Ahhh. Well, this year I finally made it back to Otakon again. My trip went much better than my Otakon 2006 trip. I flew in with a friend a day early, arriving in D.C. on Thursday morning, and we used that extra morning to see some sights in D.C. No, I haven't got any photos, sorry....
My friend was toting around a magnificently shiny digital SLR camera, so I felt that any photos I took couldn't possibly compare and let them take all the photos.One of the things that made such a difference with this trip, was that I got to mingle with the mass group of mods and former mods that goes to Otakon every year. When I attended in 2006, I didn't get to see much of them, but this year I was staying amongst them. That made so much difference. heart So thanks everyone, for letting me join you.
So, we arrived in Baltimore Thursday late afternoon, feeling pretty bushed. We'd been on a red-eye flight on Virgin America (which by the way, is a great airline, especially for geeks!), and neither of us had managed much sleep. Our 5 miles of hiking through D.C. thursday morning carrying our 30lb. backpacks full of shiny electronics such as laptops and digital SLR accessories completed the process of exhausting us, methinks. Despite being tired though, we did enjoy ourselves. I'd never been to D.C. before. The Lincoln Memorial was awesome, The Vietnam War Memorial was haunting.
By the time we reached our hotel on Thursday afternoon, unpacked a bit, and showered, we were tired enough to fall asleep while waiting for others to join us. I said brief hellos to some of the other Gaians before heading off for Gofer Orientation. Gofering was something of an experiment for me this year, but I'm happy to say that it worked out very well. I really like Otakon's Gofer system, and how they allow all their volunteers to choose their own hours. I'm honestly amazed that they're able to do so and still have adequate coverage at all times. I want to find out how they manage that.
Orientation was informative for the newbie Gofer, though there was also a lot of waiting around on those slower to pick up on things. We concluded with a tour and picking up our badges, which I thought was a nice touch. The group had concluded dinner before I rejoined them, so I showered and ate the pizza they brought me, then joined the crowd for the evening.
^-~ I don't think I'll go into much in the way of detail for the evenings, since a) there's too much to talk about, and b) not all of it should be discussed in a public format. xd Don't work your imaginations too hard though. It wasn't -that-. I promise!
Friday and Saturday were in a basic pattern... get up in the morning and get ready, head out to my morning Gofer shift, work for 2-3 hours, take off for lunch and meet up with others, then go back for another shift. After my second shift, I'd go back to the hotel and shower to be prepared for another night of social madness. Trust me, when you're in the midst of 30k people and the weather is in the high 80's, taking a shower every afternoon is highly recommended.
Friday morning, my morning Gofer shift had me helping some staff with the registration lines. There'd been some miscommunication I think, or perhaps this is just a regular thing, but many of the pre-reg attendees were in the super-long at-con registration line rather than the much shorter pre-reg line. I was dressed that morning in a bright red tank and wearing my signature hat (it's an aussie hat, but looks a lot like a cowboy hat - that's why Kava wears the western a lot...), which made me an easy-to-follow sight. I earned the gratitude of a couple hundred people that morning, gathering pre-reg attendees from the at-con registration line and re-directing them to the pre-reg line.
I met a lot of Gofers and Otakon staff on Friday and Saturday, but I only remember a few names (I'm so bad with names)... Jonathan, who seemed to be in charge of those working the registration lines Friday morning, was great. His joker hat made him easy to find too... I really want to get myself a 'con-wear' hat one of these days. Though, I'm not sure I'd get to wear it much... no one recognizes me without my aussie hat. xD; I generally get asked where it is if I'm not wearing it. I gave Jonathan my pen, which I let him keep. Now I need to go get a new one...
Excuse to buy a new pen! During my lunch break on Friday I met back up with the group. We eventually made our way to the Gaia Panel. I'm not big on attending the Gaia panels, but I decided to go ahead and go since everyone else was going. It was rather entertaining. I love the new cloud plushie... whee Afterwards, I split from the group again to head out to my next Gofer shift. I was in the Dealer's room this time.
