September 07, 2006 21:08

It's Thursday evening. Not much going on. I'm feeling a little restless, but I'm not sure that I should act on said restlessness. A lot has gone on over the past seven days. Let me relate...

After a good day of work last Thursday, instead of going home, I drove downtown and checked in to the Hilton. I had a nice room on the 24th floor, from which I had a nice view of the Marriott. I got changed, then set up my laptop and did some work to finish the day, while I enjoyed some television and arranged the rest of my evening. At what seemed like the best time, I wandered over to the Marriott and then to the Hyatt and picked up my badge. After getting my badge I ran into Jolie and chatted with her for a few minutes. Then I came back to my room, picked up a few items I would no longer need, and drove home.

Once home, I picked up my spare backpack, placed in it a bottle of whisky and walked up to the Local, where I dined on barbecue ribs (with corn and slaw) while waiting for Patrick. When Patrick was ready, I popped over the road to Green's to get some Jack, some Absolut, some Gran Marnier, some beer. Patrick collected me and we went back to his place to await additional bodies for poker. A good game was enjoyed and afterwards, Tom dropped me (with Jack, Asolut, and Shiner Bock) back at my hotel. I dropped off my stuff and then went for a walk to see who was around. I ran into Stacie, Joe, Ray. I hung out with them for a bit and then went back to my room for sleep.

I awoke and showered on Friday morning and got a few hours work done. Then it was off to Peachtree Center for breakfast/lunch, where I ran into Neil and Steph. We dined together and then went wandering off to our first panels. My first panel was at 1pm, and an introduction to the British Track panels. That was fairly boring, so I went to the Hyatt bar to hand out and see who was around. Over the next 72 hours, a reasonable amount of time was spent in the vicinity of that bar. Anyway, from there I headed over to the EFF track to catch Rosalie at the Self-Publishing panel. That was great and informative and I picked up one of her latest books while I was there.

My next panel had been cancelled, and since alcohol had started to fill in some of the downtimes, actual events get a little hazy in terms of order. But I do know that I caught up with Clair and Leann, and that I went to a Podcasting panel, and I did get a fairly early night.

Saturday got off to a good start with the Prisoner panel, followed by Mythbusters, and then Adult Swim, and then Britpop. I picked up people along the way. There were beverages. There was another podcasting panel. There was a Camelpak. There were photos. There was Scott and Phaedra and Brad. There was a wander over to the gaming rooms. There was running into Shane and hanging out with him. There was meeting new people. There was getting to bed around 7am.

Sunday got off to a slower start. I missed several of the panels I considered checking out. I did get to the Alan Moore panel, but most of the afternoon was spent at the bar, people watching. Later on I caught up with Ben, Laura, Jamie, Ian, Daniel, Kim. And then others. Lots of others. And got lots of good photos of costumes. That night found me eventually over at the games rooms, playing a card game called Werewolf. That was pretty fun. Bedtime was a little earlier Sunday night, about 6am.

Monday got off to a slow start as well. After eating, I met up with Stacie at the bar and we spent a couple of hours talking and chilling. Most people were looking pretty worn out by the weekend. I went back to my room for a nap, and then ended up packing up and checking out. It had been a fantastic 'Con, but I was done. I had had superb fun, caught up with lots of people who I hadn't seen in quite some time, met some new people (Nicole, Lisa, Lisa's friends, David, David's wife), enjoyed some interesting panels, learned a new game. Yeah, I enjoyed Dragon*Con 2006.

Back at home, I realized that I had left some stuff at the hotel, so I shot back to collect it. On my way back I thought I'd stop in at the Local for dinner and to wind down. We spent the evening watching episodes of South Park and laughing our asses off. A great way to finish a fantastic weekend.

Tuesday was back to work. I was a little slow and not very productive. But that was to be expected somewhat.

Wednesday started well, but a slight pain behind my eye grew in intensity and area into a migraine. I took some Excedrin, but it didn't help, so I came home and put myself to bed.

And that brings us to today. I had a productive day. And that's about all I've got to say for now.

Except that it looks like I'm not going to see Liverpool beat Spurs. At least not from inside Anfield, but hopefully from a pub in Liverpool. There's still the Champions League game, and the Bolton game, so I will hopefully still see them live sometime in the week I'm there.

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