69 Days Till GaryCon! Memories of GaryCon III: Part I

I got rear-ended on the way to work yesterday, so I'm trying to get this blog written before the side-effects of the muscle relaxers kick in and it's nap-time for me.

GaryCon III was another one of those bittersweet cons. Much like GaryCon I, I got laid off before the convention. This time it was three weeks before the con that I got the bad news. Despite my predicament, I had already made the commitment to go both emotionally and financially. So on a Thursday morning, I got in my car and drove from South Bend to the Chicago suburbs to meet up with my brother and prepare to make the drive to Lake Geneva.

I already agreed to split the hotel room with you. Now you want me to drive you there?

Now this is where things take a turn for the nerve-wracking. Once in Chicago, I convinced my brother to drive the last leg of the trip to Lake Geneva. I figured that since I had already driven for almost 3 hours to get out there, it was the least he could do. The thing about Michael that you need to understand is this, he hates driving. Driving is something he does when there is absolutely no way that he can conceivable walk somewhere. And his tension gets worse if it's someplace he has never driven before. So, with the aid of my GPS, we took a very quiet, hour-long drive to Wisconsin.

Outside of the silence, the drive was uneventful and we got checked in right away. We also got in about an hour after everyone else had left for the Next Door Pub. So once again we got in Michael's car and headed out. This time around, we picked up a passenger who unfortunately would not shut up. Once again, Michael is trying to depend on the GPS to tell him where to turn. So with this guy in the backseat, he nearly missed all his turns because he couldn't hear the GPS. We got in on the tail end of the buffet that was set up and managed to get our fill before heading back to the hotel.

Once we were back, the person we gave a ride to introduced us to Small World. Afterwards we ran a few pick up games of Give Me The Brain before finally turning in for the night.

Next Week. Games played, games ran and games blown-off.