Road Trip To The Origins International Game Fair, Columbus OH, Part II: The Convention

Back in June, Gynn and I hit the road for Columbus Ohio, and the Origins International Game Fair. We both volunteer for the convention. Gynn works registration, and this year I was scheduled to try out a new gig with the Origins Kids' Program.

You can find our pictures from the drive out to Ohio in Part I.

We arrived in Columbus Tuesday night and met friends for dinner, and stayed at a hotel just out of town.

Wednesday

We found our way into Columbus with no trouble and I dropped Gynn off since her shift started at 7, and then parked the car. Got my badge and sat outside the Kids Program room and looked over the on-site book while I waited for my shift to start.

Lisa R. was running the Kids Program, and I helped her with set up, and then got to work on a full day of entertaining small children, mostly by playing boardgames with them.

I played Hey! That's My Fish! (a really cute game about penguins on ice floes), Kids of Catan, Tic-Tac-Check, You've Been Sentenced, Risk: Lord of the Rings Edition, Chutes & Ladders: Dora The Explorer Edition, and my personal favorite of the day: Monopoly: Star Wars Edition (I had the Yoda piece and was having great fun doing Monopoly stuff in Yoda-speak: "Pass Go shall you not. Collect two hundred dollars shall you not...").

The Kids Program also featured a bunch of special events like this "live-action" Candy Land:

Lisa R. also ran parachute games for the kids, which were a huge hit, and a good chance for some active play after sitting around playing boardgames.

Had Indian food at North Market for lunch. Stuck around after the end of the Kids Program hours to help with cleanup, and then met Gynn for dinner. We ate at Ted's Montana Grill" and had bison burgers, which were yummy.

Gynn attended one of the War College seminars while I caught up on some email stuff. I headed back over to the con and had dessert with Sherylin K.  Also ran into Sean Fannon and got to chat with him briefly.

My last scheduled event of the day was the Origins Volunteers' "All Hands" meeting, which had lots of very silly moments. They needed some help with the computer systems, so Gynn volunteered to stick around and do some work. I went back to the hotel room, planning on going online and blogging.

That's when things got interesting. Now I had noticed the sound of thunder outside, but I didn't really pay any attention to it aside from a quick glance out my window, which proved to not really have any view to speak of.

Then the phone rang.

"Hello, this is the front desk. Columbus is currently under a tornado warning. We are recommending advising guests that the bathroom in your hotel room is approved shelter, or you can come downstairs to the meeting room."

After a quick decision that I'd rather not sit in the tub or on the john until the emergency was over, I grabbed the laptop and went downstairs, where a cop ushered me into the meeting room, which was filled with gamers.

We spent about ten minutes hanging around and chatting, and I managed to pull up the local doppler radar on the laptop. Pretty soon after that they announced the warning was lifted and I headed back to the room. Gynn got held up in the convention center until the all-clear was given, but as things turned out there were no reports of any significant damage. Friends staying at the other hotels were not even warned by their hotels.

So it turned out to just be a bit of added excitement to end the day.

Thursday

Thursday was my day off. Gynn was scheduled to work at 7 AM. I got up around the time she left and went online for a bit before heading to breakfast at the Drury lobby and then to the car to get supplies for my kids program events later in the con. I had a lot of stuff to haul over to the con, and I probably should have made two trips, but I lugged it all at once and my back wasn't happy with me by the time I was done.

Once I secured my supplies, I headed up to the "Board Room", which is a special open-play boardgaming area. You buy a ribbon for $16 to get unlimited play in the Board Room. It's one of my favorite areas of Origins.

As it turns out they were having a special giveaway of two free boardgames (from a selection of three; I chose the two smallest ones so they'd be easier to carry around in my bag). I got Knights and Reiner Knizia's Times Square. I haven't had a chance to try out either one yet, but I definitely got my money's worth from my Board Room ribbon.

There weren't any boardgames starting up, but I did run into Rich Shay from Norwood MA playing Magic: The Gathering. Rich is one of the top Vintage/Legacy format players in the country. He had to take off, but I ended up playing a game with the guy Rick had been playing with.

Around then I got a call from Mandy, who had bagels. Located Mandy, Steve, and Gynn at the Flying Buffalo Lost Worlds demo table with Ken St. Andre and his son James. Played some Lost Worlds and some more Magic and had a bagel.

Here is Ken at the Flying Buffalo Lost Worlds demo table.

People went their separate ways and I headed for the Exhibitors Hall. Wandered around, bought some Magic cards, and played a demo of a roleplaying system called WEGS. One of the demo guys was a former student of mine from Jersey City, who had no idea I was into gaming. The game looked good. Very easy to create a character and start playing.

I played (briefly) in a sealed deck tournament, dropping out after one bad round, and played a few games in the Magic convention league. I also did a big trade with one of the dealers to pick up a couple of high-end promo cards.

The biggest event in the collectible card games area wasn't Magic. It was the Pokemon National Championships.

Just like last year, a massive Pikachu balloon looked down on the assembled Pokemon players.

There were some new inflatables as well.

I wandered the dealers room some more, bought a couple of Lost Worlds characters, and got some tech support from the ProFantasy Software people.

Met up with Mandy, Steve, Ken, James, and Gynn around dinnertime. Ken invited Luis Zocchi to join us. Luis has been involved in gaming since way, way back. He is, among many other things, the inventor of the hundred-sided die. Ken is also an old-school gaming personality. He is the author of Tunnels & Trolls. Luis told us a bunch of war stories and bits of historical trivia over pizza and (bad) meatball subs in the food court.

