Seattle Retro Gaming Expo 2017 Set up

I decided to do everything the best I could that day. I woke up on time, and even made sure to prepare for enough time to get to the ferry after parking. Then I discovered the problem.

The week before I had heard about guys leaving every two hours to move their car to another spot. I thought it was just guys being cheap, until I tried to park. It was almost entirely full everywhere I went. There were multi story parking garages with parades of cars looking for a single place. Some of the open spots turned out to need all sorts of extra paperwork, and even tons of money. By the time I did find a place, it was almost time for the ferry to leave. The spot was in a really weird place, and I wondered if I could find it when I got back.

The ferry left before I could walk to it. So I spent the next hour at a subway enjoying a sandwich, and the free internet. It was a pleasant enough time, and I laughed a bit with friends as I waited.

The ferry line was fairly dull. A young couple had their toddler and baby with them. The baby was being breastfed under a blanket. A random stranger commented how cool the blanket was. It was a cool disney one.

On the ferry I laughed at the idea that if I wanted to, I could walk the entire time the ferry went, and say I walked from Bremerton to Seattle in 45 minutes. I didn’t do that. I knew I needed my strength.

At the end of the ride a kid was amazed by a woman’s blue hair. He kept saying Azul, Azul. The woman didn’t get it, and the kid’s Mom kept trying to shush him. I laughed.

A lady took my picture, and I wondered why. It turns out my shirt had an inspirational message on it. I talked to the lady on my walk to the train station. She was on her way to a marathon. When I told her I was an anthropologist, she talked about digging up buildings, and bodies. I sort of wonder what she thought I was off doing.

At the train station, I discovered there wasn’t a change machine. Luckily there were stores that could give cash as needed. The mall was being remodeled and lots of stuff wasn’t open at the time. So I was a bit late to set up.

When I did get there, everyone was just walking around. I forget how laid back this convention is. They don’t need to fill a giant warehouse full of games, or move 200 arcade machines. Instead, we set up quickly without even thinking about it. There was a lot of hurry up and wait. The videogames and TV’s hadn’t arrived yet.

I will get into interviews later, but I can say I showed how I could figure out where people descended from based on facial and muscular builds. One guy kept asking questions. Another worked at the Coast Guard.

Then, the games arrived, and we set up. There were games for consoles that we didn’t have in the load. We also had a hard time figuring out if we had the right cords or not. The biggest thing I had to worry about was a Dreamcast. Luckily it turned out to simply be a bad cord. It was pretty quick, and I was testing when Ben arrived.

There were power cords that needed to be taped down, and other stuff but really it was a chance to catch up with folks. It seems the college they were all going to, and which I talked about from the first time I helped out at this convention, had gone under. Near the end they were kicking kids out left and right to try to keep afloat. It didn’t work though, and a lot of them don’t have degrees or have worthless degrees. I also found out one of the guys had moved, and another one had issues. There was less to set up this year because the previous president was the one who did it. He was stressed but had a lot more stuff. The new guy didn’t do as much, but was way more chill. The entire crew felt better this way, because it meant more quality work. They didn’t even have set up meetings, because everyone knew what they needed to do.

Honestly, I was enjoying it. We were set up in record time, and just chatting with folks.

Finally the arcade machines arrived. I was able to tell which machines weighed a lot, and needed spotters. We didn’t have the nice kickback wheeled handtrucks, or ramps, or a lot of things. So it would have to be much more careful work. One machine did fall, but seemed to work afterwards. I was more worried about the people around it when it fell. The thing weighed 600 pounds.

Then there were some fixes for consoles, and I had to redo the power cords. This meant retaping everything. Not fun, but I saw the other guy’s job and felt bad. I did a basic one, and he did a full cover.

After that we looked around, and realized there wasn’t anything to do. I left to go rest up for the next day. The new place for the convention is right next to the eating area called the Armory. I really liked this new place because it was easy to spot, and had a lot more natural light in it. It felt more like a real convention floor than the previous place.

Walking back to the monorail, Ben pointed out the robot wars guys. They showed off their cool robots, and talked about how the machines were designed. It was really cool. I will talk more about it in interviews.

I raced to the monorail, and left happily. It was a nice day with beautiful views of Seattle. Even now writing these notes half a year later, I think of it fondly.

I missed the ferry. This meant a long wait. A bird flew into a window, and looked like it wasn’t doing ok. It was up on a ledge no one could grab it from, but it stood there trying to regain itself.

A nice lady showed up, and I got to talking with her. She was from San Diego, but was doing some research on medical technology at the University of Washington. She wanted to do a different medical thing, but decided to get into mechanical engineering to help move people in hospitals. After a while, we chatted, and chatted, and even chatted while on the ferry. Her family is from Jalisco, and she has an uncle living in Yakima.

The biggest thing about meeting her was her recommendation to start a podcast or vlog where I just talked. I didn’t really know how to do that, but decided to think about it as best I could. Now I have one on youtube. Gracias Mi Amiga!

There were people dressed in weird ink designs. It turned out they were all from a concert and had decorated themselves for it.

On my way from the ferry I decided to check out an arcade called Another Castle. The bouncer was so casual, I barely recognized him. It was a nice place with a bunch of classic arcade games, and even some console spots.

It took a bit, but I did find my car, and it was right next to the arcade. Not only that, it led to a street I could follow to where I needed to go. It was a cool feeling, I wasn’t lost in Bremerton. After all these years, its a home for a couple weeks a year.

Getting home brought a happy doggy cuddle, and some note writing. After uploading pictures, and feeling satisfied with life, I fell asleep.