Anthrocon relocation fun
Nov. 6th, 2005 06:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gizaWell, I had one exciting weekend!
It started on Friday evening. I proceeded from $WORK to the Anthrocon Storage Locker where I met with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
unclekage, astor_apatosaur, and gideon_hoss. We emptied the storage locker into a rented truck. That was pretty uneventful, if a bit time consuming, because we had to take things out of the rather cramped storage locker on the 3rd floor, take them down the elevators, into the lobby, and then load them into the truck.
Saturday was more interesting. Kage, Gideon, and I got on the road at 7:30 AM and proceeded to the car rental place. I had decided to rent a car so that I did not have to put 600 miles on my vehicle. Since the rental place didn't have the smallest possible car, they gave me a free upgrade to a fullsized car. We got back on the road and metthefoxes halfway out on the TurnPike at a rest stop. We continued on to Pittsburgh without incident.
We arrived at the new storage facility around 2 PM, and metswift_fox and James Walton from the Dorsai Irregulars who were waiting there for us. This new facility was much nicer, because we could actually pull the truck up to the storage locker and just walk stuff in.
After about an hour, the storage locker was fully loaded. We said goodbye to Swift Fox, who had to head out, then the rest of us proceeded to the Convention Center. When we arrived there, we met a representive from the CC as well as their security chief. As we walked around, I had the chance to chat with the security chief, who turned out to be a pretty cool guy. COOL as in, "a fan of Star Trek and Aliens" cool. COOL as in, "has been trying to get fannish conventions to come to the Pittsburgh CC for some years" cool. I rather liked him, and look forward to working with him next year.
Also, while walking around the Pittsburgh CC, there was a convention in there. This meant that the overhead projectors that were in various parts of the center were turned on and displaying imagines all over the place. It looked very nice and futuristic. When we walked out onto the fourth floor, we looked up and saw this:
Sticking out from each wall is a pole that has several dozen LEDs on it. It then About a half dozen of those poles make up each character seen in the picture above, and those characters scroll up the display, which is over 100 feet long. Each side scrolls separate text, which I was told was the entire text of 5 individual books, completely uncensored. :-) So, you could (in theory) sit underneath of those and read an entire book over the course of a few years. It also provided the space underneath with a nice blue glow in the early evening hours. I'm definitely going to visit that area when it gets dark next year.
For dinner, we went to August Henry's City Saloon which was just around the corner. I had a rather tasty Salmon dish with a salad, and will be going back there when I'm next in Pittsburgh. The overall area is similar to what we had around the Wyndham in Philly last year, with lots of places nearby.
We got back on the road around 7 PM and I napped while Kage drove. About 2 hours later while at a rest stop, we got a phonecall from The Foxes. It turns out that they had hit a deer, puntured their radiator, and had limped into a rest stop. As for the deer, it had gone up over their hood and landed behind them. They then heard a *SPLASH* which was the tractor trailer behind them finishing off the deer.
We turned around at the nearest exit (after paying the toll, because U-turns are illegal on the turnpike), and backtracked to where the foxes were. We then hung around for about an hour until the towtruck turned up. The Foxes' car was loaded up onto the truck and they pilled into the rental car, for which I was fortunate to get that upgrade earlier in the morning.
After a little bit, Kage wanted to nap so I took over as driver. Around midnight, we almost hit ANOTHER deer. This one wandered out onto the rightmost lane, so I hit the brakes and blew my horn at the same time. The deer got scared and ran back off the road, so we managed not to hit it. The rest of the drive back to the Foxes' Den saw me being rather nervous as the possibility of hitting another deer.
After dropping off The Foxes, we proceeded back to the rental place without incident, picked up my car, and went back to Kage's to crash. We made it in the door at 3 AM and passed out.
Sunday was pretty weak by comparison. We saw Saw 2, which turned out to be a great horror movie that was a bit of a mindf*ck too. I think it's worth watching.
It started on Friday evening. I proceeded from $WORK to the Anthrocon Storage Locker where I met with
unclekage, astor_apatosaur, and gideon_hoss. We emptied the storage locker into a rented truck. That was pretty uneventful, if a bit time consuming, because we had to take things out of the rather cramped storage locker on the 3rd floor, take them down the elevators, into the lobby, and then load them into the truck.Saturday was more interesting. Kage, Gideon, and I got on the road at 7:30 AM and proceeded to the car rental place. I had decided to rent a car so that I did not have to put 600 miles on my vehicle. Since the rental place didn't have the smallest possible car, they gave me a free upgrade to a fullsized car. We got back on the road and met
thefoxes halfway out on the TurnPike at a rest stop. We continued on to Pittsburgh without incident.We arrived at the new storage facility around 2 PM, and met
swift_fox and James Walton from the Dorsai Irregulars who were waiting there for us. This new facility was much nicer, because we could actually pull the truck up to the storage locker and just walk stuff in.After about an hour, the storage locker was fully loaded. We said goodbye to Swift Fox, who had to head out, then the rest of us proceeded to the Convention Center. When we arrived there, we met a representive from the CC as well as their security chief. As we walked around, I had the chance to chat with the security chief, who turned out to be a pretty cool guy. COOL as in, "a fan of Star Trek and Aliens" cool. COOL as in, "has been trying to get fannish conventions to come to the Pittsburgh CC for some years" cool. I rather liked him, and look forward to working with him next year.
Also, while walking around the Pittsburgh CC, there was a convention in there. This meant that the overhead projectors that were in various parts of the center were turned on and displaying imagines all over the place. It looked very nice and futuristic. When we walked out onto the fourth floor, we looked up and saw this:
Sticking out from each wall is a pole that has several dozen LEDs on it. It then About a half dozen of those poles make up each character seen in the picture above, and those characters scroll up the display, which is over 100 feet long. Each side scrolls separate text, which I was told was the entire text of 5 individual books, completely uncensored. :-) So, you could (in theory) sit underneath of those and read an entire book over the course of a few years. It also provided the space underneath with a nice blue glow in the early evening hours. I'm definitely going to visit that area when it gets dark next year.
For dinner, we went to August Henry's City Saloon which was just around the corner. I had a rather tasty Salmon dish with a salad, and will be going back there when I'm next in Pittsburgh. The overall area is similar to what we had around the Wyndham in Philly last year, with lots of places nearby.
We got back on the road around 7 PM and I napped while Kage drove. About 2 hours later while at a rest stop, we got a phonecall from The Foxes. It turns out that they had hit a deer, puntured their radiator, and had limped into a rest stop. As for the deer, it had gone up over their hood and landed behind them. They then heard a *SPLASH* which was the tractor trailer behind them finishing off the deer.
We turned around at the nearest exit (after paying the toll, because U-turns are illegal on the turnpike), and backtracked to where the foxes were. We then hung around for about an hour until the towtruck turned up. The Foxes' car was loaded up onto the truck and they pilled into the rental car, for which I was fortunate to get that upgrade earlier in the morning.
After a little bit, Kage wanted to nap so I took over as driver. Around midnight, we almost hit ANOTHER deer. This one wandered out onto the rightmost lane, so I hit the brakes and blew my horn at the same time. The deer got scared and ran back off the road, so we managed not to hit it. The rest of the drive back to the Foxes' Den saw me being rather nervous as the possibility of hitting another deer.
After dropping off The Foxes, we proceeded back to the rental place without incident, picked up my car, and went back to Kage's to crash. We made it in the door at 3 AM and passed out.
Sunday was pretty weak by comparison. We saw Saw 2, which turned out to be a great horror movie that was a bit of a mindf*ck too. I think it's worth watching.
