Been Very Busy
Animazement (manga & anime convention), ConCarolinas (sci fi/fantasy/speculative fiction/media/gaming convention), weekend with mom, and everything in between.

Animazement went pretty well. I ran three games of Jadeclaw, played one and played Qin. Chris bought me a skirt as a slightly early birthday present. It's a great skirt; floor length, double ruffle, fully lined, high-waisted, zipper closure on the side, cinch lacing in the back & double drawstring in the back for a faux-bustle. I now have the right skirt to make my Susan Sto Helit costume. I just need blouse, vest, lock of black hair & to make an omega cameo pin.

Memorial Day we went to see the Star Trek movie and then to Red Lobster for my birthday. It was a nice time.

It was a short week as I took Friday off to go to ConCarolinas. I played Witch Hunter & Living Forgotten Realms all weekend. I started a variegated purple scruncy, perfect for sleep-deprived tatters. I got to see Nina & Gwen again (saw them at Animazement). Mitra made it to the convention, too and we got a little time to talk.

It was a beautiful hotel and while it was expensive, they treated us like we were paying a lot of money, too. Rosemary needed foam pillow and mentioned it as we were checking in. When we reached the room, there was someone arriving with the pillow at the same time. That's good service.

I was so tired when we came home that I went directly to sleep. Alas, that means that I missed a phone call that I was expecting.

I spent the evenings looking at laptops online. Thursday I checked the options locally and Friday I bought a new laptop. It was more expensive that I expected, but I bought the insurance and a couple software programs. Alas, I caved, I bought MS Office. *weep*

Saturday I drove down to see Mom but she decided to put off doing the laptop thing. She wouldn't even go with me to look at ISP options. I left her with the assignment to look up her options and get one before I go back in July.

Last night was our Mutants & Masterminds game. We continued with the 2 new players. They will be an interesting addition to the game.

I have been tatting the brown edging that I started at the Harmony Hall Heritage Day. I'm almost out of thread. What I have left is on a thread winder. So I need to unwind it and add more to the shuttle. I decided to put that off and returned to the scrunchy.

I've had three meetings this week at work. Now here's the scary part. All three have been productive &/or useful. Frightening, huh?

Yesterday, we had a celebratory lunch for Angela. She turned 50 on Sunday. I gave her some coffee from Boca Java and Tommy baked her a black icing cake. It was nummy.

Saw the movie Iron Man. It rocked. Make certain to watch through the credits. I still want to see Speed Racer, Prince Caspian and Indiana Jones.

Went to Animazement, ran 2 Jadeclaw games. It's been almost a decade since I went to a fan con. It's different than a gaming con.

Went to ConCarolinas. Got 6 hours of sleep Thursday, 4 Friday, 4 Saturday and 6 on Sunday. Monday I was fried. I drove down to the con after leaving work at noon. Drove home again Sunday after the last game. I'm just glad that I got home safely.

Read some good books recently; Prophecies of the Flame, Skinny Dipping, the last in the Broken Heart Oklahoma series, etc.

Wow, over a month of no posts. I wonder if anyone still stops by. I will try to post pictures of recent activities when I have access to my laptop this evening.

I was at Animazement this pas weekend (Durham NC anime convention), running 2 sessions of Jadeclaw. I think that they went well. The players seemed to have fun at least.

This weekend, it's ConCarolinas. I'm not running anything, just playing. I'll be taking a half-day from work & driving down.

Tired Monday

Con Report: I missed the bus that I needed, so I got a 20-minute late start. That, plus the extra long time waiting in line to get gas & get food, made it a near run thing. I got to the con right before the game slot. I barely had enough time for a pit stop before I had to find the table.

It was a double-rounder Living Greyhawk so I played that the rest of the evening. We found Alisa, or she found us, and we caravaned to the LaQuinta.

It was up early on Saturday (I woke up before the alarm clock, no surprise there) and we created a dwarf fighter for Alisa to play in Living Kalamar. She decided to play the second round of Saturday with us, too. She really seemed to enjoy her fighter. She even got the perfect crit to finish off the big bad (not bad for a 1st level character at an ATL 3 table).

Saturday night was the BI & we played at the 12 Advanced Table. We had the central fight and it was a near thing. Reed used most of her spells for healing alone. Funny thing, she never even lost the temporary hit points from the Hero's Feast but at least two of the other characters went down to single digit hit points a couple times. Thanks to a couple of well-place disintegrate spells, the last combat was quick (maybe 3 rounds) and we finished up a little early.

