Thursday morning. Brian and Suzan's garage.
Piles and piles of suitcases, coolers, PCs, food bins, grocery bags and other equipment stacked up along the walls of the garage for as far as my tired eyes could see. Now add to that eight people to transport from HouseXP in Loganville to downtown Atlanta. We had attempted to arrange the packing as well as possible the nite before, but it just didn't turn out right. We needed to re-pack before we left, but how the hell were we going to fit all of that stuff in the cars? I don't know how we managed it, but we did and were soon off to ATL. Ames and I in one car, Jeff and Jake in another, Jason and Kat in yet another, plus Brian and Suzan.
I've learned that it's quite hard to play navigator out of bloodshot eyes with half-scribbled directions and bags of stuff in my lap. But with the iPod cranking in the Jetta and our cell phones armed and ready, we were finally on our way to downtown Atlanta, and dragon*con 2004.
We had left later than Kat & Jason but somehow ended at the Hyatt before them. Once there, we unloaded the Jetta and had most of our stuff put in Harris. It had rained quite a bit the night before, so it was a cool sky for most of the day.…which my lungs quite appreciated
Our first order of business was to set up liquid refreshments for the people at Centennial load-in. It was pre-made Gatorade, but it works in a pinch. Then I was on my way to the Marriott to check-in the equipment there and start setting up the Troma booth in the exhibition hall. Once Jake came over there, we got through that set-up fairly quickly. The exhib hall didn't even open until the next day, but everything needed to be ready — it was just better to get it out of the way while we had the time.
The rest of the day was somewhat laid back, as most of us knew that events the next day (the "official" start of the convention) didn't start immediately in the morning, which meant that we could take our time.
By now, time was a precious commodity.