Cindy aka Eden writes...

My Gathering Report...by that loud redhead

Wednesday
I don’t know Why I count Wednesday to be honest. I spent most of the day in transit and didn’t really get to Montreal until Thursday. I Woke up around 6 am to get ready to go to the airport. Max crashed at my place since it would be easier for him than Shlepping all the way from Mira Mesa to take me. He's a nice guy:) Apparently that wednesday EVERYONE in San Diego was flying Delta that day. It was insane. people who were checking in curbside were getting turned away. People were late for flights. People were Missing their flights. people were generally in a bad mood. I was SO happy I got there 2 hours ahead of time to not me caught in the pandalurium. My flight was fine, our in-flight movie was Shrek 2 which made me happy. I have a track record for having bad in-flight movies (Maid in Manhattan anyone?). My stop over was in Atlanta which is a HUGE airport which probably has its own zip code. I spent my 2 hours wandering the concourses and just walking and stuff. Tres exciting. I was rather mellow all day which was odd. I’m usually a nervous flyer. But I was rather clam and easy going...I think it was the Xanex.
My flight to Montreal was delayed about 3 hours which was a bit of a bummer but no skin off my nose. After all, I had a good smut novel and a bag of peanut butter M&M’s. I could have lasted the apocalypse. Though the french guy heading to Montreal with his dog was OUTRAGED. I wanted to tell him “Dude..yelling at the Ticket counter isn’t going to change the weather in Cincinnati.” but I had I feeling he wasn’t going to listen. His dog needed walking around a 2nd hour of waiting so the big black flight attendant walked this iddy bitty poodle around the Tarmac. Holy Cow it was SO CUTE!!
We finally get on the plane and I sleep during most of the flight. We land around midnight and I run the rat maze I like to call YUL. Rob is patiently waiting at the other end of customs for me to escort me back to his place for the night. I was so glad to see him! Not only is he one of my best friends but I knew I was that much closer to sleeping in a real bed!! We get to his place and I gorge myself on Peanut butter and apples (my favorite Snack). We watch a couple Episode’s of Trigun I brought with me from home and pass out for the evening.

Thursday
Ah Thursday. The day of frantic set up. I woke up around 8ish to get ready to be picked up by Karine and Patrick. I eat breakfast that involved peanut butter. (Food of the gods). Rob and I manage to watch another Trigun episode before Patrick’s Big red rental van pulls up in front of the house. We load of the van with my Gianormous suitcase. I was cursing myself for bringing such a big one but in retrospect it was a good idea since it was loaded up with Art Show stuff and cosplay costumes. I see Karine who was VERY pregnant for the first time. EEE! baby! I get to rub her tummy!! this was an event for me. weird I know but Karine was the first pregnant woman who let me rub her belly!...I don’t know a lot of pregnant women. So I have a rather girly moment with Karine for a second and then we hop into the van and head to the airport. Liz, Taylor, and Laurean are waiting! We find then sitting curbside at the airport with Trishana. YAY trish! But she disappeared like the exploding bird in Shrek “’Cause first she was here..and then she was GONE!!”...sorry...inside joke. She caught a cab to go to the hotel...at least that is my theory. my other theory involves aliens and pieces of white wonderbread...but we won’t go there. Patrick “I am UBER PACKER!” Toman managed to get Liz, Laurean, and Taylor’s luggage into the van long with Liz, Laurean and Taylor. It was like a clown car in there! I though we could Strap Rob to the hood. I mean after all his head his shaved, he’s aerodynamic! But it probably would have gotten cold for him on the freeway.
We get back to Karine’s place to meet up with Kaylee who drove there and pack up more con stuff loading up Kaylee’s car as well...we are Constaff 2004...we have lots of Crap...fear us. After we’re loaded up we stop for burgers in Poutine. I myself have a burger. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against Poutine. But I was Craving meat that day. CINDY HUNGERS FOR MEAT! CINDY WANT COW BLOOD! AAAR!
Ahem...moving on.
We get to the Delta after Kaylee and I try to figure out how those Crazy Canadian parking meters work. I’ll admit it..too high tech for me. The Hotel is BEAUTIFUL! Granted, this year it was a little on the expensive side but I think it was worth the money. The Place was beautiful the bed comfy, the con suite HUGE and the staff VERY friendly and nice to us gaggle of uber geeks. Besides, I rather spend the money for that then stay in a cheepo roach motel any day. I highjack a bellhop and his rolly cart of Doom (tm) to help us unload the van. We get everything up to the con suite in one piece and I tip the bellhop big so he’s be willing carry more of our heavy crap later. Ah yes..I am such the big spender.
We start to work on stuffing envelopes with programs, Pins, T-shirts, and PGA’s. Liz Kept singing “She's a Bad Mamma Jamma” Which got stuck in my head for the REST OF THE CON!...DAMN YOU LIZ!! Of course by the end of the envelope stuffing everyone in the room was singing “She's a bad mamma jamma”...because Liz Is evil.
After we finish Jen, Alan and Mistah Greg come rolling in. Jen Proceeded to Grab Karine’s belly, press her lips against it and squeal “Hellooooo Baaaabeeeey!” which cracked me up. Alan...grabbed my butt...But that is just his way of saying hello. So I grabbed his back. Frisky lil monkey...
Then we did...something. As to what that something was? I can’t remember at all. But I know we did something! So either it was too traumatic to remember or I was really THAT tired. But after whatever that was was done the staff and a couple G2005 peeps went to dinner. And I ate some of the BEST muscles in the WORLD that night! UGH! *DROOL DROOL DROOL* I got to say hi to Lanny who I haven’t seen in ages and I got to meet Riverdale!! Of course I didn't know at the time he was Riverdale but just a funny guy named Mike. It wasn’t until MUCH later I realized he was one of the Fan Art Fight Club fellas. *L* I drew a picture of Eden Coveting his pants.
Which reminds me..Mike! Of COURSE I’ll do a commission for you Mistah!
We walk back to the hotel where I relay tales of the horror known as MAN FAYE. And thus the legend continues into the garg fandom. We get back to the lobby and I see a TON of people I haven’t seen in ages. Mara and Arron, Hudson, Greg Bishansky, Silver..and got to meet some people face to face too like Spacebabie, Seri Wavelength and White. I know there were others there but I was so dog tired I don’t remember everyone. SORRY! Hugs all around! I would have stayed and chatted all night but I was so zonked and Went back to my room and crashed face first onto my bed.
And thus the end of pre-con Day.

