Friday morning we awoke happy, excited, but William & I felt a bit ill . So we rested until about noon. Scraper called and let us know she had gotten tickets for us downtown for about 1:45 because the lines were horribly long. Just getting there in time was a small adventure! The roads were one way most of the time and curved around landmarks from previous centuries. Newer buildings had murals and other interesting designs. We actually appreciated the long signal lights that let us look over the architecture and sort out which turns we needed next! We made it to downtown and found the usual parking was one of the things torn up by the renovations/construction going on. After locating a prking garage we headed off on foot to find our friends. Downtoiwn Philly proved a busy but attractive place, with red trolleys and silver merchant's carts with acs that hummed loudly in the hot July sun.
At the visitors center, Kirsehn's mom handed us our tickets and gave us directions to Independence Hall. Mother decided to head over to the food court and outside buildings while Tom, I, & our kids set off for the tour. Scraper, Kirsehn, & Rchan were in a tour ahead of us & the rest were scattered in other groups but some of us met on the stairs outside afterward. Historic Philly
Scraper shared a fascinating insight. The timeline for the fall of Dni and the rise of Philadelphia were roughly concurrent. An old statue of George Washington out front showed him "linking." Dni-esque styles & artifacts were everywhere! Could this be mere coincidence, she asked?
After discussing our findings at length we broke up in groups to head off to lunch at the historic Bourse food court or back to the hotel where other AVIDs were already gathering. I popped in briefly & took a few pics when we returned but a tub break was a must before joining "live chat" downstairs :)
When I returned, folks were still taking turns staring at Rchan's copies of Manhole & Cosmic Osmo on a borrowed laptop. Anna Catherine or Hannah (or both) were giving Celtic folk dancing lessons. Others looked over the signatures accumulating in the registry book & the few prizes on display, picked up their free goodies, and chatted with people they recognized. By late afternoon. the room was full of hungry people who were having too much fun chatting to leave. Scraper shoo-ed everyone out and locked the door, asking us all to reconvene in an hour or so after we'd eaten. Friday afternoon pics
As it happened, the door didnt lock as it was supposed to & had to be guarded. I volunteered since I had eaten a late lunch so I was there as soon as the door opened to return. I set up my sound system and played the Mysterium cds I'd prepared. Myst, Riven, Michael Penner, and Steve Ogden's music would play in the coming hours.
The room filled quietly, steadily, as a soft chattering brook might fill a quiet pool. Everyone knew the events would soon begin, and settled into knots of chairs in excited anticipation. Most of us had gotten our costumes by now, making a colurful difference to the afternoon's festivities. Scraper, Lehsa, and I realized that the official fan presentations couldnt start until Alahmnat arrived with his pc. Only one presenter could do without it. After a quick consultation, we decided to let the writng contest begin, asking entrants to read their works out loud. We knew that would take time, but we vastly underestimated how much. Happily all the writers were very talented & had pleasant voices. We were anything but bored but we had a tough decision to make by the end of the readings! We decided that since we had many prizes and so many entries were good, we would give an extra special prize to the winner & journals & other prizes to the others in each contest. I was happy to see that folks liked the trays, buttons, magnets, brochures, jjournals etc we'd made as well as the direct_from_CYAN & Presto stuff :-D
I think we had the crafts competition second. I hadnt intended for my family to compete in it, we do crafts all the time, but Rebecca had surprised me by wanting to enter her freehand crosstitch of the Dni number five, so I abstained from judging. The judges chose T'resah's masks, which were wonderful! She had added a museum like placard and display case for them. Very pro looking. Erithan's silver Dni jewelry was also very impressive. lonely's "Pre-textured Gateway Room Game" was hilarious! I dont know which impresses me more. lonelyto25's creativity in these matters or the courage he shows in sharing them. :)
We did costumes after that. I had made a number of them, so I knew I wasnt voting. Scraper & Lehsa surprised me by also joining the line, so we disqualified ourselves as judges and chose 3 relatives of fans who were NOT in the contest. This, we figured, would keep down any bias. The only one who seemed surprised that Erithan's excellent costume won, was Eri herself <g> But I was tickled that my daughter's costume took second. I had worked rather hard on it. Its great when your little girl gets her evening as a princess. Wow, she is growing up so quickly! :)
Just as the crafts finished, Alahmnat & SR288 made their triumphant entrance. It had been a fierce contest. They had defeated the dread traffic grid-lock (AKA lag) deamon, the dragon of one way streets, and the traffic circle of doom :-D
I disconnected my little system & let "the experts" take it from there :)
The fan presentations were very entertaining, what I saw of them. My son grew bored with the proceedings in the first hour of readings and was becoming increasingly restless. Mother & I kept an eye on him as we could, but Tom kept having to shoo him back in from the hallway. I never did quite understand why 4-6 of the Dads at any one time were hanging out beyond the double doors of the conference room but it turned out to be a good thing that they did. The group renting the room down the hall werent all nice people. :/ They didnt disturb us at all but it was comforting to have the guys standing guard. :) Chasing my son back into his seat meant moving, as inconspicously as possible (yeah right) between the hallway and Mother's seats on the far side fo the room on a egular basis (She had established her place near the virtual attendees to make sure they'd behave. We heard Gandy & RIUM+were having a problem ;)
Lonely & Alahmnat showed us what the world would ~ correction~ will be like for D'ni fans under Spetsnaz's dictatorship. heh. heh Alahmnat & SR388 shared a lovely clip of CG art they'd done on various Ages. It was too good to be so short so we made them play it twice <g> SR388 said it had taken 6 weeks of hard work to make it! Wow! Alahmnat showed us the current state of RealCyanChat & several terragens because we begged :-D
Then Sepdet shared her lovely Myst journal as a multimedia presentation.
By the end of the presentations a new wrinkle had developed, Scraper was now the one feeling puny. We put off voting on presentations and went on to the silly songs. Robert (bulldog...aka lonely's bro) started things off with "Living La Vida_?_" a parody by Lehsa. I forgot what order we went in but I think I recall the songs. I sang with Bulldog on lonely's "Don't Worry, Be D'ni" & I sang with lonely, Alahmnat & SR388 on "The Lysters Who Dont Post Anything" (also adapted by lonely). Sepdet sang a couple of small pieces "Id like to be, under the sea" (Gehn on his observation throne) & the "Jolly Guildsman." (I think) . Sep also sang Renae's filk "Oh My Catherine" with M'lah & Tanika in what was easily the best performance of the night! Kirsehn sang a touching adaptation of a Les Miserables song (adapted by Lehsa).
lonelyto25 sang "O Sole Mio" by himself as a sort of grande finale.....and then fell over... to a round of applause & much laughter :)
I hadnt thought of the singing as being a real event but it was, and we had used Lehsa's songs to boot, so once agehn we had to pick a few judges to work with Scrapes (who was feeling a little better) to pick winners. The talented Sepdet, Tanika, M'lah trio took first & lonely's sole performance took worst (though I personally thought it was pretty good). Its possible that lonely got a "real" first prize for worst because he had contributed so many of the songs and so much fun that evening, but that's just a rumour ;)
Working out prizes this time became rather convoluted. Some people had more than one of the same thing and needed to trade.. Others just wanted a trade on equivalent prizes because we had something they wanted at that level and had given them what they already had. It took so long in fact that the group broke up and started to chat/wander, so we just announced the morning's events and let it go.
Winding up took longer than expected. I barely had time to say goodbye to Tom before he had to head back to New York to work. He'd only gotten the day off.
Sleep came without a struggle but not without regret. It was hard to close the book on such an exciting day. besides, I was already missing Tom.