Working at the Otakon merchandise booth was rather interesting to me. I was interested in the way they have Gofers fetching merchandise and dedicated cashiers ringing things up. Plus, while my own home con (Fanime) seems to only make t-shirts each year, Otakon pumps out a wide variety of merchandise for consumers. Besides the obligatory shirt, there was a secondary shirt in a baby-t style, polo shirts in 3 colors ( I want one of those... ), a hoodie sweatshirt, buttons, pins, shot glasses (now that was cool, I got one), water bottles, pint glasses, badge holders, luggage tags, and an assortment of 'Genki Hats' that were awesome... I might have got one of those, but the one I liked sold before I had a chance to buy it. I thought this was great. Fanime should expand their merchandise. xd
Friday evening came to a close with shower, pizza for dinner, and joining others for social hi-jinks. I met so many new people... I still can't remember all their names. Or rather, I can't remember all their pairs of names. Some of them I remember their real name, others their Gaia identity.
Sooo many people. ^-^;; More socializing in three days than I normally do in a month. So much fun though.Saturday was much like Friday, except that I didn't manage to attend any panels. I worked in the Dealer's room exclusively that day. From the Dealer's room, I remember Tony from Otakon staff, and Sara. Sara was in charge, and I don't envy her the job. Tony was fun to work with. ^-^ One of the fun bits was getting to go with some of Otakon's Dealer staff after the Dealer's room closed to give free Otakon 2006 shirts out to the line of people going into the arena, and random passers-by. It was random, chaotic, and so much fun. We handed out pretty close to 1000 shirts in the space of 10 or 15 minutes. xD;
Saturday evening we all gathered together at a nice place for dinner. I had crabcakes. So yummy. Since I had no shifts for Gofering the next day, I stayed up a bit later than usual before retiring for the night. Sunday morning was consumed with packing and checking out of the hotel. By noon, we were ready to head to the con-center for final walk-throughs (only walk-throughs for me) of the Dealer's Hall and Artist Alley.
I didn't buy much this trip, but I did pick up a few things. From Dealer's, I got a fox tail in black and indigo. I know it's not a natural color and it's dyed, but it's lovely. <3 I also found a pendant of a 20d die held in place by ornate curlicues of metal. The die was blue with gold lettering. For $10, I simply had to have it. I tried on a corset, but decided I didn't love them quite enough to spend $100 on one.
In Artist Alley I managed to pick up the one thing I'd gone to the con wanting - one of Applegeek's new girl-shirts. So much <3 for Applegeeks. I was amused that their lite comic from after-con was a blank black panel with white text that proclaimed they were back from Otakon and that was all we were getting. xD; I also found in the Alley, a place that sold absolutely adorable stickers of various video game and anime characters. I spent the last of my cash picking up six of them. (Bahamut, D, a Chocobo, Boo's, and a couple of others I don't recall right now.... ^^;; )
My last stop in the con-center was at Gofer Ops, to finish checking out and pick up my free t-shirt for having volunteered and worked at least 10 hours. I was expecting one shirt, but apparently they still had some 2005 and 2006 shirts that they were trying to get rid of, so I left with about 8. I have enough spare Otakon shirts in white now, I think I'm going to attempt dyeing them into some other colors... I just haven't decided which colors yet. Purple I think, for at least one or two. xD; My experiment the week prior to Otakon with dying my bright yellow pants into a lovely indigo went rather well. I'm eager to repeat the process with some of my old white shirts (Sale shirt from J.C. Penney, See's Candy shirt, etc...) that I never wear solely because they're white.
There was a bit of a frantic quality to Sunday afternoon, because a few people's flights were cancelled due to all the bad weather. Our flight wasn't cancelled, but it -was- delayed by an hour and a half. We ate dinner at the D.C. Dulles airport, at Five Guys & Fries. The burgers were great. I can't report on the fries, because they were so busy they weren't serving any for lack of time to make them. xd The flight back was a bit longer than the flight in, but I got to watch a little T.V. (something I don't normally do) and catch a little sleep, so even though I didn't arrive back at my front door till around 2:30 am, I had enough pep left to do preliminary unpacking before seeking my bed.
All in all, it was a great trip. I met so many people (and actually talked to some of them...). Hopefully, I'll be able to go again next year. ^-^
Annnd.... this entry is now complete! ^-~
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