So this years trip to the Arisia sci-fi convention at the Park Plaza Hotel in Boston is complete and I’m actually very happy with it. I would have liked to have been there on Friday but scheduling and weather made that a not very logical thing to do. I enjoyed the two days that I was able to attend and as always I ended up spending too much money.

On Saturday I got to have dinner with a dear friend and then watch them perform in Dr. Horrible and the Buffy musical episode. I also got to catch up with a lot of old cast mates that I don’t get to spend nearly enough time with and take in a panel on writing war. I tried to get a nap after that but that didn’t work so I stayed up until 7 am and drove home to take care of the shoveling and snow blowing before everything froze solid for the rest of the weekend.

I then went back to the hotel to try and get some sleep and think I succeeded for an hour or two. After giving up and grabbing some lunch I took in the dealers room and artist alley to poke around a bit. Before I knew it it was time to head to my panel on writing good villains, so I grabbed an iced coffee and headed up to the fourth floor.

While I waited I took in an impromptu hallway panel on the business of writing and got a couple business cards for editors (oh yeah I need to check into that). I ran into another panel member in the hall and we chatted about our favorite and least favorite villains. We Both have Hans Gruber at the top of our lists.

Oh, I forgot to mention Alex. I met her in the elevator on my way downstairs and she asked if the AFC championship game had started, probably because I was wearing a patriots jersey and hat. I told her it was just starting so there was no score. A little later, I ran into her at the Starbucks and told her the score was 14-0. She thanked me as we passed and we went our separate ways. I then saw her again in the hallway before my panel and updated her again to the 14-7 score. I actually got a chuckle out of the fact that she ended up in my panel and listened to me ramble about bad guys for an hour and fifteen minutes instead of watching a very good game.

At the end of what I thought was a very successful and entertaining panel, it was at least entertaining to me, Alex came up and practically yelled that the patriots were down by four with under two minutes left in the game. Enter Eleanor, she had attended the panel as well and took a great interest in the score of the game when Alex told me at the end of the panel. Together we decided to get down to the hotel lobby as fast as we could since one minute in a championship game would surely last at least ten actual minutes.

We had originally tried to grab an elevator down but after seeing how crowded the area was we decided to take the stairs. I’m not sure how it looked to the outside world but it felt very much like one of the chase scenes out of the old Scooby-Doo cartoons. We tried the mezzanine floor but couldn’t see any of the screens before getting down into the lobby and barging through the hotel restaurant as quickly as we could until we finally parked ourselves in front of the bar .

At the end of regulation we decided to chew our nails in anxiety at a table that someone had vacated. We ordered a couple drinks and cheered with the other patrons as the Patriots beat the Chiefs to move onto the the Superbowl. We ordered another round and chatted, occasionally stopping mid conversation to remind each other that we made it again to the Superbowl.

After a bit, Alex had to drive home and Eleanor had to head back to her room to sleep because she had an early morning. I stepped outside for a smoke and ended up having a great conversation with a homeless guy who told me that I needed to put myself out there more to get more exposure for my books. I do hope he found a warm place to sleep that night. I finally ended up getting a couple hours sleep before checking out around 8 am and heading home.

I didn’t get as much done as I would have liked at this Arisia, but I did get more than usual and got a much better feel for how to work it next year, if I get any panels. I had a lot of fun on what me and the other panelists seem to think was a great panel. I met some great new people that I hope to actually keep in touch with and got to watch the end of an incredible game. The best part of that was the adventure we had getting to it and watching it even though the game itself was pretty kick ass. Oh, and I managed to not break anything this year or half kill my liver. All in all, it seems like a pretty good year at Arisia.