Well then. Here it is, Monday. As is the norm for a Con, I woke early. 4:00 AM early. Bleah. Oh well, It has the positive that I'm not sure when checkout is for sure anyway. I think its noon, but it could be 10. I'll find out when I go down for breakfast.

So... Sunday, as mentioned in the last post, began with a killer headache. It took several hours but after Excederin, Orudis and about a gallon of strong tea it finally receded. I went online as soon as it was tolerable to do so and did yesterday's post, and yakked with some people (you know who you are! ;) ).

Me and bluedeer decided to go for breakfast at the little diner just a short walk from the con, and hunterdpanther, Pat, and murakozi tagged along, the latter joining us when we got to the restaurant in the Marriot- as we should have known, the diner (like the rest of this town) was closed on Sunday.

After that, we proceeded to the convention center and separated- I picked up the one remaining sketchbook from Saturday, and proceeded to hand out the Sorien book again to Cara Mitten and the three artists with her- for $100 split four ways each is gonna do something in the book, and they'll get it back to me today before noon. :)

derechodragon left at noon, having a long drive home; also, he has work today at 4 AM! Yike! Good luck with that!

Shortly after 1 or 2 PM (I'm not sure which), I received a call- it was tugrik, who said he was in ConOps, about to leave. I bopped downstairs and said goodbye with a hug. :)

At about 3:00 PM I met up with bluedeer again, and we walked over to the drug store to fetch more cookies for the Sunday edition of the Tea Party. Once more Oreos and Reeses Cookies were obtained we returned and I finished the cleanup and prep, bluedeer hanging out as I did.

The Tea Party itself was kinda slow at first, but had two big clumps of attendance so I'm happy with it- at one point we had a fella stop by who wasn't a congoer, and we explained stuff about the con and bitched a little about Pittsburgh, the hotels and the convention center. Just a few of the folk who stopped by- jalendragon, flynn_thedragon, prismo, the previously mentioned bluedeer, feezlekhan and others whom I either don't know the LJ name for, or didn't know/couldn't remember. Glad you all came!

9:30 rolled around, and as there were few people in the room with several wandering off I closed the party down and wandered downstairs- I had a beer-and-burger at the hotel bar, and returned upstairs to bed. And now its 5:00 AM, and I've been awake for an hour. khirsah left for the airport already, and me and feezlekhan should be bailing around noon. I do wanna get home, tho I dread the situation in the basement. :P

And thus, Anthrocon endeth. I'll be contacting the constaff with the problems I ran into and the ones I heard of in hopes that things can be fixed... But this is my last AC for now. Next up is Midwest FurFest in November!

First, the irritation- I just found out that the basement back home flooded. mirrdae posted it to his LJ. Hopefully it'll get sorted if he calls my folks. What I'm wondering is why he didn't call the hotel here...

Ugh.

Anyway...

Friday started off well, with my waking at 7:00 AM instead of the usual ungodly hours I tend to awaken at during con. After the usual cleanup I went online a bit and encountered bluedeer, and decided to meet up with him for breakfast and such. I went down and waited while he was in line for registration (he wasn't preregistered), and while I was there I attmpted to collect up my Tea Party signs.

I found one. The one that was left at the Message Board.

I figured that they'd simply been cleaned up but hotel staff or collected by congoers as souvenirs, thus no big deal. Turns out that's not what happened. On Thursday, I went to the hotel manager on duty and told him of my desire to place signs around, showing him one so he could see that it was harmless both in content and to the hotel. He told me there was no problem, and to go ahead, so I placed them about the hotel in various locations.

As it turned out, that manager got overruled by a superior, and the signs were confiscated. They didn't even bother calling me about it. Now I don't have a problem with the signs being removed, only in how it was done- which was lame.

A hotel's first priority is to cater to its guests. All they needed to do was let me know and I would have removed the signs- What they did was, in my view, unprofessional. I've been told that the signs can be reclaimed at the front desk, but this only came about after I talked to the manager I'd dealt with on Thursday.

To the person who told me of the removal- thank you. I'm leaving your name out of this so you don't have problems.

In any event, this digression aside I ended up stuffing myself at breakfast with bluedeer and then headed over to the convention center. We both took some pictures of the river, a barge and a riverboat and a few other things- I really need to consider a photobucket site...

Thereafter we hit the dealer's room. I've got a pic coming in the 'Sorien' sketchbook from susandeer, one from feezlekhan in the 'open' book and one more that I set up much later from an artist named Stephanie King. Appropriately, that'll be a pic of my character Goblin. :)

We eventually got separated, and I ended up pulling 2 hours of volunteer work at the bag check for the Art Show; that went less well than I would have liked, as I started feeling ill after about an hour. I'm still not sure what caused it.

I later reconnected with bluedeer and we had dinner at Mahoneys, a little bar/resturant near here- why the hell it and most other places nearby close at 9 PM I don't get. They're right by a convention center, f'ghodssake!

And that was most of Friday, aside from all the people I ran into. Hi!

