Pre-pre-Gencon: Tuesday, August 14

I'd forget my head if it wasn't screwed on too tight.

This is the beginning of the Gencon 2007 saga.

I had been lazy on Monday and didn't get everything done that I should have. I spent the first part of the morning on Tuesday organizing clothes: I packed a bag for Gencon (shorts and T-shirt mostly, along with underwear and socks), set aside one change of clothes to take into the Super 8 on Tuesday night, and organized things enough to know that I had sufficient clothes for Cleveland, washed what I needed to (jeans) and packed the parts that I didn't care about wrinkling (underwear, socks, shoes, jeans). I set aside the bag for Gencon and the airbed and went about other preparations: mainly printing out any info I needed and organizing gaming stuff.

A couple days earlier Ellen and I had gone out to dinner and then stopped at Office Despot to find something for her. We wound up NOT finding her stuff, but did find a cheap rolling file crate that would be good for carrying gaming books. Not so much at Gencon, but at Pre-Gencon Madness and later local cons. So, we got that and I got my gaming stuff into it.

Here's where I noticed the first missing item. My green binder with various DM tools (mats, marker pens, spell templates) was missing -- probably left accidentally at one of my gaming spots from the previous weekend (either Rudy's or Alexander and Marlene's). So, that was a pain -- I could either bring my big mat or borrow Kalen's flipmat, and I had neither wet or dry erase markers. Eep. I decided to carry on and pick up markers later (using Kalen's flip mat as I didn't want to carry more).

The girls took off in Kathy's car while I tried to finish getting a few things ready. The boys and I took off about a half hour later, I suppose.

Though we talked on the phone a couple times, we finally caught up with the girls at the Super 8 on the north side of Indy. We checked in, unloaded a bit, and then set off to the next-doot Texas Roadhouse for dinner (and excellent country-fried steak, though the ambience is a little too loud/country). We got back to the hotel and I called Ellen to let her know we were settled for the night.

That's when she gave me the bad news: I left my Gencon suitcase at home (as well as the airbed). I thought I'd gotten them carried downstairs and that the kids had loaded them into a car. My fault for not double-checking. So, all I had were one change of clothes and my razor/toothpaste/etc.

(Note I didn't say toothbrush there -- not to be discovered until later)

So, at 10pm, I figured out where the nearest Wal-Mart was (only about a mile, fortunately), and I set off to do clothes shopping. One pack each underwear and socks, two pairs of jeans shorts (cargo shorts, which I was happy for on later days), one pair of gym shorts (sleeping gear), and three polo shirts (I needed some more anyway). I just got three shirts because I knew I'd also get judging shirts at the con, so I could get by. Also, a set of dry erase pens and a set of wet erase pens.

So, I got back to the hotel and crashed so I'd be ready to get up by 7:00 to head to the pre-con the next day. Which we did.

Leaving my razor behind.

To be continued!