Gen Con 2003 – The Enkventure! (Part One)
Wednesday, 4:00 PM CST
An event rarely seen or heard of occurred approximately one hour north of Birmingham, Alabama: I, Brannon “Ashy” Hollingsworth, shut down my email and quickly powered down my laptop. With a barely contained fit of enthusiasm and excitement, I began making the final preparations for what I had little doubt would be three of the most exhilarating days in my recent memory. Those three days would comprise none other than my first exposure to any gaming convention, and this was the mother of them all – Gen Con! I knew that my traveling companion and dear friend, Brannon Hall (a.k.a. – Hall) should be leaving work at that moment and heading to pick up the rental car; in one short hour, I surmised, Hall and I would be headed north, every nerve ending in our bodies firing in adrenaline and anticipation for our arrival in Indianapolis.
Alas, as with all things that involve Hall, this was not quite as it would turn out to be…
For those of you that don’t know Hall well, he seems to attract random chaotic occurrences like three day old chili-cheese burgers attract flies. Generally, these occurrences can be accounted for, even planned upon and around, but rarely they catch *everyone* by surprise – this happened to be one of those exceptional times and suffice it to say, after numerous humorous twists and turns (which I will leave to Master Hall to tell) he finally arrived at my house a little after 9 PM. After being promptly strangled, recovering slightly and wolfing down a hot dog or three, Hall told me briefly of his tale and then we loaded my gear in the car and were off.
We rocketed through the cool, breezy night, rocking to the kickin’ tunes which I had packed – between those tunes and Hall’s mysterious (but deadly accurate) “fuzz sense”* – we made it to Indy in record time. Only stopping once for gas and grub at a gas station near a 24 Hour Adult Book Store (which we regarded as a promising omen for a good weekend), we were able to zip trough towns and road construction at 3 in the morning that would have normally confounded us for hours if we had traveled during the daylight hours.
We finally made it to downtown Indy a little after 4 AM – and promptly got lost in the maze of one-way and diagonally adjacent streets (sounds confusin’ – and it is). Being the boy scouts that we are, we were able to discern our location from the stars and finally made our way to the parking deck right next to the Westin. Of course, once we were within the parking deck, we could no longer see the stars and quickly became lost again.
We staggered into our room at the Westin around a half past four and found that Wil Upchurch was asleep in our bed. Never the ones to wake slumbering (designer) giants, Hall and I hit the floor, after briefly meeting Ed Bourelle’s silhouette (which was far taller and more imposing than I had ever though it would be)!
Ed Bourelle’s silhouette and Hall went to sleep almost immediately, but I simply could not force my body, still raging with excitement and palpable expectancy, into slumber. For those that know me well, there are few things that can make me as giddy as the possibility of gaming – just regular, everyday, sitting around the table gaming; yet here I was at the center of the gaming universe and no sleep would come to me. Soon, however, I had another problem to deal with – Hall, who was at my feet (we were lying on sleeping bags in a 20 ft. hallway which led past the bathroom and into the bulk of our room) began snoring…
Now folks, let me be the first to tell you that *I* am a confirmed snorer – a really bad one in fact; so bad that I brought earplugs with me and gave them to my roomies. However, this snore which Hall began to emit impressed even *me*. To make matters even worse, the aforementioned hallway that we within made Hall’s sonic emissions grow exponentially in volume, sound quality and timbre; I was afraid that he was going to wake up everyone in the room, so I did what any good friend would do in the same situation-
I repeatedly kicked Hall in the head until he stopped snoring – which he soon did.
I guess the physical exertion was the last straw my body needed, because the next thing I know, I was awaking to the only marginally increased pre-dawn light (as it was pre-dawn when I went to sleep) of my first day ever at Gen Con. It would be a day to remember…
*
Fuzz Sense (Ex): This extraordinary ability allows Hall to sense whenever any type of law enforcement official is anywhere within a five mile radius of his location. This ability can only be used when in a motor vehicle, but Hall need not be the operator of said vehicle. This ability remains in effect at all times and is not confounded (as you will see) by police who are either ff duty or in unmarked cars.
oh well - next year I'll be there with bells on! 
