Still Editing!
After my trip to Otakon 2000, I was unsure if I was going to be returning for the next one, for various reasons. Primarily due to money, I decided to put it on a back burner, and so didn't really think about it until the 2001 lounge barbecue. At that barbecue, Martin and Neal were talking about Otakon, and being that they wanted to plan to go, asked me if I had heard of it and if I would be interested. I mentioned some details from last year's trip, and they were really excited. Not about my trip, but about the obvious fact that I was a good possibility for someone who could drive them down. Neal claimed to have friends in the area whose place we could stay at. I was somewhat dubious, since they'd have to be pretty close for it to be convenient, but I was convinced enough to research it. Unfortunately, nothing ever came of Neal's Baltimore connection.
Now, driving is no problem for me, I enjoy it, so I was game for the trip. However, by this point, all the reasonable hotels were already sold out. Some unreasonable ones were left, which were quite expensive. Neal had an extremely limited budget, so he was pretty much out of the running. At that point, it was left to Martin and I to find other people we might be able to split a room with. Fortunately, over time, I found several other people who where interested, namely, Kevin, his friend Nicole, and his sister Eileen. However, continuing procrastination made that plan unfesiable.
At some point, I came up with the idea of making it a day trip, leaving very early in the morning Saturday, and staying for that day, since pretty much everything happens then, anyway. Unfortunately, Martin was coming back on a redeye from Seattle, where he was competing in the Robocup tournament, that morning, which would make us later than I wanted. However, Carl became sort of interested around this time. While that was happening, Kevin and Eileen found out that they were going to be moving that weekend, so they were out. Great. However, Deanna became interested, and I decided that I would be willing to go out and pickup Martin after all. So there we have our final crew, Carl, Deanna, Martin, and Me.
Nothing really happened until right before the trip was to commence, other than Deanna getting her costume ready; she planned to go as Emi from 3rd mix DDR. The rest of us weren't really into cosplay. There was a brief flurry of email when Deanna found out her brother lived less than five miles from the convention center in Baltimore; unfortunately, her brother turned out to be out of town that weekend.
So, there we are. I'm a bit of a night owl, so it was difficult for me to get to sleep early, especially since I hadn't been going to bed early recently; I ended up getting to sleep around 11:30 PM, and getting up at around 4:50 AM. I left a bit less than an hour later, and headed into Pittsburgh to pick up Carl and Deanna, in that order. They each were also running a bit late, so we were cutting it close for picking up Martin at the airport. So, after making good time there, I basically ran to the gate he was supposed to arrive at, and I met him coming the other way. So that was all good. Deanna and Carl grabbed a quick bite to eat, and then we were off. Of course, once I'm on the highway, I realized that the mapquest directions I had printed out were in the trunk. Hmm, plan plan. I decided it would be most efficient to first drive to the turnpike entrance at Monroeville, and pull on the side there before getting a ticket. I did this, and it worked out fine.
The rest of the trip was uneventful until we got to Baltimore. When we got on the beltway, there was a sign that said the exit we wanted to take was closed, and suggested an alternate exit. After asking the rest of the group for advice (not that they were helpful), I got off there anyway, since while there was a metric buttload of cars, they were in fact moving. That was a mistake. We crawled along that exit for what seemed like an hour. Then, once we generally got where we were going (we couldn't follow the directions anymore because they had us shunted off to a different road), the traffic was still completely whacked. Every time there was a sign for parking, the road was blocked off in that direction. Well, until we found parking, anyhow--it took a bit of doing. We eventually parked in this lot where they required you to leave your keys so they could move around your car to get someone else's out, if need be, but it was only $20 for the day, so that was fine. I did take my empeg with me, though.
Paragraph about the gas explosion.
So, we walked to the convention center, and ultimately got day passes easily--there was no line to speak of. We split up for a quick browse through the dealer room, and then went to lunch at Burger King across the street. There, there was a line to speak of. Deanna ran into some people she knew (a day-long theme), so we were waiting there for a bit. After heading back, I tried calling Dan, but there was no answer, so I left a message. I learned later that he didn't bother bringing his phone with him since he didn't have enough battery power to keep it on all the time. So, we discussed our plan of action. We decided to all stop by Artist's Alley for a bit, and then split up and do our own things. I went to see the music videos along with Carl; I always seem to enjoy those. As usual, there were some gems this year. The Right Now spoof seemed particularly popular. I wish you could get videotapes of them, but that probably runs into legal trouble.
Well, after that, Carl and I wandered back and found the others. Deanna was talking to some different friends she ran into, so Martin and I started wandering around in that area, in a sort of orbit. At some point we wandered down to the video game area, where Deanna entered a DDR freestyle competition, and I ran into Dan. We chatted for a bit, but he was his usual aloof self, so he eventually wandered off with his other friends. My memory for things after this point is not quite as clear.
Around this time we all went to dinner, going to various places in the inner harbor mall. I got a gyro..mm, tasty. Better than this vending-machine pizza I had for lunch just now, anyway. After coming back, we all went to the "Bad Anime" panel. I recognized Robert Fenelon up front from last year (damn does he know his older anime). Martin and Carl skipped out early to watch Crest for the Stars, and Deanna and I stayed to watch excerpts from some gems such as Magnos and Starship Troopers. In addition, we watched a short black and white film called Godzilla vs. Mito-Komon, which is interesting in and of itself. I'm going to try to see if I can get a copy. I am too lazy to explain it myself right now.
Anyway, before the panel was done, I signaled to Deanna that we should leave, since it was almost midnight, and driving was going to be, shall we say, difficult, as I was quite tired. We found the others, and waited for the episode they were watching to finish, as there were only a few minutes left. At that point, Deanna ran into someone else she knew, and hadn't seen in years, so we waited for a while more. After we left and got back to the parking lot, I was pleasantly surprised that my car was still there, in once piece; they had moved it right next to the little guard building. Getting back on the highway less problematic than I expected, though my eyes were more problematic than I expected, especially given the wet, dark roads. That went away after a while.
Even though Martin was the most tired of all of us, he was kind enough to stay up with me and converse, to make sure I wasn't falling asleep or anything. I don't remember what we talked about, but it was a very wide range of topics, including aspects of computer science, music, more Robocup details, etc, etc. At Breezewood we stopped to top of the tank, and I did a dew. The rest of the trip was also uneventful, and I finally got home after dropping people off at around 5AM.