Me and feezlekhan left for the airport at 3:30 AM central time, nearly on the dot. We arrived at the airport (Humphrey terminal; migod, its NICE- Before it looked like a scruffy Greyhound station! Its been TOTALLY redone), and discovered that it kindasorta wasn't open. Uff. So much for the 'We want you there two hours before the flight' crap...

Anyway, the registration desks opened up about 1/2 hour later, and we got into the gate areas. A reasonable wait later and we boarded our nearly brand-new Boeing 717 for the flight to Milwaukee. FAST flight; no time for the laptop, tho I did take a lot of pics out the window- I REALLY need a powerful zoom lens. :P

With no problems we reached Milwaukee, and went to our connecting flight, waiting about 10 minutes before boarding the Fairchild Dornier 328 for the second leg- this is by far the dinkiest plane I've ever been on... But it IS a nice plane. We were briefly delayed when I thought I saw my bags sitting on the tarmac next to another plane... but I was just paranoid. An hour later found us landing in Pittsburgh.

I collected my bags from the claims area, and got a cab. I HATE having other people driving, but this fella was more grating on my nerves than most. But, despirte his efforts to kill us, we reached the Westin intact.

This was about 10:30 AM local (eastern) time- We lucked out and got an early check-in, ditched the luggage and went for food- At the moment I forget the name of the place, but its just across Penn Avenue from the hotel, and has good burgers and a tolerable beer list. Thereafter, we retuened to the room and I crashed out til 6 PM.

I got up, my companion having crashed out on the other bed and went down to the lobby to watch for derechodragon, who is rooming with us this year- he didn't show til later, after foodage was obtained as mentioned in my last post. During this time I ran into jalendragon and flynn_thedragon, and confirmed the grocery run for the Tea Party. And that brings us up to now- I'm in the elevator lobby on 9th floor, sponging someone's bandwidth and updating LJ cos as usual I woke up early. Tho this time its partly due to noisy asshats in the hall and a pounder of a headache (NOT a migraine- I think it was dehydration).

Party on, Dudes!

Room 917 in the Westin! The Tea Party will be here! I need a nap! Further bulletins later!

(Tea Party- 5 PM Thursday til I can't stand it or 10 PM... Be there.)

The hotel is confirmed, the signs are assembled, and I'll have the money set tomorrow- All I need to do is pack stuff up, for the most part. Just a trip to the store for cat food and socks, and a stop at the bank left. :)

See you all there- We head to the airport at 3:30 AM Wednesday!

...But I got doing stuff prepping for the Con. I've got the signage printed and the Tea Party bag mostly packed, I've printed the itineraries and the vouchers and ticket receipts, and got the suitcase out- I still have to pack and get the signs actually assembled, and a fair bit of other stuff. I'm debating buying a little DVD player for use at cons, haven't decided yet. So far, so good.

Yet to do- Reconfirm the room and tickets, get the taxi arranged, get the money set. :)

Whee! So close...

Well, Anthrocon is next week- I'll be arriving at the Westin at about noonish on Wednesday. For you all out there looking to attend the Tea Party, I'll post my room number here and on various bulletin boards on FurryMUCK, just in case I can't put out signage. It'll be from 5 to 10 (or whenever) on Thursday, as usual. Hope to see a lot of you there!

I've now got my airfare set for Anthrocon, so me and feezlekhan will be on our way when the day comes. We'll be leaving the airport at 6 AM, stopping over in Milwaukee then proceeding to The Pitt from there. We'll be at the Omni Penn Hotel (the overflow) before noon on Wednesday the 14th, before the con. :) We're flying Midwest Air in their nifty brand-new Boeing 717's for the leg between Minneapolis and Milwaukee, and we'll be on Fairchild Dornier 328's for the flights between Milwaukee and the Pitt. See y'all there!

We're home! It's hot! I'm hungry! We're going for food!


Talk later- Food NOW!

Saturday was fun, and it as convinced me to come back next year. :) The original plan was to try Conifur or MFM next year, but dammit, this was a good time! Maybe I'll be able to afford three cons...

I spent a fair amount of time with cuprohastes and Bombur, starting with breakfast- Once again at the buffet. Yah, its pricy, but I love the waffles and the hose-fed unlimited supply of fresh-squeezed orange juice. :) Bennie joined us a bit after we sat down, and that was nice.

During the day I spent time in the dealer's room, looking for gifts and getting sketches- I've arranged and aftercon comission from Jen 'Spunky' Seng of my character Goblin, and both DarkNatahsa and Caribou are doing pics in the Sorien book, and Jen Seng has the Whatever book, doing a pic of one of Sori's forms.

Late afternoon had myself, Cupro, jalendragon and Flynn at the charity auction, then heading off to dinner- We went to Rex's Pizza- unspiring, but filling. We returned to the hotel and caught the '2 the Ranting Griffin' show, which I found kinda amusing but Cupro was disappointed in- I think that the fact that the acoustics SUCKED in the ballroom, and that 2's style really isn't for everyone.

I've accomplished my goal of spending a truly horrific amount of money, and I've had a blast. Tonight I'll be holding the leftover Tea Party, 5 to 10 or so like the first, in my room (2109)- We return home tomorrow!

I think its a good thing I don't have to work til Wednesday night. :)