Friday
Mornings...suck. Actually i wouldn’t mind mornings if they weren’t so freaking early. Rob had to all my Fireman carry me to the con suite that morning because my legs refused to get out of bed. We met for lunch and after the magical elixir called Coffee I was functional again. Bless that sweet liquid! I think I consumed a good 24 gallons that weekend. We plan our day and eat eggs. My breakfast would have been perfect if I had peanut butter on toast..because It is the food of the gods.
We get back to the hotel 30 minutes late which makes me a bit tense. We already have artists lined up at the art show/dealers room ready to set up. So I explain to them we’re running late and We still have to set up the art panels. The I prepared myself to be eaten alive. Luckily that wasn’t the case. The artists were not only understanding, they wanted to help! Which made me so..well..overjoyed! We got the panels set up in record time! Thank you, guys! We had a moment of crisis when Patrick and I realized that We were short an elbow Joint and had no black binder clips to hang the art. ACK! So Patrick “I am like the Wind!” Toman Jumped into the van to go to Home Depot while I grabbed Ian as a translator and ran to the office supply store across the street...actually I didn’t need a translator, I just wanted to catch up with Ian. I Lurves the Ian!
We return. Crisis Averted.
The art show set up is smooth. I chat for a while to Jade Griffin who I haven’t seen in ages! turns out she met my old friend/co-worker from YAW Peter Temple. He was working an artists alley at an Anime Con. SO glad he’s drawing again. I hope bump into him sometime!
Friday I also taught my costuming panel. I was only expecting one or two people there. I figured it was the first day and people usually spend the time setting up, registering, or catching up with friends. But thanks to my personal PR gal Laurean my room was FULL! I lurves the Laurean! So I taught my panel on Wigs, Make up, Wing and tail construction and other things. The Disney DVD crew even dropped in to film me! So I may be on the DVD! So Go Buy the dvd and laugh at me talking with my hands! Trishana was laughing her butt off at me as I attempted to censor myself in front of the camera crew. As many of you know, I have a mouth of a drunken Sailor. So me trying to censor myself resembles a Chipmunk having a seizure.
Opening ceremonies went smoothly. Liz and I Drew stupid pictures to eachother...She drew Eden Singing “She’s a Bad Mamma Jamma”...which got back into my head again..DAMN YOU LIZ!! Carol managed to get a really great recording of people who worked on the show to say hello to us and sorry they couldn’t make it. This included Ed Azner who I adore. He just kept on Rambling and rambling...My favorite quote of his.
“..and the show is dark...Like Vampires...Which is what we aren’t...”
How can you not love that?!
Clan Olympics did their first event during Opening Ceremonies which was freaking Hilarious! I’m not sure how the game worked..but I had a great time watching Trish run around shrugging randomly to people. Liz and I were on the floor with belly laughter.
Greg did his Gathering speech which I haven’t heard in 2 years. It was fun to listen to it all over again. And I loved seeing the video pitches of the Gargoyles spinoff shows..Damnit! I SO wish Gargoyles,Dark ages came out! I would have loved that! We ended the night with a Voice recording from the never made Team Atlantis series that had a gargoyles cross over. I liked it a lot...even though the grunting and the groaning without visuals or sound effects with it sounded a little...ahem...Risque...which is putting it lightly.
Rob and I went back to the room for a while thinking that was the end of the day when Jen called and asked us down to dinner. So we met up with her, Alan and the Morgans for some dinner at the hotel. There I once again retold the horrors of tales of the MAN FAYE, and got to witness Becca’s “exotic Dance of the Doilies”...which is something one has to experience...
Spent the rest of my awake state styling Jen’s Grouch wig and attempting to make my Faye wig into a Xanatos wig for Rob. But When I put it on him it looked more like a Hair sprayed beaver was making love to his head than actual hair. So we passed on that and he went as Lex Luthor...thank god he’s flexible.
One thing I did discover late at night in Montreal is the soft core porn on basic cable. I woke Rob up from a dead sleep for this one.
Me: “DUDE! What IS THIS!?”
Rob: *Groggy* “Wha...?”
Me: “There’s a Chick in a Devil costume getting spanked on TV!”
Rob: “....Hand me my glasses!”

More to Come...

Patrick writes...

Gathering Diary - Day 6
Monday, August 9

If Ben Franklin were to attend the Gathering, he would probably observe that, "Late into bed and early to rise makes a man weary and red in the eyes." On Monday, once again, I was awake at the crack of dawn, this time so I could drive Kaylee back to Karine's, where her car was parked, and make it back to the hotel in time to hook up with the group going to La Ronde. Rob had warned me the night before that rush hour traffic would be horrific, so Kaylee and I had made plans to be on the road by quarter of eight. We got out to Karine's place with no problem, and then Kaylee offered to help me unload the Art Show display stuff and put it in Karine's backyard. It turned out to be a good thing that we did, because I ended up needing every little bit of space in the van later for the stuff that was brought down from the con suite.

After I said good-bye to Kaylee, I made a quick stop at McDonald's for orange juice and then I drove back downtown. The traffic really wasn't bad at all, and I made it back with plenty of time to spare. I was going to be switching rooms for my last night in Montreal, so I packed up my bags and stashed them in the van for the day. I think I must have left my shampoo and my bar of soap in the bathroom, though, in my rush. The next place I stopped was the lobby, to buy my La Ronde ticket from the concierge, and then I went back upstairs to help Karine and Rob pack up con stuff and move it out of the con suite. After everything was crammed into the van, we headed back to the lobby to hook up with the other two dozen people who were waiting for Karine to lead the way to La Ronde.

By the time we got to the subway, I was very glad I hadn't gotten delayed in traffic, because I think I would have totally gotten lost trying to find the right trains by myself. Two things I noticed about the subways in Montreal. One, they are a lot cleaner than the subways in New York City. Two, the trains have rubber wheels and don't ride on rails. Rob said it's supposed to make for a smoother ride, but I honestly couldn't feel much of a difference from the subways I rode in New York City last year, other than there was no squealing or clacking in the turns.

Two short subway rides and a short bus ride with no air conditioning later, we arrived at La Ronde. The first thing that Rob and Cindy wanted to do was eat, and that sounded good to me, too, since it was past noon already and I hadn't had breakfast, so we found a place and got burgers and such. Then Karine and Shaun found us, and we did some wandering around the park. Rob led us to "The Dragon," which he said was the lamest roller coaster ever, and I think we all agreed afterwards that he spoke the truth. It makes me wonder, were strobe lights and plastic dragon heads sticking out of the concrete ever really considered scary?

We did some more wandering around, rode the Ferris wheel and the Vampire, ate some fudge, then got Subway sandwiches. We lost track of most of the huge group we had arrived with, but at some point, we ran into Luarean, Trishana, and Leo. Rob and Cindy left early, and the rest of us went and rode the Spiral, which was the tall observation tower thing. After that, Karine, Luarean, Trishana, and I decided we'd had enough, and we took the bus and subway back to the hotel.

On the way back, the four of us ran into Keith in the hotel restaurant. He was there with his family, and the waiter had just brought out a cake with candles on it for his daughter. Keith asked us to join him in singing "Happy Birthday," so we did. Then he asked if we had seen Liz, but since she was still at La Ronde, Keith gave me the money he owed her for some prints he had bought to pass on to her when I saw her later. Then he offered a bit of advice before we said good-bye, saying, "Remember, if you can't be good, be good at it."

Trishana headed back to her room to take a nap, and I left to drive Karine and Laurean back to Karine's place. There, we unloaded all the stuff from the van, then chilled out for about an hour before I got good-bye hugs and left to return to the hotel. When I got back there, as I came out of the elevator from the garage, it really struck me how much the whole mood of the place had changed. For the first time that whole weekend, I didn't see anyone from the convention in the lobby, and a big group of businesspeople had taken over the bar in the hotel restaurant.

Ian had given me the key card earlier in the day for the new room I was supposed to be in that night, and luckily it worked when I tried it, because there was no one else from the con to be found when I got back. I took a nice long shower, then put the TV on and watched a rerun of "Monster House" for a bit while I debated my options for food. The food court in the underground mall was closed, and I didn't really want to spend $25 in the hotel restaurant again. But at the same time, I didn't really want to wander around downtown Montreal all by my lonesome, either. Luckily, I didn't have to, because I ran into Leo and Trishana in the lobby.

We collectively decided to go in search of food, so off we went. On our way out the door, we bumped into Morgans, who were also headed out but in a cab. Trishana and I just picked a direction and walked, and Leo followed along, taking pictures of the scenery. Eventually, after making a big circle, we came upon a Tim Horton's, where we got sodas and sandwiches and sat around for awhile just talking about the fandom and the Gatherings we'd been to. It was kind of a nice low-key end to the day, actually.

When we got back to the hotel, I made a quick search of the Mezzanine for other con peoples, because I'd heard a rumor that Kathy, Aaron, Mara, Greg Bishansky, and some other folks that I knew had been sighted up there at some point in the evening. Sadly, the area was deserted, so I decided to call it a night.

Back up in my room, I found a note from Liz asking if I knew Keith's room number, so I gave the money he had given to me to Trishana to give to her. About ten minutes later, though, Liz turned up, and I learned that I would not be sharing the room with three other guys after all. Two of them had changes of plans with their rides and had left early, so I would only be sharing it with Taylor. So bonus for both of us, because we each got a bed to ourselves that night.

I crawled into bed and turned on "The Tonight Show," but apparently I was more exhausted than I'd been admitting to myself, because I only have drowsy recollections of Jay's monologue and I started nodding off pretty good during the "Headlines" segment. So at that point, I turned off the TV and went to sleep.

