Four of us from LanOC left Ohio City around 3:30PM, right on schedule to arrive early in Wanamaker, Indiana early enough to drop our rigs off at the Stompfest event building. After hearing horror stories from MML late last year (a close call involving a car break-in), we were a bit gun shy to leave our equipemnt in a car over-night. Initially armed with Mapquest printed connections, Wes (garfi3ld) soon upgraded us with his TomTom.
*Sorry for the lack of pictures, our photos vanished during a server move
Things were great until well into Indiana, toying with the TomTom's voices (ultimately settling on a bitchy-sounding old woman for Cory's, vialdragon's, pleasure) and even made a stop to check out a Fry's. Then we hit the wonderful world of multiple lanes and complex exits, and our friend TomTom turned against us. Already missing the proper exit due to a display of our route on screen that was anything but legible, we needed to get back on track, achievable by 'keeping right', according to our post-menapausal guide. Much to our surprise, as soon as we kept right the TomTom quickly re-calculated routes to the opposite direction. Wes didn't turn out to be much of a passanger navigator, pointing Cory to lanes that alwasy seemed to be one too many to the left.
We eventually found our own way to the event, traveling through an up-scale suburban community with a speed bump literally every ten seconds. Needless to say, with some expensive equipment in the back, these had to be taken very lightly. Stopping in, we met some of the guys from Stompfest and dropped off our towers. Two things that stood out right away was a cafe' area, in which placeholders sporting company details occupied tables (a nice potential), and a large crafted stage that was already lined with plenty of prizes.
We then headed back to our hotel, and then to grab a much needed bite to eat at a nearby Steak N' Shake. Afterwards, I finally was able to get a few matches of Dissida in with Cory, in which my self-built confidence, a project that had been in progress since LanOC v5.0, was quickly crushed. Heading out on the town in Indianapolis, we picked up a few essentials, including some Brown Ale for Cory.
Now, I sit here on the bed that will probably go to the victor of another Dissida match between Cory and I, which means I'll be sleeping on the floor. No worries, tomorrow we'll be up bright and early to be at StompFest at 8AM for a full day of gaming. The LanOC group is going to be the largest organized group there, so we're looking forward to gaming with a few familar faces as well as some new ones. Plus, we'll finally get to unveil our new logo. See you then!
LanOC @ StompFest '10 Day 2
LanOC @ StompFest '10 Day 3
