(no subject)

I need to post an update with correct information about the death of my friend Devin.

He was bicycling home from the faire around 12:30 or 1 o' clock. It was dark and foggy. He had dark clothes on and no lights on the bike. He might have been wearing headphones at the time too. So he wasn't being as safe as he could, should, have been. (If I'd been living here long enough to realize he was riding at night without lights, I would have bought him some damn lights. *sighs*)

Though I originally heard that it was a drunk driver who struck him, that seems not to be the case. Instead, it was an 18 year old girl who was blind in one eye, and was supposed to be wearing corrective glasses to drive, but wasn't because she'd lost them. It sounds like she was maybe sleepy (she said she took a long blink at the time) and records also show that she got a call on her cellphone at the time of the accident.

So things could have been done better on both sides, but the girl is looking at five to ten years in jail for all of this. Devin's family and that of the girl seem to both be looking at it as a terrible accident with bad decisions, to greater or lesser extents, being made on both sides. They hugged at the arraignment, and are asking his friends and family to please not hate this girl who made some terrible choices and mistakes and will have to live with having killed someone for the rest of her life.

I guess in the end, I'd just like to ask everyone who reads this to please not drive while taking on a cellphone. Even hands-free cell phone conversations can be distracting. I just read a section of a book all about driving and traffic that talks about distractions drivers are subject to, and I believe there's some validity to the argument that dealing with a cell phone while driving can be dangerous regardless. But especially if you don't have a hands free system, please just wait until you can pull over to make or answer a call. That call isn't important enough to harm or kill yourself or someone else over. Just because you or I may have a cell phone doesn't mean we need to be available 24/7 without notice. When I get a text in my car, or if I need to make a call, I pull over. I've answered the phone when someone called me in the past, but I don't believe I'm going to be doing that anymore either. It's not that important. It can wait.


Devin with an Old Ceramic Insulator

© Stormdog 2009

http://www.flickr.com/photos/stormdog42/6024669272/

(no subject)

I want to write about Gen Con before tomorrow morning when I drive off to the northern wilds of Minnesota and the Michigan UP.

The day that danaeris and I were going to leave, she gave me a call and told me that a friend of hers, Mik, is on a trip through most of the United States and was in Chicago that day. She asked if I'd be interested in meeting him in the city and showing him around some of downtown. Of course!

I drove to Union Station and parked nearby, meeting up with Mik soon after. We took the brown line over to Milennium Park and walked around the area, where I showed him the spitting fountains and the bean. From there we walked to the Chicago Cultural Center, then north to the river to see the (closed, but he came back to it later) Bridgehouse Museum and the giant Marilyn Monroe. From there it was west along the river, then south back to the car. I think he enjoyed himself, and I had fun.

From there we drove west to Aurora where the three of us had dinner at Bally Doyle. Then he went on his way toward Madison, and Danae and I loaded up her car and drove west toward Indianapolis. I drove the whole length of the trip; without having to trade off drivers we could listen to Jim Butcher's Ghost Story non-stop! (Well, ok, we stopped once for gas.) We drove through the same giant field of wind turbines that my family and I went through on the way to Florida, and they were just as cool. Especially in the dark, when it's just hundreds of blinking red lights that shined off the slowly rotating blades before disappearing again.

We found the hotel and got settled in easily enough. On Wednesday morning we got to the convention center and bought badges and discussed how to get event tickets. We decided on going back to the hotel and buying them, then picking them up at will-call on Thursday. I learned that I couldn't buy tickets online because of some computer glitch having to do with my email address, so she bought some for me. Wednesday evening, we walked over to Union Station to check out some open gaming that was supposed to be happening there. We weren't successful, but the station was amazing! We went back to the hotel and played a game or two in the second floor lobby where a few other gamers were doing the same thing.

On Thursday morning, we went back to the convention center and were staggered by the line for will call. It was a three hour wait. I made a video on my phone, walking the entire length of the line, when wandered off to photograph things and to find the session of Australian Rails I was signed up. Danae later told me that, rather than wait through all of will-call, she went to the customer service counter. She stated that she'd like to either have her tickets refunded, or for customer service to give her her tickets. They chose the latter option. Nice.

Other events kind of blur over the course of the con. We played a bunch of games. In the exhibit hall we demoed Yggdrasil, which was a new game from Z-Man Games, the makers of Pandemic. There were a lot of echoes of Pandemic in it, and I'm looking forward to playing more of it once Danae buys it. She was going to pick it up at the con, but they were sold out. We demoed Tanto Cuare, a Japanese import deckbuilding game which revolves around buying maids to come work for you in your mansion. I commented to Danae that I wasn't sure whether the game was actually that fun, or whether I was just having one of those really rare 'typical guy' moments, but I wanted to buy it. And I did. I even paid extra for card sleeves and pretty Japanese foil promo cards. 'Cause I'm a sucker for anime girls.