Gathering Diary - Day 7
Tuesday, August 10

Ah, the bliss of eight hours of sleep. For the first time in many days, I stayed in bed past nine. Breakfast was had from the food court in the underground mall. On the way there, I ran into Kathy and Mandolin, who confirmed that the restaurants were indeed open for a change. I ended up grabbing something from McDonalds. In Quebec, they serve "crepes et saucices," but what you get looks remarkably identical to "hotcakes and sausage" as found here in the States.

After packing up my suitcase, I hung out for a bit with Liz, Taylor, Trishana, and Julie in the room across the hall. Julie (Chameleongirl) had traveled all the way from Australia to attend the Gathering, which I think is the farthest anyone has come in several years for one of these conventions. She and Trishana weren't leaving yet, but Liz, Taylor, and I were all on the same early afternoon flight. Before we left, though, Liz wanted to thank Keith David one more time. I didn't remember Keith's room number, but I had Karine's phone number so I gave it to Liz and she called Karine to ask her.

I think Liz's original plan was to slip a note under Keith's door, but after she and Taylor had been gone for a while, I started to suspect that the plan had changed. It was getting near time for us to leave for the airport, so with my bag in tow, I headed up to Keith's floor to see if I could track them down. I found them in the hallway talking to Keith, who was wearing one of those white hotel bathrobes. I found out a little later that he had just invited them to join him in the pool. I felt a little guilty about dragging them away, but I think in the end it's probably a good thing that we didn't all miss our flight.

So we said good-bye to Keith, and told him we hope we'll see him in Vegas next year, and he gave us all hugs and sent us on our way. The last people from the fandom I ran into before leaving were Ellen and her husband, and Denis DePlaen, who I saw in the lobby after I had brought the van around front to get Liz and Taylor's things loaded up.

The drive back to the airport was quick, and there wasn't any line to speak of at the check-in counter for Continental. The line for U.S. customs wasn't too bad, either, and we made it into the terminal with enough time to get lunch at Burger King before going to the gate to board our flight. The flight itself was pretty smooth. When we got near Cleveland, the pilot had to circle around to join the queue for landing, which took the plane right out over the lake and gave me a perfect aerial view of my neighborhood. I think I even spotted my house.

After we landed, Liz gave me a sketch she had done for me on the plane of a female version of Puck, and then I said good-bye to her and Taylor and headed off to claim my bags. And as I drove home, thus ended my Gathering 2005 adventure.

The End

Patrick writes...

Gathering Diary - Day 5
Sunday, August 8

After the all-nighter I had pulled, morning seemed to arrive all too quickly. Nevertheless, I still managed to make it to the con suite by about quarter after nine. Karine led Shaun, Laurean, and I to a little coffee shop just a few blocks away where we could grab some cheap eats for breakfast. On the way, we passed by an area where the street was blocked off for a movie shoot. It was a period piece, and there were a number of horse-drawn carriages on the set. Yet parked along the curb was a Lamborghini Diablo, which was apparently there to just distract the tourists and make a very loud anachronistic statement.

Back at the hotel, we found ourselves momentarily locked out of the con suite because we had exited from the door on the public side of the room, which couldn't be opened with the room key, and Karine had left the security chain engaged on the other door. So I drank my coffee and ate my bagel with cream cheese out in the hallway, as Shaun and I waited for someone from security to come up and open the door.

I was assigned to Con Suite duty again for Sunday morning, which was probably the dullest two hours of the con for me, and meant I ended up missing the Gargoyle Biology panel downstairs. I didn't even turn the TV on at first, because the only people coming into the room were the ones doing the Clan Olympics scavenger hunt. One person took a pencil. Another made off with the phone book. Yet another asked me if I could leave to come with them, take my shirt off, and stand in their box. But since that would have left the room unattended, I had to decline.

Eventually, some people came along who actually wanted to watch "Gargoyles" videos, so the TV was turned on and we watched "Mark of the Panther." This was the episode where Goliath finally acknowledged Angela as his daughter, and where Elisa finally had to fess up to her mother about the gargoyles. This episode also featured Anansi, and as the little band of humans, gargoyles, and were-panthers headed into that village in the third act, I couldn't help quipping, "Follow the spiders… why couldn't it be 'follow the butterflies?'"

As the episode was ending, Laurean showed up to take over in the con suite, so I headed downstairs to see where else I could help out. We had originally planned to have Keith do two Mug-a-Guest sessions, so that people would get a chance to attend one and still attend other panels. It would have worked, too, except Keith was nowhere to be found until sometime after lunch. His Q&A session got started in the Art Show and Dealer's room around the same time that Cindy, Rob, and I decided to begin dismantling the Art Show. Cindy took all the art down and somehow still kept it organized, clearing the way for Rob and I to break down the displays. This gave us a jump-start, because all that was left to do after Closing Ceremonies was move everything back down to the garage and load it back into the van. After everything was taken apart, I used my L33T math skills to help Cindy collect the money from people who had bought art.

Closing Ceremonies came and went in a blur, just as the Opening Ceremonies had done, only this time the whole staff got to sit up front. Karine had some fun with the crowd by starting her farewell spiel off en français. Cindy presented all the Art Show awards, and Chris Rogers spoke again to hype everyone up for Gathering 2005 in Las Vegas. After Closing Ceremonies were over, I ran to the back of the room to pre-registered for next year while Keith was getting set up to do autographs. Rather than wait in line for a turn to squint at Chris's laptop screen, I wrote my registration info on a piece of paper and handed him a check. Sometimes the old fashioned way is the fastest.

As I was rooting through Chris's box of free t-shirts looking for my size, Rob tapped me on the shoulder and said in a rather ominous tone, "All staff need to come up to the con suite." Wondering what new crisis had arisen and who was going to have to deal with it, I grabbed my stuff and hurried up there as fast as I could. As I walked through the door, a greeting card was handed to me, and it was then that I spotted the spread on the big conference table. Scott "Abram" Rogoff had decided to surprise the staff with thank-you cards and an assortment of liquor and Godiva chocolates. So that provided the perfect ending to a weekend of hard work, as well as the perfect beginning to the Dead Dog Party.

We couldn't get the Dead Dog Party started, though, until we had finished cleaning up everything downstairs. Luckily, there were plenty of fans willing to lend a hand again, so it didn't take long at all to get the Art Show display stuff hauled back to the van. After that, Cindy and I finished cleaning up the room, and then we headed back upstairs. Jen, Laurean, and Tim Morgan had gone to the meeting that Chris Rogers was holding to discuss next year's convention, so the rest of us got a bit of a head start on the booze. But eventually, everyone trickled back in, and the staff all chipped in to order pizza.

There were fans in and out of the room all evening, and Karine's husband dropped by as well, along with some friends of theirs who we had met with in February. Eventually, though, we had to clear out the people who had only drifted in to consume the food that other people had paid for so that we could have a little staff meeting. We wrapped things up around midnight, and I headed back to my room and took a quick shower before going to bed.

Patrick writes...

Gathering Diary - Day 4
Saturday, August 7

I woke up at about quarter to nine, made myself presentable, and went on up to the con suite, where a collective decision was made to go with the buffet at the hotel restaurant so that we could hopefully get the day started on time. I had eggs, bacon, ham, pancakes and baked beans. I've never seen baked beans served in a breakfast buffet before, so maybe that's a Canadian thing. At any rate, it was food.

I spent the morning helping out where I was needed. The Radio Play needed more women to try out, so I watched the Art Show table for a while when Cindy was drafted to audition. When the Auction started, I did my best not to get sucked into it and instead got sent to watch the con suite, which was fine with me because I'd had more than my fill of Auction chaos in 2001. I relieved Kaylee so she could go watch the SCA weapons demonstration, and sat down to watch the last three episodes of "Awakenings" and then "Thrill of the Hunt" and "Temptation."

Surprisingly, there were very few fans in and out of the con suite. At most, there were five or six people total in the room at any one time while I was there. At one point, A Fan wandered, staring at his feet and complaining about being unable to find the hotel's shoe shine guy. Given that he was wearing sneakers, I found that moment insanely amusing.

