ECCC 2015

I apologize for the lateness in this posting. There has been a lot happening in my life, and I haven’t been able to write as much as I want. Not a joke, my baby sister had brain surgery two days ago on the other side of the country. It took us about 3 months to plan, fund, and work for the long trip. It didn’t even occur to me that ECCC was over a month ago.

The theme I tried for while at Comic Con was relaxation. I was not going to try to overdo myself, and feel like I had no energy left. This caused some problems, but at least it was much better than the first year.

I headed off from work, and drove to Renton without much of a problem.

The attendant at the gas station in Ellensburg asked who I was. It turned out he was from the Boise area, which I got a lot of mannerisms from. I wasn’t who he thought I was, but I could see his homesickness in his eyes.

It had rained pretty hard the week before, but this trip was fairly easy. When I got to Tuan’s, I talked with his roommates, and then went to bed.

The next day we were expected to meet at 1PM. I didn’t have a lot to do, so I headed out a little early. It was Thursday in the afternoon, so I was expecting heavy traffic. There really wasn’t any. On the other hand, the place I usually park was full. This was a real shock because it usually isn’t. I chose out a spot near the homeless folks.

An idea that I never got to enact hit me. There was a homeless guy with a book. I thought it would be cool to get them all some books, so then they had something to do.

I arrived an hour early, and found my spot at random. I was actually looking for someone to tell me where it would be. My expectations was for somewhere a little more inside the convention, but outside. Instead it was the second floor next to the main entrance. We had a lot less space given, but still could fill them.

As I waited, I did some photos of the art around us. The arcade would be in the same area as the art display. The theme was old towns in the woods. There was some really cool stuff, and I thought having an arcade nearby would do some cool things.

Finally someone else showed up, and I helped him bring his XMen Pinball machine up. His truck had broken down, so he couldn’t transport the games he wanted. This was a real disappointment since he was bringing 5 games, and instead only brought one. He was willing to drive all the way back to his house, and deliver each game, but we said to only have one.

More people showed up, and I helped them figure out what went where. We had two walls, and an inside space. Because not all of the games would show up, it was not going to be difficult to place machines.

I tried to figure out where the loading dock was, and then found out I needed a lanyard first. The brothers from Agents of SHIELD would be proud of the people that work at the Washington State Convention Center, because we could not go looking for the loading dock without lanyards. We tried moving forward, but security nearly got involved.

This was even more annoying since, we had no idea where to get our lanyards. Eventually we did get them, but it was a lot of annoying waiting. After getting the little piece of plastic, I went out and tried it figure out the shortest, and safest path to the arcade. I found out there was two loading docks. The one I knew was for giant trailers, and moving trucks.

I then showed everyone the path I found. It was long, but safe. It involved a backways elevator that only staff and exhibitors could use. Then walking to the other end of the building through several winding paths, and back a little bit. After that, the moving van showed up.

I raced to find them, and show the way. This was especially good to us, since they had better moving devices.

While waiting for the next shipment, I decided to try another path, and it was much much easier. The mistake made was from a random guess near the elevator. We needed to turn left, and I first chose right. I take full blame for not knowing, and screwing it up. As soon as I could, I showed everyone the new path.

The machines were being set up, and placed as needed. We had 15 games, and had been hoping for 30. The XMen, and Avengers pinball were set up next to each other, and the arcade games were on the walls. Across the street was Game Works.

While waiting for things to move along, I found a pool at the top of a building. Infact, I was told that several buildings had pools on top. Keep in mind this is Seattle, where it is cloudy, and drizzling constantly.

The machines were all set up, and we headed out. It was such an easy day that we headed out early.

I spent the afternoon talking with Tuan’s roommate. The internet worked fast, and all of my photos uploaded easily. I ended up chatting a little too far into the night, but was relatively relaxed and enjoyed the evening.

The next day, I was a little late for opening, but there was a full crew. I was told to go tour the show. I felt bad, but checked it out. The show was less crowded than I remembered from last year. Actually, a few of the displays I expected weren’t even there.

On the other hand, the Modern Ukiyoe guy was there. Imagine my delight to see that. I learned to draw because his art inspired me to figure it out. I am not claiming any amazing skills, but this is where I began. It’s not every day that I actually am at a loss of words because someone who has inspired me so much is right in front of me.

There were several costumes, and I did not take enough pictures. Seriously, there was just too many.

After touring the area as thoroughly as I could, I headed back to the arcade. Somehow the repetitive motion of handing out fliers hurt my shoulders. It felt like I had a huge backpack on.

After a long time, I went to lunch. The Soda machine at the Subway was broken, which was ok. I wanted water. The last trip to Seattle -only a week beforehand- I realized that my health needed to be taken more seriously. So, water, and a nice sandwich for me.

After handing out even more fliers, it got dark. Around 8 I headed back to Tuan’s. The streets were busy, but someone let me through. Seattle drivers can be really polite if you give them the opportunity. I made sure to be polite to everyone else on my trip back.