Mandy, Steve, and Gynn weren't into the food court fare, so they headed out to look for other food and I joined them. We drove to a Thai place away from the con crowds. I had an appetizer and hung out and chatted.

Gynn had an interesting story to report. She's been attending the Origins War College, which is a series of lectures and seminars on military history and current events. She happened upon a seminar discussing the actual war college, the US Naval War College in Newport RI, run by a faculty member from there.

As it happens, my grandfather was one of the top wargame experts at the US Naval War College for many years. Gynn mentioned this, and got some instant attention. After dinner, I ended up in a long conversation with the guy from the Naval War College about my grandfather, and military wargaming and the gaming industry. I'll be getting back in touch with him about getting some of Gramp's papers into the War College library and into the hands of historians who would be interested in them.

Friday

Woke up early and had breakfast with Gynn. She had a 7 AM shift; I was scheduled to start at 8. I went back up to the room and read email for a bit before heading over to the Kids Program.

We had a ton of kids in the room. Mayfair Games had their ribbon promotion going on as part of the Kids Program. You could get ribbons corresponding to the resources in Settlers of Catan for playing different games by Mayfair. I had lots of kids asking to play the required games for certain ribbons, so I ended up playing several games of Streetcar and more Hey! That's My Fish!.

My "Make A Mini-Comic" activity was scheduled for noon. I was a bit nervous about it because the kids were a lot younger than the ones I'd done this kind of thing with before, but it went great. About eight kids participated, and two of the teenage volunteers helped out.

The workshop ended as the room closed for lunch break, and I did some quick layout work on the minicomics and then walked up to FedEx-Kinkos to make 5 copies of each minicomic to give to the kids.

Had a really quick lunch in the food court and then back to set up my second program item: Mad Science Chemistry. That was loads of fun. We made a volcano out of modeling clay and then did a baking soda-vinegar reaction in it (with one of the buildings from Kids of Catan in the path of the "lava"). Then we made slime, which is always a hit with the kids. Then I did my "World's Worst Alchemist" routine with electroplating a quarter ("Look! I can turn silver into copper!"). I tried one other experiment involving copper sulfate and aluminum foil, but the reaction went too slow. I'll just leave they one out when we do it today. All in all, I thought it went over really well.

As I was leaving the Kids Program after cleanup, I ran into Euphrates, DM, and Kit. We hung out and eventually got together with Gynn, who had plans for an evening drum circle. A group of guys from the Origins Livejournal community showed up with instruments.

All told we had three djembes, a set of bongos, a bodhran, and a big plastic bucket with a set of drumsticks. Much drumming, dancing, and even some chanting followed.

Here is Gynn on the djembe.

Joined by Euphrates on bodhran.

 Some of the other drummers doing their thing:

Kit dancing:

And another shot of Kit dancing, this time with DM:

When that broke up, we went back to Ted's Montana Grill with Kit, DM, and Euphrates for more bison. I had bison meat loaf! Yum!

Then we stopped by a party hosted by Katie M., Eric Z., and some of the Steve Jackson Games Men in Black crew. Hung out and played a little bit of Chez Geek (actually a home-brew "naughty" variant that was very amusing) until exhaustion really set in and we called it a night.

Saturday

It was certainly an interesting weekend in Columbus. In addition to Origins, there was the huge Comfest event in the park just a block up the road. And Saturday was also the Pride parade in Columbus. The result was a pretty cool vibe in the city.

I was scheduled to do the minicomics workshop at noon in the Kids Program, and then I was free until 3 PM.

Had an early breakfast with Gynn and then came back to the room and napped. Made my way to the dealers' room when it opened. Bought Chopstick Dexterity Megachallenge 3000 and an Anachronism character (Saladin!). Also bought Fish Eat Fish as a birthday present for my nephew.

The minicomic workshop went well. I cut back to four-page books to make the time more manageable, and just about all the kids who stayed for the whole time made the full four pages.

I set out for FedEx-Kinkos just in time to catch the Pride parade. Got lots of pictures between making the copies. I'll post the Pride parade pics in a separate post.

I ate at the food court and headed back to the Kids Program for my chemistry demonstration. I had a big crowd of kids for chemistry, and GAMA programming director (and old pal) Trey Reilly stopped by to see some of the show.

I also played games with the kids, including Heave Ho! and of course Hey! That's My Fish!.

Once my shift was over, I found Gynn and DM. Gynn went to play Midway, and I played a few games of Magic with DM.

We ended up having a late dinner at Buca di Beppo. Annoyingly, we got seated next to a very loud and very drunk bachelorette party. Oh well. At least the food was good (biggest meatballs ever!).

Gynn's friend and fellow volunteer Layne slept in our room saturday night/ We had an empty bed because our assigned roomates never showed.

Sunday

Got up early, had breakfast, cleared out the room, and checked out.

Spent the day playing games in the Kids Room (Kids of Catan, A Dog's Life, King's Blood, Fish Eat Fish, Piratissimo), and shopping for Magic cards in the dealers' room.

Cleanup of the Kid's Program went smoothly, but the exhaustion was really hitting me. That, plus the weather (which was changing on a moment-to-moment basis) prompted us to forego plans to visit Comfest. There was a drum circle scheduled, and a concert by Black 47, which is one of my favorite bands, but we didn't want to risk getting caught in the rain while carrying the drums.

We drove out to Steve & Mandy's place and went out for Mexican and then spent a quiet evening chatting and showing off Gynn's artwork. We stayed Sunday night at Steve and Mandy's place and got up early for the long drive back to Cape Cod.

I'll post details and a few pictures of the trip home along with the pictures I took of the parade in an upcoming post.

All in all, the convention was a blast, and I loved working in the Kids Program.