Eventually, Kaylee returned to relieve me, so I headed back downstairs to see what was going on. I poked my head in the door of the room where the SCA demonstration was finishing up, but everyone was in leather armor and protective masks so I couldn't really tell who was who. Then I spotted Carol and Kathy sitting near the registration desk, so I wandered over there to say hi and find out if Carol had heard anything new about Keith's flight plans.

I must have wandered away for a moment to check on what was going on in the other rooms, because when I came back, Carol caught me and introduced me to David Grabias. I shook his hand and had said "Nice to meet you" before it even clicked in my head that he was with the video crew, and thus I was ambushed to come downstairs to the ballroom for about ten minutes and be interviewed about "Gargoyles." So there may be a sound bite of me on the DVD, who knows. I don't remember much of what I said in response to the questions they asked. But at the end as I was signing the release, I had one of those "it's a small world" moments with Howard Shack, the cameraman. He asked whereabouts in the Cleveland area I lived, and when I said Euclid he said that he'd lived in Euclid, and started naming off streets that I knew.

A Fan was next to be interviewed, so I scooted off to check in with Carol again. As near as she could tell, Keith had actually gotten on the plane this time, so it seemed like things would be set for us to pick him up at the airport around 6:00 pm. Next up, though, was the Radio Play, so I headed into the Auditorium to find a seat. This year's performance was "The Journey," with the scene order slightly revised by Greg to be closer to the way he originally wanted them. A number of people from con staff were on the cast this year, including Rob as Goliath and Cindy as Margot Yale ("Madame, they burned witches like you in the Middle Ages!"). The real scene-stealer, though, was Michael as Vinny. "Hey, can you believe it?"

After the Radio Play, Carol and I headed out together in the van to fetch Keith from the airport. His plane landed at 5:15 pm, so we were certain that even if it took 40 minutes to get through customs, we'd be able to have him in the van by no later than 6:15 pm, and get back to the hotel with plenty of time left to join everyone else at the banquet. When we arrived at the airport, however, the place was a madhouse. We came to find out later that about ten international flights had all landed around the same time as Keith's flight, and it ended up taking Keith almost two hours to get through customs.

I did my best to stand lookout, but the crowd was so thick it was impossible to get a clear view of the doors where people were exiting customs. Several times, Carol went to ask people who were walking out what time they had landed, because after the first hour of waiting, we were starting to wonder if we had missed Keith entirely. Finally, at about quarter past seven, Carol got a call on her cell phone from Keith's manager, relaying a message from Keith that he had just gotten out of customs and was waiting near the currency exchange booth. It took us several minutes just to make our way 50 feet through the crowd to find him.

Keith had a skycap in tow with a huge cart loaded up with luggage, so I left him and Carol and ran (literally) back out to the parking garage to bring the van around. At the curb, I helped the skycap load the bags, then turned around to discover both Carol and Keith had suddenly vanished. A moment later, they reappeared and it was off to the hotel, as fast as I dare drive with the voice of Goliath riding shotgun.

From the get-go, Keith was incredibly warm and personable, telling us about how much he enjoyed doing "Gargoyles" and saying "You know, I want to be like Goliath when I grow up." It was hard to keep my eyes on the road, in fact, with him sitting there next to me. He has such a powerful voice, it just makes you want to maintain eye contact. As we pulled up in front of the hotel, Keith commented that he was hungry, but it was quarter to eight at that point, and Carol and I honestly didn't know if there would still be any food left from the banquet.

I helped the bellhop unload Keith's bags, then hurried to park the van back in the garage while Carol showed Keith to the front desk to get checked in. When I got back up to the lobby, he had just gotten his room keys. I'm still not sure how, but somehow we convinced Keith to come downstairs and say hello to all the fans gathered at the banquet. I ran ahead, not even sure if they were still waiting, and the first staff person I spotted was Jen. I whispered to her that "the guest of honor is here" about two seconds before Keith and Carol walked in the door behind me, and the room erupted in cheers and applause.

Keith was shown to an empty seat at a table near the front where a shrimp cocktail appetizer was still waiting, and Cindy pulled me down into a similar empty seat near her. Apparently, Cindy and the others at that table had guarded our food for us, threatening to visit bodily harm upon any wait staff who dared attempt to remove it. So a big thank you to them, for keeping both me and Keith from starving. But I also have to extend major thanks to Carol, too, who didn't get a chance to eat at all, because she had to get in a cab and run straight back to the airport to meet Keith's family, who were arriving on later flights. I've already told Carol I'm going to buy her dinner at G2005, so here's me saying it for the record, too.

Greg returned to the room a few moments after Keith arrived, and Keith did Q&A as he ate, though it was tough for parts of the room to hear him over the loud music coming from the class reunion party next door. I didn't stick around for the entire Q&A, though, so I missed the part where Keith allegedly yelled "Someone shoot that horse!" when someone in the next room started singing a karaoke version of "My Way." Instead, I quickly finished my desert and hurried off with Laurean and Cindy to get into costume for the Masquerade.

I had spent an hour or two at a time on and off for the past six weeks working on my costume but I had yet to wear it, so I was rather anxious to see how the entire outfit looked when it all came together. I had previously costumed as Puck for the 1998 Gathering, but the old costume was in such poor shape that I was only able to save the leggings and the sash. Everything else, I remade, paying a bit more attention this time to detail. And overall, I think Puck 2.0 turned out to be pretty damn kick-ass.

Of course, there were a whole lot of kick-ass costumes this year, and many of them belonged to con staff. Karine had the perfect costume as pregnant Fox, Alan and Jen made a great couple as Macbeth and Gruoch, Kaylee looked fabulous as Princess Katharine, Cindy was steaming hot as Titania, Liz rocked as Yama, and Laurean was absolutely uber-cute as pageboy Tom. The fans had lots of wonderful costumes, too. And if someone can get me a transcript of the lyrics sung by our Best of Show winner, Loupy, I will be eternally grateful. It takes guts to filk to the tune of "Rubber Ducky."

One of the strangest things about the Masquerade this year… this was the first time I didn't get sweltering hot while wearing a wig. So finally the air conditioning being on overdrive in those meeting rooms paid off. At one point, I startled an old guy who was getting on the elevator, too. "Whoa, I thought you were Santa Claus!" was I think what he said, after I had explained there was a masquerade going on downstairs. One thing I learned, though. There's a reason why they call them riding boots and not walking boots. Owie. After about two hours and several trips back and forth to the con suite to fetch A/V supplies for Lord and Lady Macbeth, the Puck was quite glad to go change back into his human alter-ego. He did stick around long enough, though, to watch Queen Titania take the mic and sing "All That Jazz." Wow. To borrow a phrase from Jim Carrey, "Smokin!"

When I came back down to the ballroom after getting out of costume, there was more karaoke going on and I discovered that Carol had finally returned from the airport. In the end, all of Keith's family was finally accounted for, so everyone was happy. Then someone decided to play "Y.M.C.A." and everything went a little mad. We were using Jen's laptop to play the karaoke, but it couldn't display the lyrics from Liz's karaoke CDs. And unbelievably enough, no one knew any of the words to the song, so what we got was about two dozen people dancing and singing a rendition that went like this:

"Young man! Something, something, something.
I said, young man! Something, something, something.
I said, young man! Something, something, something.
Something, some… thing… some… thing… something.
It's fun to stay at the Y.M.C.A…"

It was a three-minutes that you really had to be there for to fully appreciate. "It's a little bit funny," though, because the last karaoke song of the evening ended up being mine. I found the Elton John tune "Your Song" one of Liz's CDs and decided to give it a try. It was the first time I've ever sung in front of people, but it was fun and my only regret is that Cindy wasn't there to hear me sing a song from "Moulin Rouge." So next year, Cins, we're doing the "Elephant Medley," okay? ;)

The rest of the night was spent in the con suite, talking about all those things that are most humorous while the brain is in a semi-conscious state. A small group of us stayed up with Greg until around 5:30 am, when it was time for him to go get packed up so he could leave. I'm sure he still thinks I was the walking dead when I drove him to the airport, but honestly, I hit my second wind sometime around 2:30 am as the live-action "Sailor Moon" thing that someone was playing on their computer was ending. So at 6:00 am on Sunday morning, I drove Greg to the airport, dropped him off, then came back to the hotel for about two hours of sleep before it was time to kick off the final day of the convention.

