The Journal Of The InnKeeper

On Thursday, tacit and I left Orlando and started driving up to Atlanta.  datan0de and femetal left their house in Tampa, and zensidhe and Jessie left their house (and a Radio Shack?), all in time to meet up for lunch on the road. There were several public group make-out sessions, at least one at a gas station and one at Cracker Barrel. We turned quite a few heads and earned several comments from the other gas-station patrons. 

Then, when we all arrived and got checked in, a threesome broke out in my room that night :-D
 

 

Friday, the first day of con, was teh awesome!  It started out with my first costume of the weekend, my newly-completed Fire Elf.  The latex was all done some time ago, but I have worked a system for the makeup, and I have finally completed the chain mail skirt that I have been planning on replacing the sparkly-red fishnet skirt with pretty much since I built it.  I used a new paper for the makeup, and I'm not pleased with it, so I think I'll go back to using the old paper, but overall, my costume is complete and I'm very pleased.
 

We went to a handful of, more or less, introductory Skeptical panels.  This was possibly the first con I've ever attended where I had partners who were interested in attending some of the same panels that I was interested in.  But the best panel of the day was a lecture from one of my personal heroes, Joe Nickell.

Joe Nickell is a "paranormal investigator".  And before any of my skeptical friends who aren't tied into the Skeptics Movement speak up, I'm not talking about something silly like Ghost Hunters.  Joe is a true investigator.  He's held an amazing array of jobs, including stage magician and Pinkerton Detective.  

Yes, I said Pinkerton Detective. 

Joe actually has investigative training.  He does not claim to be a debunker.  He says that if you really are in search of the truth, if you truly investigate, the debunking will take care of itself.

He has never, to this day, ever found any evidence of supernatural explanation for paranormal event he has investigated, although he continues to consider himself "open" to finding the truth, whatever it may be.

I first became aware of him through interviews on various Skeptical podcasts and I've always admired his easy speaking tone and his practical logic and his gentle sense of humor.  As I heard more and more of his exploits, and hear more and more of my favorite Skeptical activists singing his praises, Joe Nickell has gradually moved into the category of "personal hero".

And then I met him in person.

I was sitting inside the panel room waiting for his lecture to begin, and freezing in my skimpy costume as I usually do in hotels since they all apparently seem to think that people sitting still in a crowded room generate as much heat as a hoping nightclub on Saturday night and turn the A/C up to arctic.

So I stepped out into the hallway to warm up before the panel started.  While outside, I got asked by several people to pose for photos, and when that was done, I leaned over the balcony to watch the lobby below.  An older gentleman in a sportcoat, looking decidedly not like the other attendees, was peoplewatching next to me.  I figured he was a guest at the hotel and decided to hang around watching the spectacle.

He asked me if he could take my picture, and I said sure.  He asked me something else that I don't remember, and it gave me an opening to mention that it was all latex, and he began to ask more questions about the costume.  After hearing about it some more, he asked if he could take another picture now that he could better appreciate the effort that went into it.  So I posed again.  

Conversation faltered, and it was getting close to the starting time, so I went back inside to huddle with tacit.

The moderator introduced Mr. Joe Nickell, and up stepped the gentleman from the hallway.   I was shocked.  I had heard him before, but I had never seen his face.  He immediately started a very engaging talk and I, rather embarassingly, realized that I was developing a crush on Joe Nickell.  

tacit had never heard of him before (because tacit doesn't listen to podcasts), and I suspect tacit

 was prepared to be unimpressed when Joe began his spiel about not being a "debunker", but when he said his line about debunking taking care of itself, I think Joe made a fan in tacit too.

So, now knowing who this man was, I just had to get my picture taken with him to add to my picture taken with James Randi.  I'm far more interested in having my picture taken with Skeptical and Science activists, people who are making the world a better place, than with any other celebrity of any sort.  Oh, I'm sure I could think of a few celebrities I wouldn't mind having my picture taken with, but these people are *heroes* to me, and I feel honored to meet them in a way I just don't feel with other types of famous people.