Mayfair game was running a promotion that involved playing certain games to earn badge ribbons that has various Settlers of Catan resources on them. When you had all the basic ones, you got a Knight of Catan ribbon, plus a 50% off coupon for their booth. Danae and I paid for the armband at their room one night, which let us take out all the games we wanted to play for the night from 8 to 12. Mayfair seems to have a nack for games that have a simple mechanic and are easy to learn and fun and quick to play. Given that our collections seem to focus on things like Power Grid and Arkham Horror, these would be good things for us to have! There was one I would have bought, except, it too was sold out. If I see Station Master at Rockhead's here in Kenosha, I think I'll pick it up.

Speaking of Rockhead's, I bumped into the owner while in one of the game halls waiting for Danae to arrive for a scheduled event of Mansions of Madness. That was a nifty game that Danae is also going to buy a copy of. It's quite like Betrayal at House on the Hill, but quite different too, and I think I find it more appealing though I like the both.

And speaking of seeing people I know, it made me all warm and fuzzy that one of the women with RSI (the company that runs a PBM called Duel II [formerly Duelmasters]) remembered me and my family from all the Gen Cons we'd gone to in the past! She asked how I and they were doing and we chatted for a while about me going back to school and what I was interested in doing there. I saw Bruce Yoder while hanging around the Duelmasters area too. He not only remembered me, but he remembered the year he helped me win the Duelmasters tournament, what my character was, who I'd gone up against to win, and what our fighting styles were. Wow.

Of course I played some Duelmasters, like I always did (do!). This year though, it was kind of like TV for me. I got characters created, set up parameters for the first turn, and just had them run forever. Then I picked up the turns and had fun paging through them and seeing what happened. Danae let me make a team using her slot, so I had my own team, Inclement Weather, and a second who I called Architects of Victory (shortened by necessity to Victory Architects). The fighters in that stable were all named after architects or architectural firms. I doubt there's much of a crossover between architecture geeks and PBM gamers, but I really hope somebody was getting a huge laugh out of seeing fighters like Adler Sullivan or Hollabird Roche.

Deckbuilding games seem to be an 'in' thing these days, so I got to play a few of them. One night at our hotel, folks in the lobby were playing something called Nightfall, which is a werewolf-themed one. It had some interesting mechanics in it, but somehow it didn't really grab me. We got to play another one at the convention center one evening called Ascension. That one I rather enjoyed. Rather than a set pile of 10 cards to buy from through the game, there's a wide variety that's all shuffled together into a draw deck. Then, you have four cards out at a time that anyone can buy and you don't know what's going to be available for purchase coming up. It was pretty engaging.

We ate at Noodles and Company a few times. Danae hadn't been there before, but I think it's safe to say she's now a fan. We ate at the convention hall a few times too. As well as the ubiquitous, there was a place selling pre-made sandwiches with wonderfully over the top names. I wish I'd taken a picture of their menu, but I had one called something like dark warlock, which was roast beef and red pepper. With an olive on a stick on top. Maybe that was supposed to be the eye of Sauron or something....

We played in a Power Grid mini-tournament, which I lost in the first round of with a third place finish out of four. The people I played with were all very non-nonsense, serious Power Grid players and our game finished in literally a third of the time it took the other two games. Woosh!!

It really was a thrill to be back after years of absence. I know a lot more about how the con sort of works now, and I think if I'm able to go back next year, I can make the experience that much better for it by buying tickets well in advance and having them shipped and things like that. On the other hand, some of the best time that Danae and I had there was unstructured time spent wandering the exhibit hall or playing pick-up games with folks.

It was a treat to play all these new games with someone who I could then engage in all sorts of fascinating meta-discussion on what worked, what didn't how the games we played could be better, how they compared to others we've played, which ones we'd like to buy and why... It was great. And I love my dear kitty. I wouldn't have gone due to money concernes, but she really wanted me to come with her and paid the greater share of expenses and I'm grateful to her for making the trip possible for me.

I'm deeply grateful too to her for being there when, while standing in line for a raffle at the Mayfair booth, I checked Facebook on my phone and learned of the death of my friend Devin. She took care of me and got me through the next hour or so as I fell apart for a while. She drove on the way home, stopped for me at an Applebee's to have some comfort-food burgers and shakes with me, and just made me feel safe and supported while I managed the feelings I was having. I feel very fortunate to have such a wonderful girlfriend in my life.