Patrick writes...

Gathering Diary - Day 3
Friday, August 6

I woke up around 7:30 am, mumbled good morning to Laurean as she was on her way out the door to the gym, and scored the first turn at the shower since everyone else in the room was still sleeping. Then I napped until about ten minutes before nine, woke up again, and went up to the con suite to see what the plan was for breakfast. Karine led us all to a diner nearby that had pretty good food at pretty good prices, but they also had the slowest service ever and we were running a half hour behind the schedule printed in the program by the time we got back to the hotel.

I was on Art Show setup duty, assisting Cindy, so the two of us headed up to the room on the Mezzanine level and enlisted anyone who was willing to help unload the van and move the art show display materials up to the room. About six people offered to help, so it took only about ten minutes to get everything up from the parking garage and into the room where the Art Show would be. Alan joined in to help with assembly, and the plastic pipe frames went together quickly, until we suddenly realized we were short two to the 90-degree elbow pieces.

Karine gave me some quick directions to the nearest Home Depot, and then I was off on an emergency run. As I learned at The Gathering 2002 in Virginia, there's nothing quite as fun as driving around an unfamiliar area at top speed, searching for a destination you're not quite sure of. But finally I spotted the familiar orange sign, and ran inside to the plumbing section to grab the pieces we were missing. On a hunch, I also grabbed another pack of zip ties for attaching the pegboard to the frames, which should earn me a psychic friends network membership card because when I got back I discovered Cindy had tried to call me on my cell phone - which I didn't have on me - to tell me that they needed more of those, too. So for about 15 seconds, I was a god for saving the day, and then I went back to work getting the remaining display put together.

I spent most of the rest of Friday afternoon in the Art Show / Dealer's Room, helping Cindy with setup and then sitting guard duty at the Auction display table for a spell. I wouldn't have gotten lunch, but Alan asked me if I wanted anything from Subway, so I gave him money and he brought me back a soda and the best roast beef sub I've ever consumed in less than two minutes. Later in the afternoon, I attended Cindy's costuming seminar. I learned how to take care of wigs, and I'm pretty sure I was the only guy in the room except for when the DVD crew came in to do some random filming.

Right after Cindy's panel was over, Karine or Carol informed me that Keith David had been delayed to a later flight, so I would be picking him up around 11:00 pm instead of Karine's husband Adam picking him up around 6:00 pm. I was fine with that, even if it meant having to remain alert enough to drive at that late hour, so I ran upstairs to the con suite to record the revised flight details in my notebook. Before we knew it, it was getting near time for Opening Ceremonies, so I headed down to the ballroom to see if my help was needed with anything. I had been told we were getting a screen measuring 4'x3', so it was quite a surprise to see they'd given us one about three times bigger. Rob and Karine were still trying to get sound and picture to come out of the projector at the same time when I walked in. I'm not sure what button it was that I pushed, but suddenly there was a picture. A few moments later, we found the volume control, too, and everything was ready.

Greg showed up with his stack of videotapes, and I was given the complex job of sitting next to the VCR, loading tapes, and pressing play. For me, Opening Ceremonies seemed to go by in a blur. Karine welcomed the fans and introduced the staff, then Jen presented the Fan Guest of Honor award to Gorebash. Next, Chris Rogers came to the podium to talk about Gathering 2005, and then Liz came up to make some announcements, which was when Abram and Maui "interrupted" for the first Clan Olympics event. After all the chaos had settled, Greg's part of the Opening Ceremonies began. First he played an audio tape containing the voices of Ed Asner, Keith David, and a number of other people associated with the show that Carol had helped compile the week before. Then he showed the traditional series of videos, and ended with the audio tape of the voice recordings for the never-completed "Team Atlantis" episode "The Last."

After Opening Ceremonies, we handed the room over to Jade Griffin for the "Mystery Gargoyles Theater 3000" event and debated what to do about dinner. Half of the staff wanted to trek out into Montreal again, and half of us were too tired to want to do all that walking. As a few of us were discussing it in the lobby, Greg came up to me and said he had good news and bad news. The good news was I wouldn't have to pick up Keith at 11:00 pm. The bad news was Keith's flight had changed again, and he wouldn't be arriving until 6:00 pm the next day, Saturday.

Greg then joined up with the group Karine was leading out into the city, but I decided to give my feet a rest. I joined Jen, Alan, Tim, Christine, and Becca, and the six of us had a late dinner in the hotel restaurant. Tim told us all about his misadventure earlier in the day where he'd been hit by a car while crossing the street. He was mostly okay, but he still made sure to put some alcohol on his injuries in the form of a shot of tequila and two white russians. I stuck with cola because I was drowsy enough already, and I had a pretty good hamburger followed by a nice slice of cheesecake.

After dinner, Jen, Christine and I went back up to the con suite to await Greg's return for the Blue Mug-a-Guest. We were joined shortly by Anthony and Andrea Zucconi and a few other fans who had not hooked up with the huge group that had gone out with Greg to dinner. Exercising the ancient rite of "first come, first serve," we claimed the chairs and left the floor to the latecomers. Greg arrived only about ten minutes behind the scheduled 11 pm start time, and within a short amount of time the room was filled to capacity and then some.

For a Blue Mug-a-Guest, the overwhelming majority of the discussion was pretty tame. A lot of the questions focused on the DVD and what could be done to make sure that Season 1 will sell well enough that we get Season 2, and so on. Some ideas were floated about using the internet to coordinate the fandom's efforts, such as having everyone purchase the DVD from Amazon.com on the same day.

There was one question that was asked about how the fay copulate and reproduce which Greg apparently misheard at first, as he began talking about gargoyle egg-laying. He remarked that the eggs are soft and flexible when they are laid, and also that they start out small and grow bigger. This elicited a "Ha-ha, I was right, I told you so," comment from someone I had debated this same topic with in one of the online comment rooms a few months ago. Not the most mature of reactions, and bad science to boot. It made me wish I'd been able to attend the Gargoyle Biology panel on Sunday morning, because as much as I respect Greg, I still firmly believe that it must be recognized that there is absolutely no precedent at all in the animal kingdom for hard-shelled eggs that grow in size from the time they are laid to the time that they hatch.

Anyway, sorry to digress, but this was still bugging me when I went to bed that night, so I felt it worth mentioning. I can't remember very many of the other specific questions that were asked, though I do recall that when Greg was asked about whether the tip of a gargoyle's tail was especially sensitive, he deferred the question to Christine Morgan. Greg also blew a whole bunch of fanfic out of the water by saying that in his mind, Angela was a virgin when she arrived in Manhattan, and that gargoyles as a species were not promiscuous. I'm not quite sure these revelations are going to slow down any of us who've written stories to the contrary, though.

Friday night finally came to an end at around 2 am on Saturday morning, when Greg got up to answer the call of nature and Karine decided it was time to clear everyone out of the con suite. That included con staff, as well, so I headed to my room to grab a few more hours of sleep.

Patrick writes...

Gathering Diary - Day 2
Thursday, August 5

With one day left until the convention opened, I awoke already knowing we had a ton of stuff to do. Over breakfast, Karine and I went over our list from the night before to make sure we wouldn't forget anything. The first stop was the bank, to deposit money and get small bills Canadian for making change. Then we headed out in the van to pick up the program booklets from Bureau en Gros, and made a quick stop at Home Depot where I grabbed a can of red spray paint to touch up my Puck boots.

Next, it was off to Rob's place to pick up him and Cindy, along with the big box of Gathering t-shirts and a box full of stuff for the auction. Running just slightly behind schedule at that point, we headed to the airport, where we found Laurean, Liz, and Taylor waiting at the curb. I parked and jumped out, and we played a quick game of human 3-D Tetris to fit all seven people and their bags into the van. I'm sure the chassis was nearly scraping the ground on the way back to Karine's, but we arrived back there just in time to meet up with Kaylee, who had driven in from Ontario.