Ironclaw: Sunday morning I drove to the con hotel so I would have my Ironclaw stuff. I had a full table, including at least one person who had never even heard of the game. I think everyone had fun and there was some very well-done roleplaying. Everyone chose pre-gens and two people, luckily seated next to each other, chose the siblings Argent & Sable; their interaction was great! Diane was there again and although this game was not particularly focused on her character she had some absolutely wonderful moments (the joy of a well-chosen use of flaws). It was good to see her again. She's gotten so tall.

I need to work on Unexpected Inheritance, though. It runs long. With inexperienced players, we finished the first fight at 3 hours plus. I called it rather than let it keep going. I pretty much hand-waved the other fight. They did enjoy the suspenseful ending, or indicated that they did.

Someone else was there running a Jadeclaw game & a Usagi Yojimbo game. I got a picture of him running the latter and a couple pictures of my players in the IC game. If I could just remember his name. Bill got a picture of me with his camera phone.

The Sunday afternoon LG game was an investigation mod, not the best choice for the last round of the con but we had fun. We were playing APL 4 & my 2nd level fighter, Brenna, is finally 3rd. We managed to finish on time; I had expected to run late.

I called Teresa to let her know & we sat down to eat at about 6:30. She was pulling in just after I arrived to I gave her the tins immediately. We had a nice dine & chat.

It was still just after 8 before I headed home. I had a sugar free Red Bull to drink (nasty tasting stuff) so I was fairly confident of my ability to stay awake. There were still some troubling moments but some pit stops and a stop to get gas helped.

When I got home, I didn't fully unload my car. I just pulled out the stuff I needed most & the stuff that shouldn't sit in it all day today (the heat would warp the map for example).

I saw Cherie at the con & Alisa got a chance to talk to C J Henderson. I didn't really see any of the guests but I did find a book of People's Names for 1/2 off. That was my only purchase, other than food & a con t-shirt. Good thing, too.

I was relying on the gas card that Mom gave me for the gas home. Too bad the place was having card reader problems & I couldn't use it. After that, I only have about $5 left of my con money. That's just a little close for comfort.

I played my wake-up song list from my iPod. It takes about 50 songs to get to Charlotte, by the way.

sights: From Thursday - cute quasi-kimono style blouse in a black print on white with the 'inner kimonos' in black & pink but with jeans cuffed up to capri length with 3-4" cuffs & stilleto heels.

books: I'm still reading Dragon of Despair; obviously I didn't have much reading time this weekend.

tatting: I started another one-shuttle edging from the Jones book, in size 12 ecru this time. I think I like this one & I plan on edging my c. 1810 apron. Finally. I have enough done to either more than edge the very front or to make a decent start on edging from back, over shoulder & around the neck to the other side.

clothes: Saturday I wore my flower fairy t-shirt, blue jeans, white tennis shoes, the new earrings, dragon pendant, Celtic knot ring & fem-power ring; plus I had my hair up in a ponytail/bun with silver bells on it.

Sunday I started out wearing my Ironclaw t- with blue jeans & white tennis shoes. It was raining (Yay!) so I wore a flannel shirt over it until I got inside. I kept my hair loose and wore my dragon necklace, lapis earrings, Celtic knot ring & fem-power ring, plus silver cobra bracelet. Eventually, I wore my new con t-shirt over my IC shirt. It was cool enough, until I was almost home, that I didn't find it too warm at all.

Today: navy loafers, navy/black/white print gauze skirt, burgundy knit blouse, silver wire & blue bead bracelet, fem-power ring, Celtic knot ring & other new earrings (which are heavier than I expected). I'm also wearing my dragon pendant & my hair is loose because I just don't want to deal with it.

This pair of earrings are pewter finish pierced, teardrop shaped. They are almost but not quite floral & pierced on both sides. They are not fine enough to call filigree.

Packing for the Con! I packed my RPGA stuff on Tuesday & then spent Wednesday night looking for my Living Kalamar character. I had hidden it really well; understandable since I haven't played her since 2005. Then I had to unpack my crate enough to pull out the character that I'm playing tonight, plus things like dice, the figure, etc so that I can be ready to play her when I get to the con. Of course, it's Reed, one of the larger notebooks.

