Current mood:	accomplished
Entry tags:	mobicon

The Bridge, The Dining Room and Mobicon X
The Bridge

First of all, I would like to shout on the mountaintops just how happy we are to have the bridge that spans the Bay of St. Louis rebuilt at least to a degree. This is a major sign of recovery from The Demon Storm for this area and we could all use a little good news 'round these parts. petalbreeze works on the other side of the bay, so when the bridge went out, her commute to work nearly tripled, from 11 miles to 30 miles each way. That has been the situation for the past 20 months but it all changed for the better this past Thursday when one span of the new bridge opened with one lane of traffic in each direction. The trip that was taking her the better part of an hour is now down to 20 minutes and I can not remember seeing her happier. For The Petal and for many others who need to make the daily trip across the bay, this is a most welcome occasion.

The New Room

When you consider that it took a mere 20 months to clear the bay of debris and then design and build a two mile bridge, it is ridiculous to say that it took three whole years to tear down and rebuild our north room but that is the case. Well, nobody offered me a $5 million bonus for getting it done on schedule either. No matter, it is finally finished. (Pictures here) Flooring, bay window, paint, trim, four french doors, the whole works is, at long last, complete. It is nice to not have to be constantly working on the project anymore, but there are still plenty of things to do on this house. Ultimately, I have to side the outside of it with something and I am not looking forward to it. This may very well be another hot summer spent working outdoors, but I prefer not to think about that right now.

And Now... On To The Con

Pictures from the con

Our busy weekend began Friday. The Petal took the afternoon off so we could get our supplies together for the party room we planned to put on at Mobicon. That took most of the afternoon. Around 6 PM, we headed out to Mobile, with a stop for a couple of hours at my co-worker Mandy's housewarming party. That was fun and I finally got to see the house that she and her hubby, Scott, bought about a month ago. We left her place about 9 PM and got to Mobile around 10. Check in was no problem and we found our room OK but by now it was about 10:30. We went to find registration and the first thing we noticed was how few people were at this con. Later, someone would remark to The Petal that attendance was up from last year but, if that is true, last year must have been pretty pathetic.

Registration turned out to be in the gaming room. There were many more people here. The person at registration told us that the person with the pre-reg badges had gone home, but we would be issued temporary badges and that we should check back tomorrow for the correct badges. Odd, but hey, we were official. It was time to begin room setup.

I knew from the start that we would not be able to do the party room Friday night. for one thing, there was only The Petal and I to set up the entire party, from unpacking the Jeep to setting everything up and testing the gear. To make matters worse, our room, a suite, was located on the second floor and there was no elevator, so the totes and boxes of stuff had to be carried up the stairs. Consequently, we spent all of Friday night into the early hours of Saturday working with the door closed.

For much of the night, we could hear music coming from another room, but neither one of us had time to go looking for the source. We would later learn that the music had been coming from Farshad's party and that he was, for reasons that are unknown to me, thrown out by the host hotel. I don't understand what he could have done to offend the hotel so badly. I have been to his parties in the past and, while they can get a little wild, they are always fun and never out of control. Hopefully at some point we will get the whole story. This incident put a major damper on the con tho, because Farshad is well respected in fandom and when he got thrown out, a whole bunch of people went with him. It's probably a good thing that we didn't learn about this until Saturday night, or our party might never have happened. As it turned out, nobody said a word to us about our room all Friday evening and, even though we were not officially open, we were moving furniture around and playing music until the wee hours.

Saturday afternoon, we ventured out to see the con and follow up on the badge situation. The belly dancers were performing in the lobby as usual, and we watched them for a bit. When I got to the registration desk, I was surprised to learn that there were no pre-reg badges and that what I was wearing was fine with them. Strange, but I concluded that the con had about as many people volunteering as we did, which was zero, and that they were doing the best they could. Whatever. If they were happy, I was happy. We moved on to the dealer room where we spent about an hour talking with many friends and generally taking in the sights. One of our biggest reasons for going to Mobicon is to see old friends. A family reunion of sorts. There were a few items in the dealer room that caught my eye as well. More on that later.