For lunch, we split up into two cars and went to the same greasy spoon we had visited in February during the live meeting. After satisfying my craving for poutine, we drove back to Karine's and packed as much stuff as we could into the back half of the van and the trunk of Kaylee's car. I also found a few minutes take my boots out in the backyard and gave them both a fresh coat of paint to repair the damage the T.S.A. had done. They were left to dry on the porch, and the eight of us set off as a convoy for the hotel.

At the hotel, I parked in the underground garage - a feat which required some careful automotive maneuvering - and Kaylee parked on the street. Cindy shanghaied a bellhop to help us unload the van, and Shaun had already arrived to help out, so in short order we were able to get everything moved up to the con suite. Kaylee and Karine then took of again in Kaylee's car to fetch more con supplies from Karine's office and pick up the Phoenix Gate Anthologies. In the meanwhile, the rest of us got to work stuffing the con packets. By the time Karine and Kaylee returned, the packet stuffing was mostly done.

It was the height of rush hour when Rob, Karine, Kaylee and I set out again to fetch the art show display boards and a few other remaining items from Karine's place. On my way out, I ran into the Morgans in the lobby and told them where they could find the rest of the staff. By the time I got down to the garage, Rob was already waiting for me. Highway traffic was a real bear for about half the way back, but by the time we had loaded up the panels and the last of my and Karine's bags, the highways were moving at normal speeds again and we zipped back downtown without any problems.

When I got back up to the con suite, I found the remaining members of the staff had arrived. Carol was there, and so was Jen and her husband Alan. I took a few minutes to move my bags out of the con suite to the room I was sharing with Laurean and Kaylee, but after that was done I didn't have a whole lot of time to sit around before it was time to head out in the van once again to retrieve Greg from the airport. The art show display boards were still in the back of the van, which meant we could only take a welcoming party of three and still leave a seat free for Greg. So this time it was Rob, Jen and I who went. Finding our way to the airport turned out to be fairly easy, and we parked and went inside to wait for Greg to emerge from the magic doors at customs.

The wait for Greg took just long enough to cost us for a second half hour's worth of parking, which Rob was kind enough to hop out and pay on our way out of the garage after I realized that I had left the little ticket in the van when I should have brought in with me. We drove back to the hotel - my third trip downtown of the day - and managed to find a parking space in the garage again. Jen called up to the con suite to let them know we were back, so when we walked into the lobby with Greg some of the other staff members had come down to meet us. There was also a group of fans gathered in the lobby, including Kathy, Hudson, Aaron, Mara, Greg Bishansky, and several other people I recognized from previous Gatherings whose names escape me now as I try to write this journal almost a week later.

While Greg got checked in and took his stuff to his room, I went back up to the con suite to see what could be had in the way of snacks, since it was now going on 10 pm and I hadn't eaten since lunch. There was still some pita bread and humus left that we had picked up while grocery shopping for the con suite during the second trip back to Karine's, so I was able to find enough to tide me over until the late dinner we'd had planned with Greg.

I hope there weren't too many hard feelings about the dinner plans on Thursday night, but apparently there had been some miscommunications that kept some of the fans waiting around downstairs in expectation of joining us. In the end, it seemed like there were three times as many people wanting to go than the restaurant Karine had planned to take us to could even seat, so we had to scale it back to current and future staff only.

Of course, in traditional Gathering last minute change of plans style, the restaurant we had intended to go to had just closed their kitchen a few minutes before we got there. So instead we ended up at another restaurant across the way, where instead of crepes I had a three-cheese pizza. By the time dinner was over and we had made our way back to the hotel, most of us were nearly dead on our feet. So we called it a day, and made plans for the staff to meet in the con suite at 9 am for breakfast and a strategy meeting for the first day of the actual convention.

Patrick writes...

Gathering Diary - Day 1
Wednesday, August 4

I slept in a whole hour later than normal for a weekday, then dragged myself out of bed to get some last-minute errands run before it was time to leave for the airport. My morning rounds included a stop at the post office, to collect the last of the last-minute Gathering pre-registration payments, and a stop at the bank to deposit them and withdraw some cash that could be used to make change in Canada for fans who wanted to pay us in U.S. dollars. I had to visit two banks, because for some strange reason the first one didn't have any one dollar bills.

Back at home, I had enough time to finish packing and eat lunch before heading out to the airport. By the time I left, mostly cloudy had turned into steady rain, so the drive to the airport took a little longer than normal. Finding parking took forever, but inside the terminal there was barely a line at check-in or security. I checked two big bags crammed full of costume and con stuff, then headed to my gate at the far end of the airport. I got there with about a half hour to spare before boarding, but since the flight was departing out of Continental's regional terminal and not the international one, there was no duty-free shop that I could buy any gift booze at (sorry, Karine).

The flight itself was uneventful and only about half full. We landed at the Montreal airport ahead of schedule, then waited on the ground for about ten minutes for our gate to clear. Once off the plane, there was the usual fifteen-minute walk to customs, where the wait time was posted on the wall as 40 minutes. The long line that snaked back and forth between the velvet ropes was constantly moving, though, so that at least gave the illusion of progress. After a quick chat with the Canadian customs officer, I claimed my bags from where they were waiting by the carousel and went to get my rental car.

Airport renovations had claimed more of the arrivals area since my visit in February, including the rental car counter, so I headed straight out to the parking garage where a small mob of businessmen had convened around the Hertz office. I overheard the agent at the desk complaining that they were running out of cars and couldn't upgrade anyone to vans or luxury sedans, so I received several envious glances as I claimed the keys to the minivan I had reserved months before.

From the airport, it was off to Karine's house. I found my way to the freeway with no problem, and after that it was easy to find the right exit and follow the directions I had memorized in February of "left at the light, then right, right, right." I got a little surprise when I came up to the first right turn. Straight ahead, I could see the St. Lawrence River, which in February had been frozen over and invisible under the snow.

At Karine's place, we got right to work doing Gathering prep. When I opened my bag to unpack the pipe fittings I had brought for the art show displays, I discovered a little card saying that the T.S.A. had opened and checked my bag. Unfortunately, they didn't wrap the towel back around the boots for my costume before stuffing them back in the box with the pipe fittings, so the red paint on one of them had gotten all scuffed up. Karine got out some red acrylic paint and we tried to touch them up, but the color wasn't a very good match.

Knowing we had more important things to do, I set the problem aside and got to work instead on the special pieces we needed to make for the art show displays. Using Karine's tools, it took all of fifteen minutes to fabricate the six connectors we needed for the center posts of the display units. Setting those aside, we moved on to con badges and con packets. By the time Karine's husband Adam arrived home, we had nearly finished assembling all badges and we had stuck labels on all the con packet envelopes which would be stuffed the next day at the hotel.

For dinner, Karine made hamburgers and corn on the cob. Then we finished putting the lanyards on the badges and got everything packed up and ready to go for the next day. Around 11 pm, Karine downloaded the final PDF file of the program book Siryn had been working on nonstop for the previous week, and it was just before midnight that we headed off to the 24-hour copy shop at Bureau en Gros (the local equivalent of Staples) to place an order for 200 booklets. I pretty much stood there as Karine did all the talking since all the talking was in French, but I did make myself useful by running off some self-serve copies of the masquerade registration and walk-in registration forms.

It was closing in on 1 am by the time we got back to Karine's and decided to call it a night. I shared the futon in the living room with Peanut, a very friendly orange cat who is so big she has her own gravitational field. And that night I got what would turn out to be the longest stretch of uninterrupted sleep I would get until Monday night.

Revel writes...

August 8
Slept late again, but I had a mission. I went to find Chris Rogers to pre reg. for 2005. Spacie and I did find him still asleep in his room, along with a hung over Hudson, whose ears are already too sensitive from what I understand.

