Well, if I don’t sit down to write a report about Anthrocon now, I’ll never get around to it (witness my oft-promised-but-never-delivered report on Midwest FurFest 2003). Later: Oh yeah, that’s why. It took me the better part of two hours to write this up. I reckon I’d better post it in parts…

Wednesday

Yes, the insanity started early. Well, much earlier, if you read my LJ over the past few weeks, but this I as good a place to start as any. I spent the day keeping busy by baking up eighty scones (32 cranberry-orange, 32 cinnamon chip, and 16 chocolate chip). This provided breakfasts for us and seemingly half the convention, plus it kept me from exploding with nervous energy while waiting for the day to pass.

I picked up Takaza at 4 PM and we hit the road from there. The drive up was pretty uneventful; we chose to bypass Washington D.C. by taking U.S. 301 and it was a pretty good route. We spent the night at the Comfort Inn Dahlgren, right near the banks of the Potomac River. After deciding that the local restaurants looked a bit dicey, we opted to grab Subway sandwiches and take them back to the room. We crashed out around 10 PM.

Thursday

Up at 6 AM, whee! After showering, we hit the road at around 7. We continued up U.S. 301 through suburban Maryland in the midst of rush hour. Lots of traffic and stop lights, but it was bearable all in all. We picked up I-95 in Baltimore and followed that right up to Philadelphia, pulling into the hotel at around 11 AM.

We stuck our head into Operations to pick up our badges and see what was up, but things seemed to be going OK. I went to try to check in – no dice. They had a room for us on the 18th floor, but it was still occupied. OK, fine. I spotted Jazz (foxish), Datahawk, Chouette, Wyldekyttin, and Vlad out front so I went out and chatted with them for a bit. Next, it was down to the Con Store/Artists Alley that I would be managing for the weekend. The registers were set up, but that was about it. I worked with a couple of gophers (thanks guys, even though I didn’t get your names!) to get the Con Store set up and checked to make sure all of the supplies we needed for Artists Alley were present.

When we got things into a reasonable semblance of order, I thanked them and headed up once more to try to register. No joy. I stopped back by The Zoo and ran into Brophey and Rasslor. We agreed it was time for a beer, so we adjourned to the bar, which was relatively quiet. DaveQat and Zexyz stopped by and we chatted for a bit, then it was time to try to register once more. Score! I nabbed the room and Dan and I moved our stuff up. We played a bit of round robin since we only had two keys to distribute between us, Datahawk, and Chouette, but we got it straightened out.

Rasslor and Mirkowuff joined us for a tasty dinner (huuuuge cheesesteaks ordered from All Star – just delicious!), and we spent the rest of the night relaxing in the room. Our other roommates, Posicat and Linnaeus, arrived later in the evening. I crashed out around 12:30, not looking forward to the early wake-up on Friday.