll explain how what happened at LAbN is going to be affecting you.

The post What the NST did at LAbN… appeared first on Mind's Eye Society.

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