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Who's Yer Con 2012

Who's Yer Con, the free gaming convention held every year in Indianapolis, moved to a new location this year, the Clarion Waterfront Hotel on the west side. Because of extensive road construction on that side of town, we had to take a roundabout path to get to and from it each day.

Friday was further complicated by storms in the area and a forecast for severe thunderstorms. Although we usually don't shut down our computers when we're at local events and commuting each day, we decided to shut everything down rather than risk having lightning come in on something. We also decided to bring our laptops with us, which meant we could go on the Internet a little.

Because of the storms in the offing, we decided to head over somewhat earlier than necessary in order to avoid having to drive in wind and heavy rain. When we got there, the skies were still just overcast, but we'd no sooner arrived and gotten signed in at con registration than we heard rumbles of thunder. In a matter of minutes the downpour began, to the point we had to delay lunch because our insulated tote was still in the van.

After we got lunch, my husband headed off to his first game and I settled in to get some writing done. However, by mid-afternoon I was fighting drowsiness, and by supper I was truly famished.

After supper I decided to go looking around for the game library. I'd heard some people talking about a con suite or hospitality suite somewhere and thanking someone for bringing snack items, and I noticed another open door a little way down the hall. I was just about to walk in and get something when I noticed there was something a little odd about the wording of the sign at the door. This year they're rolling out a two-tier system of free attendees and paid members. The former can play games and borrow games from the library, but only the latter have the use of the con suite. Thankfully I twigged to the distinction of terminology before I touched anything, because it would've hurt to have to come up with the money for a paid membership because of a couple of lousy potato chips.

In the evening my husband's last game of the day ended early, so we headed home for the night. At least Indianapolis had been spared the worst of the storm, but once I got on the Internet at home, I found out just how hard some other areas got hit.

On Saturday we got up and headed back to the hotel. It was noticeably colder, and the wind had picked up enough to make driving difficult. However, we were still able to get there a little early and had time to visit the dealers' room and to eat our lunch before my husband's first game.

inflatable figure placed in one of the corridors to amuse the attendeesI spent most of the afternoon making notes to rewrite a story I'd originally written for a contest, when I wasn't fighting off sleep. I also had some interesting conversations with various people, including someone we know from the dentist's office who had come because we mentioned at our last appointment that we were attending.

Right after supper my husband's game ended early, so we went back into the dealers' room to check the raffle board. We were happily surprised to discover that my husband had won a prize. So we picked an item from the table, which I took out to the van as my husband headed off to his next game.

That one ended up being a long one, so he asked me to let him know when it was 10:00 so we could head home. I did some more writing and talked with a young woman about life, the universe and everything.

Sunday morning we had to get back especially early for a first-session game. While I was sitting and writing, I got into a discussion about the strengths and weaknesses of the con, which led to an invitation to attend the feedback session in the afternoon. It turned out to be very interesting, with people bringing up both good and bad points about this year's con.

Once we were finished, we headed off to do some errands in preparation for the show we were doing the next weekend.


Copyright 2012 by Leigh Kimmel

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Last updated October 21, 2012.