Around 5, we ventured out to gather some last minute supplies (AV cables and booze) and get something to eat. After wandering around Mobile for a while looking for a liquor store, we ended up finding one about a mile away from the hotel on Airport Road. There was a little Thai restaurant next door, we we decided to try them for dinner. The food was good and there were some other con people in there as well. Although we never got to introduce ourselves, that at least made us feel like we were in good company. We got back to the hotel about 7 PM. It was nearing time for us to open the doors.

A few last minute touches, a gulp or two of room party booze, and we were off to the races. We kicked the doors open about 9:30 PM and people started to come in. Even though there were only the two of us running the room, we had a blast. I started out the night with a mix of techno and industrial, with the original Saw movie running on the monitor for visuals. We also ran a bunch of old movie trailers, Hostel and, for a late show, Night Of The Lepus. Later in the evening, I switched over to more of a rock mix, with lots of old Metallica, Alice In Chains and NIN, with some techno tossed in occasionally to mix it up a little. Believe it or not, this mix worked and there were people in the room almost constantly from about 10 PM until after 2 AM. I wish we could have done some contests or something a little more involved, but when you are one of two staffers in a room like that, you are pretty much constantly busy.

After a while, our friend Mike showed up with his camera and took a bunch of pictures, which can be found here, along with the pictures we took with our own camera. With another trusted person in the room, we were finally able to sneak out and check out some of the other party rooms at the con. We could find only two other active parties in the area. Area 51 was throwing a party about three doors down from ours, and Area 504 had their bash going four or five rooms the other way from us. Both looked like fun, and we are sorry we were not able to stay longer, but as those people know, the room is like a baby. You can't leave it alone for more than a few minutes. Area 504 made some special shirts for thier group that I really admired. It is a black button shirt with white trim and a screen printing of a cocktail glass on the back. Very classy. I never got a real good picture, but you can see the back of of one to the right of this picture.

Around 2 AM, we finally were told that a party had been broken up by the hotel the previous evening and that we should watch our backs. This was the first we had heard of the previous evening's misadventures between the hotel and Farshad and, while we were concerned, we decided to keep on rocking anyway. Hey, by 2 AM on Sunday, you have pretty much DONE the party, right? Long story short, we never turned down the music or closed the doors until 4:30 AM! Take that, hotel! :D I closed the evening with Aerosmith's Don't Want To Miss A Thing, which The Petal and I shared a dance to, followed by Ray Charles Crying Time, my traditional sign off song. In all, a good party. Not great like the ones we used to do at Crescent City Con, but good enough.

Sunday, we returned to the dealer room to buy some goodies. Jamie had bought a dragon pendant the day before, so it was my turn now. We found a good pair of boots to go with my pirate outfit, which is something we have been seeking for some time now, and I also bought a t-shirt. We both bought the con t-shirt as well. We met more friends in the dealer room, and basically did a repeat of the day before. We learned that many of the people who go to this con made the trip to Pensacola to a place called McGuire's for dinner on Saturday. It would have been nice to have had dinner with them, but we couldn't have gone anyway, since we were doing the room. I guarantee that the next time we go to Pensacola, we are checking this place out. Everyone raves about it.

Before we left Mobile, we went to another place which was well recommended, called Steak and Shake. This place is on Government St. just as you get off the I-65 exit ramp and they are very good. It is an old skool diner type of restaurant that primarily serves burgers and really good, thick shakes. Our food was delicious and we touched base with many more of our friends from the Porno Patrol and others from the New Orleans area. Unfortunately, many of the stories we heard from the New Orleans contingent were sad, and our hearts go out to those people still suffering the aftermath of The Demon Storm. Yes, for those of you who may read this from outside the area, good people in the Gulf South are still very much suffering from Katrina, and recovery is moving at a snail pace in most areas. I long for the carefree fun of the pre Demon Storm era, but it may be years or never before I get a taste of it again. I wanted to hug every single one of them. You are all the best in my book.

It is all over but for the sorting now. We learned a few things about doing a party by ourselves which I hope will help us at our next con. I only wish there were more decent cons that we could go to because this doing a party once a year thing means we never get any practice. Oh well, I can't bitch too much. At least we still have a home. I was reminded in a very real way that this is not the case for many of our friends in fandom. Finally, in a personal note, I hope that whatever happened between Farshad and the hotel gets sorted out because I think it would be a huge blow to local fandom to lose him and his group. Remember dude, it was the hotel, not the con, that boned you. You have a lot of support from all of us. Please don't let this disaster drive you away for good.