Got back from Marscon unscathed. I am tired now.

That we got there at all was really the story of the con itself, though. Before our original planned departure, I hopped online in order to check the address for our hotel, only to find that the reservations I thought I had made weeks ago didn’t actually exist (anymore). Luckily, I was able to knock out a new set in short order, though the whole business was rather frustrating.

After piling in the car, we got about ten miles from home before coming to the realisation we forgot something, and turned around. The ramp re-entering the interstate we used turned out to be the home of a really nasty pothole; a pothole that eats tires. So, I pulled over to the side, and changed the rear passenger tire, discovering a nice one-inch diameter hole on the inner sidewall (guess what I did on Monday?). Donut installed, we headed home and moved all our stuff into the other car, and made our way out again.

Luckily, once we got to Williamsburg, things got better. We played a bunch of games (I won several nice prizes playing Munchkin Booty and Toon in the game room), engaged in interesting chit-chat with all sorts of fans, and came back with some nice loot.

Amongst the stuff we accumulated were a few stuffed dragons (everybody got one but me – they’re really cute), some interesting dice (including a 34 sided die which is interesting, but serves no obvious purpose I can identify), and a signed print of The Biting Pear of Salamanca by artist Ursula Vernon, which many of you may know better as the original source of this:

Besides the print from Ms. Vernon, who besides being sort of bemused by the whole experience of birthing an internet meme, is terribly pleasant to talk to as well as the author of a couple of children’s books, we were able to have several books signed by Guest of Honor Jim Butcher, author of The Dresden Files series, including my copies of the sourcebooks for the relatively new Dresden Files RPG, which I (and a bunch of other fans) were able to also get autographed by a couple of the game system authors and artists who were in attendance.

Our timing for some of the panels (which, to be fair, weren’t as nice as RavenCon) worked out well – we were able to get a seat at the Guest of Honor reading (which was held in a VERY small room), where we got the chance to hear Jim read the first three chapters from the forthcoming Dresden book Ghost Story. We also managed to grab a spot in line for the signing early enough that we were through in a relatively short span of minutes, which was a better deal than some people got – the con staff rather underestimated the popularity of their guest of honor, and weren’t always prepared with adequate space.

All told, we had a pretty good time, though honestly, I’m kind of peopled out for a while, though I suppose I’ll be ready to wade in again by the time RavenCon comes to town in April.