GenJenCon - Day 1.5

it all began on a Tuesday afternoon. I'd lost my travel card. I didn't know WHERE it had gone. The only thing I was sure about was that I had put it somewhere safe. Aaron, who had turned up to help pass the time (And leech Starcraft 2 while he could) helped me sift through the various piles of paper and clothes in my room while I intermittently talked to Jenny.

I was sure I had them together! I know I hadn't taken it out of the envelope it was left in! I was positive! But where the fuck did I put it? Aaron took initiative and gave Travelex a call and we found I can easily get a new card and have the money transferred over. Righto, sounds easy enough. And Scotty and his mum had just arrived too.

We drive off, picking up Aaron's passport from home since he happened to forget it and leave it there, and driving off to the airport for our first Flight. To Sydney we flew, joking about how we're going to be so sick of each other by the end of this, whilst I just got more and more excited in my head about meeting Jenny at Detroit. Oh the shenanigans we will have.

Scott and Aaron had a slight... disagreement earlier today. Aaron didn't want to turn up until about a half hour before the actual flight because he hates waiting around Airports. Scott however had noticed something about checking 2 hours before flights so he planned to pick us up at approx 2. It was actually a good idea, because when we got there a handful of flights were delayed and we were given an earlier flight.

But we had a bit of trouble with the baggage. I have 2 pieces of baggage. The large bag which contains far too many shirts (this isn't including the couple from Girl Clumsy), not enough shorts, and a few books for Jenny from myself and John Birmingham. The second is my gaming case, filled with my figures i wanted to play with at GenCon along with a little manbag with Body wash, aftershave (I don't know why I brought it since I don't have my shears with me), a cologne, hair gel (another thing I really don't need since I don't have much hair), and a small tube of Zovirax in case I get a coldsore come up. Oh, and there's a block of chocolate in the side pocket of the gaming case too, another gift for Jenny from Girl Clumsy. And then my laptop was chucked in on top of that as well.

I wanted to take my gaming case on as onboard luggage. It would be good for the models because that way I can look after them myself, rather than letting them get manhandled by airport staff and getting broken. Well after taking out everything but the figures, it still weight 7.7 kgs, 700grams too heavy for legal reasons. Well fair enough, I wasn't going to put them in a plastic bag and carry them that way. May as well get a fragile ticket for them.

While we waited, I journeyed up to the Travelex counter at the Airport and asked about the situation and how to handle it.
"Okay. I'm not sure, so I'm going to have to look it up for you."
Fair enough. I give her some time to do some searches and maybe figure out the deal, but unfortunately the system wasn't working for her.
"Okay, we'll try and do it down in Sydney. Hopefully they can access the system too."
No problem. We fly down on the 2 hour flight, entertaining ourselves and getting excited about our Pilgrimage to the Holy gaming land.

We arrive at Sydney and make our way through the jumps and hoops to get to where we're going at the International gate. We were disappointed to find that my ticket was in a different spot to where Scott and Aaron were but we trucked on.

I stop off before customs and etc to check out the Travelex desk, maybe see what I can do about the account. Well, he got half of it done but unfortunately the call centre people were closed up so he was unable to get the money transferred, but he gave me a new card and a phone number to call when possible.

So I darted through customs and got more and more nervous. I wasn't sure about what I was doing so I made a few confusing mistakes here and there, and Aaron and Scott had already gone through so I couldn't ask them what I should do. So I got more and more nervous, without the help of the Decor of the friggin place, and when I got through I expected there to just be a bunch of gates and a few shops to serve waiting passengers.

Nooooo. The fuckers had to make the thing about 10kms long and make it all shops except for those dead end areas where they put in the gates. And to soggy me up with more piss, they had a Travelex counter DIRECTLY ACROSS FROM MY GATE.

Worst part was that I didn't know where Aaron and Scott were. I ended up running to the gate thinking I was going to be late, our boarding time being at about 7:30 which was when I got there. But no, we waited a bit longer and I eventually called up Scott to ask where they were.

"We're just outside customs".

GUH!