We did however get a small group together and ate on the revolving restaurant for the buffet, over priced, but most hotel food is and this was all you can eat. The city was nice to see from above and it was nice to watch the rain come in. The guy on the crane trying to commit suicide did put a slight damper on things, but he did come down.

We spent pretty much all early afternoon up top and only attended closing ceremonies. I won two art awards, one first place that I was not expecting to get, but not complaining, it was also the one that sold. I finally did get registered for Vegas and paid Chris the money for the buffet I owed him. After than it was time to collect art from the art show and pay for the thing that were bought.

Could not find people after that, many ended up leaving or just disappearing, Dinner was subway sandwiches that we found several blocks away up the big hill.

August 9
The morning started out with a bit of a hustle because Spacie and myself were set to go to La Ronde, but to save money, Aaron, Mara, Lynati, Greg and Alex Bishansky, and Emambu were all to move their things to our room, since we would not be there and it was just for one night. Took some effort but finally got people moving and I don’t think anything was left behind.

It was a good sized group to take to the park, not quite as large as the Coney Island group of last year but enough. I was surprised to see that the subway cars actually ran on rubber tires instead of rails. Karine also pointed out that they used wooden brakes, you could smell them at hard stops.

It was a great day for being outside, not hot at all. The park was bigger than Coney Island, but smaller than our local Six Flags in Houston called AstroWorld. There were however a LOT of people there and at first not all the coasters were going. So long lines were expected all day. We caught a few smaller rides and took the park tour tram, which was really nice and relaxing. Caught a round of mini golf and had lunch with a small group we had arrived with. On the way out we both bought drinks out of a coke machine but her’s was warm. The park attendants were kind enough to exchange it for a cold one for free.

After we grabbed some McDonald’s again we returned to find our room full, all 8 of the Rogue Squadron plus Mandolin and Kathy Pogge. Was a nice after con chat party plus we all joined together for a singing of Denis Leary’s @$$hole song. Not sure if Kathy sang or not, but was fun nonetheless

Sleeping arrangements were made and we all crashed.

August 10
As said before, mornings are not this crew’s strong point. But I managed to get them up and moving. Being that the road trip was my idea from the start I felt like I was in charge, or maybe I just like ordering people about, the world may never know. But bills were paid and we got fueled up and loaded to make our way back to Greg’s house in NY.

All the fuel was in liters and seeing a sign for .89 cents sounds great, till you remember it is in liters. (I have an 18 gallon tank which comes out to about 68 liters) So I got enough to makes sure I could make it to the next stop.

Easy to find our way back out and started South. So then we come to the US Customs and border, which for those who do not know now falls under department of Homeland Security. Just when you think the Canadian border guards are being up tight you get to meet the US border guards. These people literally act like they want you to be a terrorist so they can shoot you dead and get out some of their frustration. They are trained to ask reasonable questions and protect our country but did anyone think to train them in courtesy? Not even a thank you or welcome home.

We had one other stop in the Adirondack Park that I think was to search for illegal game hunting, but that went fast.

Greg and Alex’s mother was very hospitable and we ate well, and if anyone is interested they did get a new fridge. I went to bed early knowing it was another thousand or so miles of road ahead.

August 11 and 12
This is a two day entry because not much went on and because quite frankly it all felt like one long day. Basically, we didn’t stop. We stopped for fuel, and we stopped for restrooms, and we stopped at a Denny’s in Salem, Virginia for dinner, but other than that, we didn’t stop till we got back to Houston. We talked, played CD’s, most of it was a blur, I just hope I was awake when I was suppose to be, but we clocked it in at about 27 hours of total driving time.

After a brief nap Aaron and Mara returned to San Antonio and that brings to a close Le Gathering and Road Trip 2004.

Revel writes...

Journal part 2 Stuff about the con, how about that!

August 5
Thursday, Once again scheduled plans of departure were way off because no one wanted to wake up. Breakfast was Dunkin Donuts because the night before the refrigerator died and so did everything in it. Weather reports were sketch but we only hit a couple of light patches of rain, nothing to slow us up.

A small note about driving in NY, the people, even outside of Manhattan appear to all be emergency vehicle drivers, because everyone is driving like they have a person dying in the back seat. I am not a slow driver, but I try to exercise a little bit of caution when driving through narrow, near 400 year old, dinky town roads that do not appear to have been widened, just paved over. Crazy.

Upstate New York is very pretty, lots of places one can imagine where Xanatos would place a retreat (since I don’t think a specific location was determined) but we drove reasonable and made good time. Gas in NY is ungodly expensive compared to Texas. I will never complain about our prices again.

Now, we come to the border. When we arrived, there were two posts open and not a one of them appeared to be going fast. I was later told that the Customs agents were on strike but still had to work so they took their sweet time. About an hour and a half wait and I had to use the rest room nearly the whole time. Like sitting in a theater and not wanting to get up type feeling. I will admit that I made one little lie to the border agent, they did ask if we were armed or carrying any weapons and I did have my knife with me. The short of it is, I carry it when I go place that I am unsure of the security, like rest stops in some states, and I really, really had to go, so didn’t want to slow things even more.
Montreal was not far from the border, about half an hour I’d guess, but had to drive through a trench with no shoulder or escape, which is very, very unnerving. We survived. Our first exit was blocked off, had to double back and finally across the bridge to downtown.

We found a small group congregating in the lobby as a welcoming committee, was nice to see some faces that I had not seen in over a year. Hung out there for a while, Seth, Wingless, Sapphire, Kyt, Hudson, Chris Rogers, CKayote, and many others were there as well. I crashed pretty early, was road fatigued.

Now about the Hotel. An excellent location for people like us who were unfamiliar and could not read many signs. It was very easy to find. The lay out of the hotel was well thought out, with the convention levels close together and easy to access and we could stay in the lower floor till all hours and no one said a thing to us, because we are so far below the other guest that we can’t disturb anyone if we tried. The rooms were as advertised, or at least ours was. A nice double with two queens that we really needed on the last day, I’ll explain later.

Two minor complaints. The parking spaces in the basements were reeeeeeally narrow. Erik drives a Town Car, and to get between the lines he and I had exactly 8 inches of space door to door. Second complaint, which is very minor, was that good cheap food was quite a walk away, that’s just the sacrifice of a downtown hotel though, oh well.

August 6
Friday, first day of the convention itself. Spacie and I hunted about trying to find a breakfast place, settling on a bagel place next to about a block and a half from the hotel. I had a croissant and a sesame seed bagel. Was not too expensive, 7 bucks for the two of us.

I first went about locating the Art Room. Easy to do once I found Cindy, who was recruiting to help set up art. Naturally fair that if I want to set up art I should help set up the art space so I did. It went well enough, some of the joints were uneven or kept popping out. One over all comment I had heard was that the lighting was poor. It was, but we all survived and there was a lot of good stuff.

After set up I invaded the Round Robin, that despite our best efforts at keeping it PG slipped at some point or another. And of course there is a tape of it floating around.

The film crew came in and watched Greg’s Voice acting panel, this was the first time I’d say most of us had seen them, I could tell a lot of people froze right up, but they were very cool people and I’d say most warmed up to them. I did get to do a reading with Emambu, who is a very talented individual even if he’s too modest to admit it. He was Lexington and I was Brooklyn from the scene with Tom and Mary in Awakening part One. This was a good warm up for me because radio play auditions followed immediately after the panel and I was one of the first to go. Having been in the play last year I felt more confident in my ability and read the Broadway lines (not expecting to get the Broadway part the next day, but that’s irony for you.)

Opening Ceremonies was fun. One of my favorite parts is to see the show of hands of con-virgins and second timers. It always seems there are a great deal of virgins, but very few second timers. It’s like once you come twice you will do what ever you can to come again. The DVD info was good to hear, and yes my Dad’s birthday is December 7th. *evil grin* This was also the first time I had gotten to hear the Team Atlantis tape. At 2002 I missed the radio play all together, and 2003 I stayed at the auction, which ran into the Team Atlantis panel. Someday I’d really like to watch the teaser trailer that was played for the media with the kind of speakers and bass that Greg describes, till then I’ll just have to imagine it. Chris’s pitch for 2005 sounded really good, Vegas should be a lot of fun, just need to start saving some play money now.

