First: a great big thank you to Billdo and the other NY Dopers who helped put this thing together. And another thansk again to Billdo for tour guide services all weekend, and most excellent bagels etc., and coffee on Sunday.
Next: if you want pics, e-mail me and I’ll zip 'em to ya. The Zip utility is a free download available here. If your e-mail address is significantly diff. from your SD screen name, put a grabber in the subject line. I ruthlessly delete e-mails from unknown addresses. Cajun Man and Pucette, your requests have been noted, and Falcon gets a copy of them by default.
I arrived in NY, courtesy of AmTrak, about 10:00 AM Saturday morning, and after some initial confusion with the subway chart, I was on the right train and headed uptown. I lucked out through travelocity.com and found a decent, reasonably priced hotel right in the neighborhood of our host and gathering place. After checking in and dropping bags, it was a short walk to Billdo’s , where I met Gadarene, Silo, Pucette and Vix, for the beginning of our tour.
A brief stroll about the neighborhood, and a trip though the park brough us out to The Museum of Natural History. Like most great museums, you’re not going to see it all in an afternoon. We saw the dinosaurs (or rather their bones) and the rocks. Remember folks: the secret is to bang the rocks together!
Which brings me to a somewhat sad note: as I’m sure it’s posted elsewhere, I’ll keep it short. Douglas Adams passed away last week/weekend, and he was fondly toasted on his way to The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe at Blondie’s.
I was slacking on the picture taking this time, so I hope other with cameras got some good pics to post.
When I arrived at Blondie’s, there wasn’t anyone in “our” room yet, so I grabbed a seat at the bar when someone walked up to me and asked, “Are you here for the Adams Family?”. Turned out to be Grok and we started in on the beer and conversation while waiting (not long) for the others to show up.
Lots of fun and gab about the dinner table(s), too much to try to detail here. If you wanna know what goes on at a Dopefest, you gotta get to one. I know for some it’s easier said than done, but it has been well worth the effort for all five that I’ve been to. One topic that comes to mind though was the “Which Dopers You Would Most Like To Meet”. Many familiar names were tossed about. I’m slowly but surely working my way through my list. I was really looking forward to meeting Freedom there, but I understand why he couldn’t make it. Maybe next time.
On to 4[sub]2[/sub]0.
We really opened the place, and our room downstairs wasn’t ready, so we had the entire upstairs to ourselves. Gadarene, Maeglin, Pucette and I taught Alessan the intracacies of Hearts while waiting. And, IIRC, I only laid the Queen of Spades on Pucette twice, but only the first was intentional; the other was meant for Gadarene, but he was just too slick to get the bitch to stick.
Well, our bartender finally showed up, and we adjourned downstairs for the rest of the evening for more mixing and yakking and whatnot. I must admit to feeling a bit awkward in high-noise environments, as I am somewhat hard of hearing. I apologize for sticking my ear right into other people’s faces, but it’s about the only way I could hear what many folks were saying to me. Otherwise, I’d have just been nodding along like I knew what you were saying. I’m amazed that I actually got any pics from down there, as it was too dark to register in my camera’s screen. I just had to point and pray. Good thing my film is 3.5" floppies, and I have a “delete” function on the camera. It was used extensively that evening. And I had to duck out and go back to the hotel for the spare battery. DOH!
Geobabe monopolized the single guys; Grok instigated several episodes of traumatic recall when he mentioned he was a phys. ed. instructor; Sua Sponte told us how to “Become One With The Covenant Of The Land!” and almost wound up wearing my nasal-filtered cappucino; Biggirl and I started a free-range discussion on the various pros and cons of fee based Straight Dope (WeirdDave almost caused me to have a panic attack by suggesting a by-line or word-count fee); Cartooniverse wanted to round up all the flower-shirted Dopers for a group floral photo, but I guess he got distracted by either Geobabe or beer…
My memory is probably skewed by Benadryl and beer. I know I’m forgetting way too much stuff.
And Falcon? I am not a dork. (Dork? Dork? Dorkdorkdorkdorkdork.)
On a side note…
[Gratuitous Gun Stuff]
Joe_Cool: after I come back from Texas over Memorial Day (and bring back some of my shootin’ irons), we’ll have to get together for plinking and such, if you know of someplace, a shooting club/range, where we could do so w/o requiring permits/licenses. I don’t mind paying any club/range fees, but I really don’t want to change my residency to get a firearms license just to go shooting on the weekend. If any other NY Area Dopers are interested, I certainly would welcome their company.
[/Gratuitous Gun Stuff]
And, when the pics get posted, I’m really not pissed; that’s just my “Whatta you lookin’ at?” tough-guy impersonation.
And finally, thanks again to Geobabe for the lift home, and the conversation. I get the feeling we just scratched the surface of cool stuff to talk about.
