Yes, I’ve already started planning.

And what of it?! 

Gen Con is at the start of August next year, which means that for about three weeks of leave, I could be in NZ in time for π Approximation Day, spend about a week in-country, then go to Gen Con 51, then back to the UK.

Nothing’s booked yet, in part because it’s still too early for airlines to even tell you their schedule for the dates involved, but the rough idea would be;

• Leave the UK on Tuesday 17th of July, get to NZ on Thursday 19th.
• Spend a little over a week in NZ – it’d be nice to visit the Wellington folks, and I’ve got a bunch of Airpoints with AirNZ to make that happen.
• Fly out to Indianapolis on the weekend of the 28th/29th.
• Fly back to the UK on the 7th of August.

If you’ve got any thoughts, suggestions, or can spot any flaws in the vague plan, please sing out.

(I have thought about breaking up the 24 hours of flight time on the UK to NZ leg, but … I’m not sure that a night of jet-lagged sleep midway is any more use than that same night on arrival)

For the first time, a game with no female players was noticeable for that reason. There’s one game where I genuinely cannot remember, but I very much get the vibe that the gender ratio is very slowly shifting.

Two different games had pre-teen players. That’s a new one on me.

First time I’ve seen the X-Card used outside of an ‘indie’ games group. This was regular old transhumanist sci-fi horror game, … you know, I’ll just end that one there 

First time I had to bail on an event due to poor spoon-management.

First time I’ve had a GM list their preferred pronouns on a little name card. I’d seen the occasional person who had them on a badge ribbon; No idea where the ribbons came from.

First time I’ve not been the person who traveled the furthest. I wasn’t even #2 on the list, as there was someone from sonewhere in Sweden, and someone from Rome.

From NZ, it was possible to have come from further away, if you were from Australia.

From the UK, … Pretty easy.

The person who traveled the furthest is almost certainly from Western Australia.

First time making characters at the game table; Normally it’s pre-gens all the way, but given that the two games were Masks & QAGS, there wasn’t much chance of character Gen eating up the session.

Masks uses the Apocalypse Engine, so Character Generation is mostly ‘circle the option’ + ‘fill in the blank’.

QAGS is a very simple system; The hard part is the concept. Once you have THAT, the rest is pretty easy. In the game of it I ran, a player known for analysis paralysis was able to make a character, from initial concept to being ready to go, in about 15 minutes.

And because I’d like to put in an image; I never saw this guy, but I did see a soapbox literalist ranter. Me, I prefer this approach;

There are a couple of really big statues North of the river.

No idea who the other guy is, and it only now occurred to me t go and see whether there’s a plaque, but the vibe I’m getting is “Dude, I can actually see the rabbit in that hat; You are a terrible magician.”

Some more wandering, in the direction of Navy Pier, took me to an urban beach.

I tried to line up some sort of panning shot where I start in sub-tropical island paradise, and end in Chicago, but I couldn’t make it work.

I was, however, pretty happy with this line-up.

And this garden on Navy Pier, with the water-jet fountains, is really quite relaxing.

That’s about it.
One day I’ll remember that, immediately after a big event like Gen Con, I really don’t feel like going to do tourist stuff; I’m more into chillaxing.

I thought I’d see what the ‘share to WordPress’ option from YouTube did, to see whether I could post a link to the whole playlist.
It works, but does want to call it “Watch “Holiday 2017″ on YouTube”, which … isn’t going to fly. I have low standards, but not that low.

Here’s the Playlist; I add new videos to the end of the list as I make them
what slightly horrifies me is that I have subscribers

Well, despite the shenanigans with the safe, or perhaps aside from the shenanigans with the safe, I got on the train out of Indy without issue.

I don’t really have a picture of that happening, so here’s a picture of the Arts Garden off the Circle Centre Mall, hanging over an intersection like a Concrete UFO.

Getting to the train station, which is also the Greyhound station, is an easy walk.
At 5am, however, not one I want to do while looking that much like a tourist, so … I didn’t. (it was pointed out that I might also look like military folk, or maybe homeless, so it’s a crapshoot on being robbed, thanked for my service, or offered some change) 

The announcements at the station were hilariously incomprehensible. I understood more of the content & specifics of the announcements on the Dubai Metro than I did of these, and I don’t speak Arabic, and surprisingly that’s not an exaggeration.

It was the usual strange mix of passengers, some first-timers, some old hands, and the ever-present probably Amish, with their enormous coffee cups. Relatively few business class travelers, which sort of surprises me, because those seats are pretty damn cheap.

I did get some nice shots of Indy at night. 

And in about 5 hours (there’s a time zone shift during the journey, just to confuse things, so you spend five hours on the 0600-1000 train) we got to Chicago.
I immediately set myself up in the Metropolitan Lounge, for the comfy seats and the bag check and the drinks. Also the array of nibbly vegetable things. Couldn’t check into a hotel that early anyway, and I was wiped.

Once enough time passed I made my way to the hotel, and saw one of the bridges in action, which was new for me. 

I tried taking video, but it was kind of dull to watch.

At this point, I’m genuinely not sure whether hotels are letting me check in early because I’ve got the loyalty membership, or just because they want me the hell out of their lobby. I’m fine with either.

Really didn’t do much for the rest of the day.
Got a souvenir for someone who’d asked for one (*waves*) , had some semblance of BreakfastLunch (the on-train food for the Hoosier State tends toward the White Castle end of the spectrum) , and discovered that I’d managed to spread stuff with batteries in it all through Big Red, so it took a while to dig all of that crap out.
Star Trek: TNG being on the TV didn’t help, but neither did feeling a bit tired and reading a bunch of Gen Con Forum posts about Con Crud/Con Plague/Nerd Pox.

Plans for tomorrow?
We’ll see. We’ll see what I feel like doing with the day, and what the weather is like.