Dinner was McDonald’s, I ordered nuggets, and some how ended up with a double big Mac. Not what I wanted and too far to walk to change it back so I ate it. Afterwards was mostly just hang out time. Catch up on what everyone had been doing. Went to the Blue Mug a Guest and enjoyed hearing the questions and asked a couple of my own, neither even slightly Blue, but was nice to get a change to ask Greg. The whole thing about whether he had read the original Heinlein “Starship Troopers” was important to me, since I didn’t feel the screen writer for the movie had. Got to bed about 2am I think.

August 7
Can’t even remember what I had for breakfast, must not have been very good. What I do remember was being approached my Hudson and being asked if I could drive Zaius Monkey to the Airport because his baggage never made it through customs and he had to go down and confirm it. At first I agreed. If we had left right then and there I may have even been able to get him there and back in time. But we became distracted. Our small group ended up down on the bottom floor where the film crew were shooting individual interviews and they wanted to see Aaron’s infamous Demona tattoo. So that ate half an hour and I found out I was in radio play. There was no way I could make it to the air port and back and neither could Emambu. Luckily Kai and Lexy offered and came through, big thanks to those two.

Not much later, my car was required again. Lynati needed more paint for her costume and we were all short on time. Aaron, love you like a brother, is not good with giving directions, or working with sketchy ones. Karine told him where a Home Depot was and we attempted to find it. What we ended up doing was spending half an hour cursing at one way streets, going the wrong way, illegal left hand turns, and some how I found a gravel road down by one of the bridges that cut back to a real street. See, driving video games do pay off. We finally got oriented and started down the right direction, but I had to let Aaron take over because I had radio play rehearsal.

The rehearsal was fun, for a minute there, while Greg was passing out scripts I thought I’d end up with Vinnie, but instead received Broadway. Not expected, but certainly fun to play.

Had just enough time to run down to the hotel store and get some snacks before the play itself. As many know now we read “The Journey” and though Broadway only had once scene I did it the best I could, even tried mimicking Bill’s voice, not sure how well it came out since we always sound different to ourselves.

The banquet soon followed and my only complaint was the lighting, not the food, the food was really good. The lighting was really poor for picture taking that was disappointing. We had some of the white wine, not sure who paid but was nice to have something besides just water. Our table consisted of myself, Spacebabie, Kathy Pogge, Yggdrasil, Chyna Rose, and Seri Wavelength. We had some good conversations. Everything from fandom stories, to alcohol, to farm stories, to politics.

Keith David did finally arrive and I felt bad because he seemed like he really wanted to eat, but at the same time be a good guest and answer questions. I did manage to ask him a question about Harrison Ford, which was for my mother who is the biggest Ford nut in the Central South West.

Had to check out of the Q&A early to get my costume together. For the most part, it was easy, the hard parts had been done already, which was trying to dye a suit to match the burgundy/maroon that Dracon wore. The hardest part was the jacket, I went through several thrift store jackets, but spent more on dye than I did on them. The hair, which completed the look, was done by Spacebabie, I sat in the bath tub and she used spray in hair color. Was hard for me to see but was told it came out wonderful. I didn’t have a skit in mind, thought about saying something when I got out on the floor, but went blank so I posed like Han Solo in Return of the Jedi and the crowd cheered. At the awards presentation I won the Thom Adcox memorial award, but sorry, I have not progressed enough to dropping my pants in front of the public yet.

After it was all over I washed my hair as best I could and went back down to convention level to hang out and chat till 3 am.

Revel writes...

Here is my 2004 Convention journal/road trip.

I apologize, this first part actually is just build up to the Gathering, but most of it is relative... or I thought so.

The Gathering 2004

Well, Let me start from the beginning. For me this vacation actually began on August 1st.

August 1
For the most part it was an uneventful day. Final preparations were made to Hyena, My 2003 Pontiac Aztek, as I waited for Spacebabie’s plane to arrive.

I feel I should explain how her name came about. For starters, she is a gold-beige color, but also it’s her attitude. The Aztek is a very unconventional looking car hard edges, subtle curves, but also has all kinds of electronics and features. It’s a love it or hate it kind of thing, I guess a lot like Hyena the character. All I really should say on that.

After the airport we bought road snacks, two way radios and I got some additional motor oil for when we got back.

The birth of the road trip was because I was not entirely sure where I would be living several months ago and to combat high airline prices, because the average price for a round trip ticket remained about $300 and often higher. I came up with the idea of the two of us just road tripping to Montreal. Not long after we finalized the idea, others hopped onto the road trip idea. The final count was eight people, Spacebabie, Aaron, Mara, Greg X, his brother Alex, Emambu, Lynati, and of course myself.

August 2
This is the day Aaron and Mara were to arrive from San Antonio, a casual 3 hour drive from Houston. They did arrive, but unfortunately much later than original planned. I had planned to rustle everyone up at about 4am, but we only went to bed about 2am, soooo we slept in a little later.

August 3
Tuesday morning, 5:30am, destination Pittsburgh, PA. I somehow, magic most likely, managed to get my three passengers to the car and on the road. They all immediately went to sleep again.

We made it out of Houston with no problems. Our route to Emambu’s place had been planned weeks before and I had studied it entirely. We first traveled East across Louisiana before turning north, cutting up Mississippi to Memphis, Tennessee. I discovered that Tennessee is not a state you want to drive in if you are trying to cross the country at a fast pace. Tennessee has a lot of large hills and mountain roads that cops like to wait on, especially the blind side of a steep grade. Almost thought they tagged us once for sure, but it turned out to be the car in front of us. Aaron was driving at that point and I never did really go back to sleep after that. We traversed half of Tennessee, turning North again after Nashville, we hit that city at about rush hour. Don’t have to worry much about cops when you are crawling at 30 mph.

I noticed that not all states have those great big “Welcome to Blah Blah Blah” signs. We crossed into both Kentucky and Ohio without really even noticing. Did briefly see Three Rivers Stadium where the Cincinnati Reds play.

It was after Columbus though that we ran into our first bit of bad weather. Fog. Not a little fog, like I can only see 5 feet in front of my car fog. Not good when added to that both Aaron and I were both road fatigued. We stopped in West Virginia to switch one last time and I took us into Pittsburgh. The fog has cleared well but now it was almost dawn and crazy early to work drivers were about. There are few things more scary that 18 wheeler drivers thinking they are commanding something the size of a VW Beetle.
Emambu gave good directions though, we found his apartment just before 6am. With time zone change the first leg was completed in just about 24 hours.

August 4
We all slept pretty late, at least to early afternoon. Emambu, Mara and I went into town to get breakfast and coffee for those that wanted it, plus final check on directions to GregX’s house, not that they were that good. I hate Map Quest. It works well enough for major routes, but when it comes to small urban roads, always, ALWAYS double check with a local that the road has not be renamed or renumbered, or has a itty bitty street sign that no one can see in broad daylight let alone in the middle of the night and rain.

We packed up both cars, Erik’s “Mafia Cruiser” and “Hyena” and made our way out of town via the Pennsylvania Turnpike. This is where the radios came in. I recommend for any two car or more convoys that they should all have radios. They are great for coordinating stops and a lot of fun to shoot comments back and forth. Aaron’s dubbing of the lead car as “Red Leader” lead to the Rogue Squadron name.

As said before, the maps did give us a general idea of where we were going. And as we approached New Jersey, we became inundated. It poured, and I mean poured. The kind of rain that even with full speed wipers you cannot see more than ten feet in front of you.

We made the right exits however, across the Bridge and onto the East side of the Hudson. Then it was just a matter of getting to Croton. Much easier when you don’t drive pass the exit you need. This is on top of the fact that for some reason I get horrible phone reception so the last few turns to find the house required more effort than it should have.

Nevertheless we arrived, the rain stopped, and we all had food and a place to sleep. Many thanks to Greg’s mother for putting up with a bunch of worn out travelers, we all appreciated it.