So, anyway, here is me and Joe Nickell.
 

Later that night was the Cryonics panel, that datan0de and tacit were both on.  

datan0de actually managed to get Jay Novella to join the panel!  The Novella brothers, headed by Dr. Steven Novella, make up the bulk of my favorite podcast, The Skeptics Guide To The Universe.  This podcast feels like hanging out with my social circle, The Freaks.  In addition to the Jay, Steven & Bob, there is also Evan Bernstein and Rebecca Watson.  They're all incredibly intelligent people, but in extremely widely varying fields of interest and employment.  The 5 of them discuss science news, interview scientists and other famous people who have something to say about science (like former-president Jimmy Carter), and generally banter about the way that geeks do.

What sets Jay apart in this instance, is that he is a member of Alcor.  In a very early episode, the subject of cryonics actually came up on the SGU and Jay was the only one in favor of cryonics.  He had a very reasonable and well thought-out response to most of the other Rogues' (that's their name for themselves, the Skeptical Rogues) objections and questions, even though they were not swayed at the end.  I don't know if any of them ever did come around to thinking that cryonics is the way to go, but I do know that he and Rebecca continue to have differing opinions on the subject, and she even asked the cryonics panel at D*C some questions during the Q&A part of the panel.

It was great to have Jay on the panel, he added a lot with his personality and his approach to the questions.  datan0de & tacit did very well with their responses too, but unfortunately I did not get any pictures of that panel.  I was actually engaged enough to forget to take pictures (and enraged enough at the drunk idiot next to me who would not release the microphone towards the end of the panel).  Fortunately, zensidhe stepped up to the mic and made the point perfectly clear, so clear that even a drunk, conceited, egotistical audience member couldn't miss it.

So, anyway, that panel was the last one of the day, and it was pretty late too.  I wanted to change out of my costume before the Freaks party, so, since my hotel was half a mile away, I had arranged to have a change of clothes in tacit's room.  It took a little longer than expected, since datan0de accompanied me :-) We ended up mostly missing the Freaks room party.  I did, however, finally get to meet timestheyare for the first time, while in my underwear.

On Saturday, I dressed in my new Laurie Jupiter costume.  This time, however, I wore my sandals to walk to and from the hotel and I carried my heels.  For all of you comic artists out there ... FEMALE SUPERHEROES WOULD NEVER WEAR HEELS FOR CRIME-FIGHTING AND FEMALE VILLAINS WOULD NEVER WEAR HEELS WHEN THEY HAVE TO RUN OR FIGHT!

Ahem.  The first panel of the day was about Women's Intuition and other myths and was headed by the Skepchicks.  It's a website that Rebecca Watson created to celebrate and to have a place for female skeptics.  They covered quite a few topics, including the frustration women feel in male-dominated fields thanks to these stereotypes and false beliefs that just refuse to die.  

After that panel was the Watchmen meetup.  A couple who have made a Sally Jupiter costume and a Mothman costume advertised on the D*C LJ forum that they wanted to have a Watchmen meetup in the bar/lobby area of one of the hotels.  So, at the appropriate time, I headed in that direction.  After about 20 minutes of wandering around, I finally started to find other people in costume.  But no one knew who the mysterious Sally & Mothman were.

Eventually, more and more Watchmen arrived and we gathered in as out of the way as we possibly could.  Naturally, cameras started to come out.  So I spent the next 2 hours posing for pictures.  

At first I got really worried because both tacit and datan0de had slept too late and were not available to come see me, so I had no one to take pictures for me.  I was hoping I would find the pictures online, but there was no guarantee.  datan0de still had to get into his own costume and tacit was out eating.  But finally, datan0de arrived and, really, he came at a great time.  More Watchmen were showing up and we even got the Smiley Button in the shot!

After the Watchmen meetup, it was time to go see Adam Savage of Mythbusters speak.  tacit finally caught up with us and got a picture of datan0de's awesome steampunk rocketeer costume.

