Pre-Travel Post

The Night Before

I am going to warn you ahead of time…  I took some Benadryl earlier and am fading extremely quickly.  I take no credit for this post making a damned bit of sense tomorrow when you fine folks will actually read it.  Tonight did not go exactly as planned.  The goal was to get home, change the ferret cage and start packing technology.  At least on one level that worked, and I have at the very least everything laid out and ready to pack…. but will get into that more later.  The first obstacle was pulling my laptop case out of the closet….  which was inexplicably covered in a few tiny tiny spiders.  I am pretty sure a few of them bit me, either that or the paranoia just makes it seem like everything is crawling on me.  The original thought was to burn the laptop bag and call it good…  but then I remembered that I actually rather liked this laptop backpack… and also I needed it to travel.  So I did my best to de-spider the thing and get my laptop packed.  However in the process I kicked up an inordinate amount of dust…. which is where the Benadryl comes in as a desperate attempt to stave off triggering my asthma.

After that the plan was to start packing my messenger bag.  So I got together my power bank, and tested it.  It for some reason shipped 100% charged, which shocked the hell out of me.  It also seems to have a flashlight built into it…. that I managed to turn on and it took a good ten minutes of pressing buttons to get it to turn back off.  I also managed to test my digital recorder, and it seems like it is going to do a damned good job of recording any impromptu interviews that I get to do from the convention floor.  It is also going to hopefully be the basis of a “LunchCast” concept I am kicking around where I record little solo podcasts on my lunch break while sitting in the car.  So back to the bag… I was walking over to the bar where I had it laying… when Kenzie our kitten was pawing at it like she was trying to cover something up.  Turns out she had just pissed right in the middle of the bag, which leaves me pretty much zero options.  The bag itself was canvas with leather straps….  and at this point it is ruined unless I can somehow wash it.  With nothing much to lose, I threw it in the washing machine with a big fully blanket hoping to cushion the insanity that is the clasps clanging around in there.  For the most part it seems to have worked, and while it needs a little bit more time to dry…  it seems to be mostly in one piece.

The Backup Plan

In theory that should work, and if it doesn’t I guess we will find something else that will work on the drive down.  Right now the plan is to get up crazy early, pack our clothing, pick up our passenger and get on the road hopefully by 6 am.  From there we meander our way from Tulsa to Austin, where we are meeting some friends of my wife for dinner.  Right now I am just hoping that in my pre-coffee state I can remember to pack everything correctly.  Originally I had planned on bringing my chromebook, but since PAX does not actually have public internet…  it kinda makes a chromebook mostly useless.  Instead my idea is to talk to myself… and by talk to myself I mean record voice notes if there is anything I need to jot down quickly.  Last year I spent most of the first day of PAX alone, and it was not until Saturday that Rae and Ashgar actually arrived.  This year however I should have one or two people to hang out with on Friday, meaning I will have less time to sit in a quite place and bang out post ideas.

It feels like I am actually packing fairly light this year.  I did manage to get my 3DS all patched up and Final Fantasy Explorers downloaded and installed, so that at least is done.  That is pretty much going to be my go to for standing in line diversion.  Past that I will have my phone and will probably be tweeting throughout the day on twitter.  I think I am in a pretty good state as far as anxiety goes, because if tonight didn’t break my will…. I don’t figure anything can.  I am hearing reports that construction was pretty horrible between Dallas and Austin today as folks drove it, so I am definitely not looking forward to that.  The big positive however is I am driving down in a newer vehicle, that is way more comfortable to long trips.  Additionally in theory if I get tired of driving, I can probably convince either my wife or our passenger to trade off and take the wheel for awhile.   The greatest irony of going to a gaming convention is that it means until I finally get home Sunday night… I am going to be playing far fewer games than at any other point of the year.  If all goes as intended, I will get to meet a bunch of folks that I have gamed with for years and Pax South will be yet another amazing experience.