Chris reminded me that we were playing Mutants & Masterminds last night so I packed my clothes yesterday morning. That just left my Ironclaw stuff to pack.

I tried to do that when I got home last night but all I managed to do was gather the books that I needed before I had to go to bed to get some sleep.

I woke up an hour early this morning to get the Ironclaw materials actually packed. I opened up a bunch of the miniatures that I'd bought for Ironclaw & put them in the case that Chris gave me for Christmas. They don't quite fill the top layer. I made certain that I have blank character sheets, pregenerated characters, and other supplies; plus the adventure, the map & the map stamps (thank you Green Dragon Studio). The only thing I forgot was the spray bottle (of water) to clean the map).

Gaming: Chris still had mandatory overtime so he wasn't at the Mutants & Masterminds game last night. I got a ride, there & back again, with Diana. We finally talked to Lady Lunar enough to get her stop attacking, for 5 days anyway. We promised to do what we could to get rid of the duplicate leaders of Far Side City (moon city) & to find the culprit(s). It was an enjoyable little series of fights first, to get to her. Even after all this time, I have trouble figuring out how Totem's regeneration works. I made a couple notes in the margin of my character sheet that may help me next session.

I didn't have my laptop, so I wrote the notes in my spiral notebook instead of typing them as we played. That will be fun. I'm behind already (by 5 sessions now). We ended the session by being captured due to being knocked out by a massive psychic blast. A round of Hero Points for everybody.

books: read Spirited Away & started to read The Dragon of Despair. I've also released one book into the wild, registered on BookCrossing. I plan to release another one today and a couple others this weekend at ConCarolinas.

clothes: Yesterday I wore the lilac Ren Fest shirt because I didn't want to bother changing the purple elastic on my braid. How sad is that? I also wore black slacks, belt (with silver buckle), 'slippers', fem power ring, 3 ages of women pendant, hematite ring, & forgot to put in earrings.

Today it's black (repaired) loafers, socks & jeans with dark green Geoff polo, moss agate bead bracelet, black stone ring, hematite ring, fem power ring, green amber ring, necklace & earrings, other green glass bead bracelet (3 strands; one small green spheres, one 2 green cubes to ever single sphere & one larger green spheres bracketed by small green ~pony beads & separated by opaque green octagonal beads) & braided hair (w/ olive elastic at the end).

Blog Gap: Oops, no time to blog yesterday. Thus, today's blog is extra long. I hope to download the pictures & post a couple soon.

Monday events: failed to donate platelets; the vein rolled. I plan on trying to donate whole blood on the 5th, at the big blood drive at work.

Met Dad & Kathy at Ted's Montana Grill & enjoyed a delicious bison burger lunch. They liked the front page in a box frame. I suddenly realized, after I gave it to them, that I had completely neglected to make any notes about it on the back. Since my name is not anywhere in the article, that is a concern (okay, so it might not last long enough for my niece's kids to wonder who those people are & why we have it, but it might).

Chris went back home to prep supper & finish his laundry while the other three of us went to the Butterfly House at the Museum. Kathy & I hunted butterflies, with our cameras, while Dad sat & spotted them from his stool. Kathy & Dad have a pair of neat little folding chair/stools that are great emergency seating; plus make decent walking aids. We roamed the tropical & exotic butterfly exhibit before visiting the 'local' butterfly exhibit. Some of the butterflies are more likely to be found in Florida than here but we do see Monarchs fairly frequently. I finally got to see an orange-banded sulphur, too.

Both houses were very warm although the local one just had netting so there was the occasional breeze. Being very warm, we stopped at the cafe there for a cold drink. I had a Yoo-hoo, deciding that I didn't need a soda.

I managed to get us lost getting back home so I didn't get back until almost 5 pm. That did mean that I was able to go with Chris to Rosemary's instead of driving myself. He grilled delicious buffalo burgers which we all ate enthusiastically. Even Duncan had his own, non-spiced & without a bun, burger. We watched episodes of Kim Possible that I had missed before Chris & I headed home.

Tuesday: I did personnel stuff most of the day. At lunch, I bought The Sharing Knife since I didn't get it for my birthday. I used the credit I have at the local bookstore to get it.

