Gen Con Indy 2011 Day 1 Wednesday, August 3

Posted by Igotnothing Thursday, August 4, 2011

First day at Gen Con! Most of us showed up today to get ready for our starting events tomorrow. Joe and I (Dave Cabrera) actually came into town yesterday but we didn’t do anything special other than eat FANTASTIC steaks at St. Elmo’s and spend some time down at the pool.

This year our numbers would be thinned a bit. Due to conflicts with business responsibilities, Bill Maddocks would not be in attendance this year. So for our first official night in it appeared that the only ones going to our annual Buca di Beppo’s, Wednesday night dinner were going to be Dave Wulatin, Judith, Joe and myself. Then at the last moment I got a call from Dave Scheftel. He and his daughter Matilda would be coming up that night and wanted to join us for dinner. Due to personal reasons Dave has been out of the game running at Gen Con for the last 2 years. He’s come to Gen Con for a couple of days to expose his daughter to the convention the last couple of years but hasn’t been up this early since 2008. So it was a pleasant surprise to have him and Matilda join us again!

As usual the food and service were great.
For our appetizer we had;
Cheesy Garlic Bread.

Our main course consisted of;
Baked Ravioli
Chicken Lemon
Spaghetti in Marinara Sauce
A Couple of Meatballs
And Garlic Mashed Potatoes

It was a great spread. Quite delicious looking wouldn’t you say?


After we ate until we could eat no more, most of us passed on dessert. However Matilda found the strength to have a slice of Cheese Cake. It looked so good that her dad said it was so big that he thought he would need to help her. Yeah right! I got to take home a couple of Bucca souvenir glasses from the large beers I had. Only got 2 though. I’ll have to go back and try for a set of like 6.

It was a darn good meal and we finished up somewhere around 7:30pm or so. After one quick scare where I had to run back into the restaurant for my camera AGAIN (not the first time I’ve done this) we were off. I had my badge sent to me so I had everything I needed. Dave Wulatin and Judith had stopped and picked their stuff up earlier so they were done. Joe was having some trouble figuring out where his was to be picked up at and Dave Scheftel had just gotten into town before coming to dinner and had not had a chance to pick their stuff up.

I accompanied Joe, Dave and Matilda back over to the convention center to get their stuff. As I said Joe had a little difficulty figuring out where his was supposed to be so I left him alone to figure out what he needed to do. I headed over to Dave and Matilda who had headed over to the ‘Will Call’ line. OMG! The ‘Will Call’ line stretched all the way from the cab drop-off, underpass (where it usually starts), almost all the way down to the back end of the building. I joined Dave and Matilda right around Exhibit Hall B, which if you’ve been there you know is pretty far down. The line took something like an hour and half to get through. Say what they want, something is clearly broken here.


If the concept of going to Pre-Reg is to save some money ($10?) my vote would be it’s not worth it. The buy on site was like 5 mins. Now those time frames may change drastically as the convention goes on, that will not change the experience that most people had. I predict a lot less Pre-Reg next year and a lot more picking up badges there. Or at the least a lot more people having their badges mailed to them.

To their credit the line looked like it was going to take about 3 hours to get through and as I said it only took about 1 ½ hours. Although I did see them close the line at one point and turn away anyone else from getting in the line. I think Thursday is gonna be a mess.

We all headed our separate ways and went to get some sleep. Joe and Dave Wulatin both had a couple of events to run Thursday and I had to run Bill’s ‘Heart of Darkness’.

Until tomorrow.

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