I recently attended NerdCon: Stories. This is the first time this Con was held, and my first time going to one. I must say that I was more than a little apprehensive going to Minneapolis by myself. But, I'm a big boy, I can take care of myself.
It didn't start off so well. I had to leave the day before the conference started, which was probably normal for everyone going. What wasn't normal, I'm guessing, is that my flight left the airport at 5:30AM EST, so I had to get up really early, like 2AM early. Things went fine, even thought the flight was delayed in Philly so we could change planes in favour of a smaller plane. Apparently flights going from Philly to Minneapolis at 7AM are not popular.
So it was that I arrived in Minneapolis at about 12PM, hopped the light rail which I didn't have to pay for because a stranger gave me a valid ticket he had just paid for but couldn't use. So, thank you to him. I then hoofed it the last half mile to my hotel, checked in and went to go get some lunch. The rest of the first day, after I had checked in for the Con, was nothing special. So I reached the end of the day with some trepidation that I would be quite solitary for the next two days.
NerdCon started on Friday promptly at 9AM, but most everyone was there and raring to go by 8:45. The place was packed, with between 1 and 2 thousand attendees, we filled up most of the auditorium. What followed was two days of sheer geeky awesomeness. From the start with Paul Sabourin's epic retelling of the history of the story (laughed my fool head off), I knew we were in for a great time. The panels were fantastic, though at times rambled a bit off topic, much to my enjoyment. It turns out that when you're somewhere with a thousand other people who like the same things you do and are there for the same reason you are, its very easy to make friends. I had lunch on the first day with a couple who came up from the south and on their way were looking at colleges to attend the next year. I talked to I don't even know how many Librarians, but I should have guessed that since the whole point of the Con was stories. I sat next to and talked with people from Winnipeg in Canada, South Carolina, Ohio, Kentucky, North Carolina, Minnesota, There were even people there from Ireland, though I never met them personally. I skipped the events at the end of the first day to grab some dinner where I talked for about 90 minutes with a woman who was up from Ohio to attend a Mental Health and Wellness seminar and two others who worked locally. We all shared flat bread pizzas and fresh made donut holes with hazelnut cream and basil coulis. I know, it wounds weird, but the donut holes were awesome.
I left to head back to the Auditorium where I had signed up for a 5 minute slot in the open mic. I was going to tell one of the short stories I had written, and I was freaking out. I ran into five others doing the same thing and we chatted, I calmed down, and we all sat together at the open mic. One of the couples daughters, let's call her Z just for the sake of anonymity, sang and played the Ulkelele. She was awesome, unfortunately she went on right before me. Anyway, here is a video of my story, the audio is a little bad and the video was taken in low light, but you'll get the general idea. Enjoy.
No comments:
Post a Comment