When I got home I put some clothes in the dryer & packed my crate (D&D books & RPGA characters, etc) for the con.

books: I read The Sharing Knife & started Darkfever. I stayed up too late reading the latter but didn't bring it to work with me. It's an interesting story but the author keeps interrupting the narrative with 'if only I had known's' & it's starting to wear on me.

tatting: I finished the bookmark. I made a mistake at the far end but I think I adjusted well. The two ends do not match but then again, one end has a tassel on it. I think the bookmark is from a Kersti pattern, simple 5ds 3p rings and 10 ds chains. The neat parts are the ends.

Since I still have a lot of thread on the shuttle, I decided to try one of the one shuttle edgings from The Complete Book of Tatting.

clothes: yesterday it was dark green Geoff polo, black jeans, texture striped knee-highs & loafers (newly repaired), dark hairstick with 4 tiny rhinestones holding a ponytail/bun, onyx earrings, labradorite pendant, Celtic knot ring, bloodstone ring, hematite ring & fem-power ring plus the new green glass beads bracelet. Oh & the silver ladybug watch.

Today it's white polo, black slacks, black knee-highs, & 'slippers, two black (trimmed in brown leather) hairsticks holding my hair up in a ponytail/bun, moss agate bread bracelet, black belt w/ silver buckle, fem-power ring, flower band, hematite ring, same watch, 3 ages of woman pendant, & new ~pewter/silver earrings. The earrings were $3 at Big Lots & look like 4 teardrops of coiled filigree around a central teardrop holding another 'filigree' teardrop & all that in a circle with a scallop border around it.

Sleepy: I was so tired when I got home last night that I collected the mail (weeding out what could go straight into recycling), plugged in my iPod to recharge & took a nap. I managed to sleep for about an hour.

I finally reached Alissa about the hotel room for ConCarolinas. She'll be staying with Chris, Rosemary & I. Yes, she lives in the same town but far enough away that commuting is a real pain. Our hotel is less than a mile from the con hotel.

blog changes: did anyone notice? I put up a picture of myself in the blog header. Of course, it's a picture of me when I was about 3 years old, but still.

tanning: It's not visible in the picture but I was a redhead when I was younger. My hair eventually lightened to blond with a few strands of red. I'm no longer a redhead but I still have a redhead's ultra pale skin. I have tanned twice in my life, both times to a dark shade of cream (insert wry tone). The first time was because I had a summer job in a very cold building; I would sit outside in the sun & would finally be warm by the time I was done with lunch. Even with spf 15, the sun eventually darkened me.

The second time was in 2000 when I went to Disneyworld. I spent almost a week, almost all day in the sun. Even with spf 25+, I darkened.

That's a lot of trouble & frankly, I find sunning myself to be inordinately boring. However, the skin on my legs is so pale as to be blinding. I took a shortcut, I bought tanning solution. I spread it where I don't normally get sun: upper arms, legs, etc. I'm still not really tan, but I'm no longer blindingly white.

tv: there was nothing on that we wanted to watch (whee, 2 hours of American Idol, watch me barf now). So we watched Grosse Pointe Blank on dvd again.

website of the day: artcyclopedia, fine arts on the net.

books: I'm going through the Mutants & Masterminds book to create a shopping list of skills & feats for my character.

clothes: I forgot to put my clothes in the dryer last night, so I wearing the same slacks that I did yesterday. I just febrezed them. I'm also wearing the same shoes, but with black, textured ankle socks. The black polo (2002 Ren Festival) gives it an entirely different look. Celtic knot ring, earrings (the longer ones), & star/moon/tree pendant, fem-power ring, hematite ring & silver bracelet (same as Tuesday) is the entire set of adornments (plus clip watch). My hair is down & loose because I washed it this morning & it needs to dry.

Chris's game: This is the third night of the same fight. Two weeks ago we finished off the undead, just in time for the evangelist to convert my character & Diana's character (Diana is notorious for not being able to make Will saves - if the target number is 15 & her character has a +16 to the die roll, she will roll a 1; which is automatic failure). Last night we fought the evangelist, his general buddy & their 'justicar,' who was really a doppelganger monk. Luckily our boom (aka Rosemary's warmage) was back. To cover Rosemary's absence her character, who's a variety of fae, was a pile of leaves for the middle of the combat. That does mean that she skipped chancing being converted, too, which was a big help. It would have been very ugly if she had been converted as well.