Moving on. The 14 hour flight to LAX was... Long. I was smack bang in the middle of a guy and a lady. The lady was frank from the start and didn't say a word except for the courteous "Sorry"and "Thank you". The other guy was nice enough though. I can't quite remember what his name was, but he was from Redcliffe and he was on his way to also see his girlfriend in Columbia. He had to go through LAX and Miami (That's probably wrong, but I'm sure it started with an M) before he got there.

He was going to Marry her on the 15th August. "Congratulations," I say. "How long have you two been together?"
"Oh about six months."
Now that's bravery. It's not something I would do (Sorry Jen) but I understand where he's coming from: He's getting on in years and he's just found that one click with this girl that truly makes him happy. Genuinely happy. So he's taking the plunge and going there to finally meet her for the first time and he's going to marry her.

I hope all goes well for him, his girl and her son and family.

Now all through this, I have a cold. I thought I'd better mention this, now that I'm reminded from my stuffy nose and the fact that the Air con in here is starting to make me freeze. (DON THE SONIC HOODIE!). This cold has persisted since the beginning of the week. I thought it might've been because I wasn't sleeping properly. For the better part of that week, I didn't get to bed until after 2am. The Buzz of excitement; the rush of productivity; the subconscious attempt at adjusting the body clock. All possible reasons, and all were probably happening at the same time. The worst part was that my neck was beginning to kill me. I had slept wrong a couple of nights in a row and slept on my neck wrong. The last two days at work thusly had poorish results while I was trying to survive the whomping headache I had broiling in my brain.

But cold and flu tablets containing paracetamol gave me my lucky break. I've taken them over the last couple of days and they have worked really well. However, I am out of them. So I am in desperate need to get some more, but nervousness and lack of easily attainable transport, I'm just going to have to suck it up.

Where were we. Oh yes, the trip to LAX. Well I spent most of that time watching movies. I did start to read "Hat full of sky" (Terry Pratchett) but I got distracted and started watching the monitors and going through the movies they had available. I think I got through a half dozen movies, was appalled a the idea of an Americanised Black Comedy version of "Death at a Funeral", and got halfway through Iron Man 2 again before passing out for a little.

It's fucking impossible to sleep in those chairs. Seriously, I just want to lay down. Their version of "Laying down" is 10 degrees. No, that is NOT comfortable. I know, i know, there's no room in the fucking sardine can you call a vehicle, but jeez.

But we were glad to get to LAX at just before 5pm their time. It gave us plenty of time to wait for our plane to Indianapolis at 10:50.

I had an idea on the way over to LAX. I was still pissed at myself for losing my Travelex Cards. It was reasonably stupid of me, considering I knew I put it in a safe spot so I would be able to find it, but I didn't know where I put it! But I thought back to where we searched and I wondered if I searched my game case fully.

the case has lots of pockets. One big one on the front, with two smaller ones; one on the side; a net pocket to store bottles of water; a zip up panel on the back which has 4 small pockets for cards and etc and a ring binder; and the main inside case which has a hidden slip pocket on one of the opening panels.

Guess what.

I found my Travelex Cards.

*Groan*

Well I pulled out $500 bucks, all of it dispensed in 20 dollar notes, and I made contact with Jenny before my phone officially died and tried to catch a few Z's. It's really hard to not decide that sleeping on the floor is a good idea. The problem being is that I'll get kicked every second person.

But now it's 9:41am and we're in Indianapolis at our hotel. Aaron and Scotty are having a Power nap until 12 and after I finish this I'll do the same. We picked up a few snacks, had a long overdue shower (We'd been flying for 30 hours), and now we have to figure out a way to get some super glue for our figures. Aaron and Scotty made out pretty well with their figures, but mine seemed to be mauled. In actual fact, they could've been a lot worse, but the fact remains that only a handful of shocktroopers had their halberds stay on, the majority of Demo Corps stayed together, and the bombardiers just fell apart. Which isn't too much of a hassle considering they're all pinned.

Last thing to really do after that is grab our Gencon Badges and wait for Waggles. I may just get some Super Glue from the PP Store tomorrow and put them back together on the night so I can play them over the rest of the weekend!

So short of the unfortunate circumstances with the figures, everything is on the up and up!