The next day I gave Tuan’s roommate a trip to the Convention. Actually, first I got us some food. I was starving, and Mcdonalds was a short drive away. Traffic was backed up for miles as we drove to the Convention Center. In fact, I-90 was under maintenance. I decided to try an alternative route. I didn’t really know where I was going, but I predicted it would take us to the right place.

It turned out the way to Seattle was on a toll bridge. At first I didn’t want to take it, but then decided everything was making me too late to care. It turned out it would cost me about $3.40 to cross. To me that was worth it.

I arrived late, and was told to just see sights.

I saw a friend from the Seattle Retro Gaming Expo. We chatted for a bit, and then Cos Play watched. Once again, Guy Thor was rare. We had an excellent view of the costumes, and I took as many pictures as I could. Two hours later, I realized we had been standing there for way too long.

I saw a sexy Baymax. The robot from Hero 6. It was such a shock, because he and I had said it was next to impossible. We stood corrected.

I saw Tuan’s roommate from time to time while touring. I took some pictures of the lines to the various Gods -AKA actors of shows. Every single person at a booth charged money for an autograph. Skye and Agent Coulson were at the show, but I did not have the money for it.

At the arcade, there was a nice movement of people, and thus Cos Players. I got a bunch of photos from that. Actually, some of them used the arcade as home base. Batman was a regular.

There was a couple I was sort of scared of approaching. They seemed sort of angry at everything, and terse. They said things nicely to eachother. After building up some courage, I approached them, and handed out a flier. It turned out they were from New York, they part where everyone acts terse. They were a lovely couple on vacation, and were enjoying themselves a lot.

At 5 I went to lunch, and told everyone I would be heading out to another thing. It was an Indie display for a skunkworks. The office is where multiple teams hang out, and work together to get their projects done. There were games on display, and speakers. The area itself was really nice, and I took pictures of the view just as much as the games. I met Post Doc students who made games, artsy folks, and regular indies. It was a lot of fun, and the games were really cool. I lost at an RTS, snowboarded, played a ‘card game’, and was pretty dang sold on Fusion X.

For this trip, I decided to scan everything with my camera. I have an app that does that, and it makes a PDF of what I want. I scanned a ton of cards while at the Indie Event.

After Don Thacker gave his speech, I headed out.

The walk back to my car was uphill most of the way, but still fun. I talked a little bit with Tuan’s roommates when I got back, but really just wanted to sleep.

The next day I did something I had wanted to do at every convention, I went to church. I found an early morning session, and took the sacrament. The GPS on my phone became an amazing blessing. The trip back to Tuan’s apartment was a bit odd, but I figured out where I was.

So I was late to the convention, and felt like I should have told them beforehand.

The president of the arcade show was sick. Actually, he had to go to the hospital, so we had to change a bunch of things around. The items on the booth desk was taken by someone else, and various other things were bandied around.

While handing out fliers, I asked if I had given a flier already. Most folks had been coming every day, and were now regulars at the arcade. Batman made another appearance. My shoulders ached so much.

The couple from New York stopped by, and chatted. They loved the trip, and asked about everything. He told me that he was into Geeky stuff, but played football, so no one ever believed him about the nerd stuff.

When the convention closed, we had to tell everyone to get off. We were unplugging machines, and cleaning up where we could.

I toured the convention floor. A poor man dropped a mirror while trying to clear up some space. I felt so bad for them.

I was taking a picture of some folks taking down a display when I was told to not take their picture. It was workers at the WSCC, and they were on top of a crane taking down a Dark Horse thing. I asked why I couldn’t, and was told it was IP. Keep in mind, this is a public space, and a public display.

I asked a worker later about it, and she said the guy was breaking protocols saying what he did. So, the pictures I took after the fact, everyone said IP instead of Cheese.

We didn’t have the good moving device, but were bored waiting for the moving van. So, we began moving the lighter machines to the docking bay area. Pinball machines take forever to pack btw. You have to take it apart carefully, remove the balls, place the parts, and wrap everything.

I did spotting and guiding for the bad moving machines. When we got the four wheeled trucks, things changed. The trip to the van was easy, and everything was done soon enough.

I headed back to Tuan’s for one last night. It was a nice pleasant time, and there was milk to drink.

The next day I drove home. I bought a little bit of Gas at North Bend, and then filled up at Ellensburg. The reason why was my tank was too low to make it to EBurg, but gas in Seattle was nearly a dollar more. So, I bought $20 of gas to make the trip, and hoped it was still cheaper in Central Washington.

The trip home I was relaxed, well rested, and happy for everything I did.

The trip the week before had been a bit of a nightmare. The drive to Seattle was so rainy I could barely see. It got dark, and I was really tense. The meeting spot was great, but finding it was sort of hard. Then on the way back, I hit more rain, and driving was intense. People were speeding up and slowing down just to miss the water being thrown up from other cars. There was a point where I was about to take a turn, and realized i was going 90 MPH. I hadn’t looked at my speedometer until that point, so I have no idea how long we had driven at that speed. I had been trying to drive in open spots the best I could.

So, after that terrible driving experience, having a nice easy time at a big convention was a real blessing.