My character did go negative but thanks, mostly, to the mass lesser vigor & the healthful rest spell, she recovered enough to contribute to the fight.

website: manga quiz

books: I read Case of the Roasted Onion. It's another mystery, an interesting one, too. Otherwise, I'm reading the mod that I'm running. Gotta be prepared. It's a round zero for ConCarolinas.

clothes: black loafers, socks, jeans & belt; brown/black polo w/ silver Vorkosigan, no jewelry (got moving late & had no time), & hair in a ponytail/bun with the same hairstick: black with a brownish bead.

Fingernails: I've taken pictures of my nails to show what 'long' fingernails look like for me. They're not really long but for me, they are.









This is the poor, broken nail (after some healing) or at least the best picture that I could get.









website of the day: The little brown dress

Starting to make plans for ConCarolinas. I've submitted the game that I'm running (Ironclaw) and asked for most of Friday off.

clothes: black 'ballet' shoes, socks (later removed), black slacks & belt, mauve & black check blouse, Celtic knot earrings, ring & pendant, hash mark ring, hematite ring, & ponytail (held by an elastic hidden by bronze/silver hair ornament).

Well I made it to Charlotte in good time. Spent some time talking to Liz, Leela (she burbled a lot), Alysa & James. Then it was off to bed. The next morning we left bright & early to go to ConCarolinas. I made it in time for the RPGA: Living Greyhawk interactive, Promotion Review Board. It was very tense. Since my success rested all on my own efforts, instead of being shared, I had some serious adrenalin moments, vicariously. I did okay on the written portion, started out decently on the obstacle course (in the lead by a considerable margin at first) & would have ended better if I'd remembered to take 10 on the ride test, did well on the command portion & acceptable on the interview. Nadia was one of the 2 corporals at the board trying to promote to Sgt, both the only women there & both vastly overqualified to be corporal. I ended up playing with the other newly-minted Sgt plus other high level pcs (even the 2 cohort people outleveled Nadia). Poor Nadia, half-experience & half-gold again; 9th lvl pc at an APL 12 table. Wheee. But it was interesting.

I had two players for my evening game because no one showed up for a D&D game that the girl was waiting upon. So I dragged her in & she really liked it. I ran them through Cup Quest. I finished up a little early (12:30 instead of 1 am) & drove back to James' & Liz's. Up early the next am & barely made it to the con by 9 am. So I was a little late for my game. The girl (maybe 12?) was there again. So I know she liked my game. Metra & Chasarae showed up (Rae played last year) late but I got them involved. Then Hoss showed up & I added his character. I ran the Rinaldi adventure. Poor girl, her character Enaid, had the flaw romace but she didn't specify. So I chose for her. Her character, a baroness & distantly related to the Rinaldi family, is now engaged to Don Fabrizio.

After that I attended a panel on 'D20, is it dead?' Answer, d'uh, no. But we talked about some of the D20 stuff, like hype vs. backlash etc. Since there were only 5 of us, including the 2 panel members, it was a very informal talk. More of a discussion really. Then I toured the dealers room & spent too much money. As usual. I did find a nice coin scarf to wear to the Living Kalamar interactive at Origins.

Made it home by 7pm tho very tired. Read Ring of Fire, one of my dealer room purchases, until midnight. Bad girl, I need my sleep. Oh well. I'm off home, I need to clean up enough to play Jadeclaw tonight.



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Busy week this week. Monday was Living Greyhawk at 1pm, supper at 6pm, home campaign at 7pm. Clean up after gaming at 11 pm. Tuesday, prep for Living Greyhawk on Wednesday (read through module & take notes & pack), Wednesday was run Living Greyhawk at Cerebral Hobbies. Tonight it's pack for ConCarolinas in Charlotte this weekend. Tomorrow night it's drive to Charlotte, to spend the night with James & Liz. At some point I need to make certain that I know how to get to James & Liz's & then how to get to ConCarolinas. This could be important. Saturday I have entered Nadia (my primary LG character) in the promotion board, then I'm playing in a mod that afternoon & in the evening I'm running Ironclaw. I leave after that, maybe 1-ish. To return in the morning & either run the same one or a different adventure, depending on if I get the same players or not. Then I come home.

Yesterday's outfit: salmon silk blouse, print gauze skirt, black loafers, moonstone jewelry. Hair done in a temple braid. I'm trying to train it to side part again.

Today's outfit: bone slacks, print silk blouse, lapis posts (that fell out sometime this morning, I need new backs), same hairstyle with a different colored elastic, & silver rings.