I was really too far away to get any good pics of Adam Savage, but I did get a couple of crappy ones with extreme digital zoom:
 

Then it was off to the Revenge Of The Strange And Unusual Science Research panel.  That was an interesting panel, but I did have one complaint about it.  All of the "strange and unusual research" that was presented had to do with sex research.  I was, frankly, a little annoyed that, in a setting of adults, in a mostly-adult-themed venue like D*C, with science-minded people, an entire room can still get all giggly over a panelist talking about the study of sex, and that any research that has to do with sex is, almost automatically, "strange and unusual" by default.

Don't get me wrong, the cases *were* interesting.  I just would have liked to have heard about any cases that are "strange" that aren't about sex.  Like the study that found that dying white rats blue improved recovery for spinal injuries - that was pretty strange and unusual.

At one point, a study was mentioned where they tried to determine *what kind of porn* should be used in future studies of women's sexuality.  Not suprisingly, the study concluded that there was no real consistent, single type of porn or porn category that all women liked, rendering the question of what type of porn to use in studies, effectively useless.  I'm afraid I couldn't help myself.  I blurted out "you mean all women aren't the same?  I'm shocked!"

Fortunately, I was in the back, and only the last several rows heard me, so I didn't disrupt the lecture.

After that it was back to the Freaks Party Room for a night of Are You A Werewolf.

On Sunday, I dressed in my most comfortable costume ever: Charlie, a Tabula Rosa Active at the Dollhouse.  It pretty much just involved me wearing yoga clothes.  datan0de went as my handler, and he was much more uncomfortable than I was in his suit and earpiece.  I created "Dollhouse Badges" with my active name, a barcode, and a "brain scan", along with the Dollhouse logo, to try and indicate that I was, indeed, wearing a costume and not just walking around in my pajamas.  Unfortunately, I did not get any pictures of us together :-( I also wasn't able to wear the yoga pants I had planned on wearing, since I ended up leaving them at zen_shooter's house and he unexpectedly changed his travel plans and we did not carpool to Atlanta together so I couldn't get them before con.

That day was full of Skeptical activism, as I sat in on panels for a live taping of the Skeptic's Guide To The Universe podcast, a panel about what we can do hosted by members of the JREF and another live taping of the Skeptoid podcast with Brian Dunning (my second favorite skeptical/science-based podcast).

We also all signed up for Frolicon for next year.  As tacit likes to say, Frolicon and Dragon*Con are the bookends of awesome that is con season (or something like that).

And then for the highlight of the day ... Arc Attack headlined at the Mad Scientists Ball!  This is a band whose primary instrument is a set of giant Tesla coils that they manipulate the electricity to control the pitch of the sound it makes when it's fired.  By doing this, they create actual, recognizable music!
 

It's really hard to truly explain how awesome they are.  Visit my D*C page to hear the video that was taken of them, or search for them on YouTube.  It's worth it, I promise.

I got to wear my new lab coat, courtesy of NekidSteve & his girlfriend, and datan0de, dancergeek, & I got a little silly:
 

Here's where most of the pictures end, but the festivities *really* got going.  The reason for no pictures is because, after the Mad Scientists Ball, we all went back to my room for an orgy.

Some of you may recall tacit's post with the Venn Diagram of all different kinds of group sex?  Well, the subject of what, exactly, constitutes an orgy has come up again and again over the years, so this year, we actually had a group of us who were romantically involved to some degree and comfortable enough with each other to answer the question, have any of us really been in an orgy?

I actually got to speak with cunningminx on an episode of Poly Weekly, along with tacit and datan0de about our experience.  There was a lot of planning involved.  I have a whole LJ post planned just on the orgy, so I'll talk about that more there, but you can go and listen to the episode.

Monday was the final day, and, unfortunately, I missed a few of my earlier panels thanks to checking out and packing up the car.  I really only got to attend the Transhumanism panel that tacit and datan0de were on, and the Skeptics Track Wrap-Up.    I dressed in my Sarah Connor costume, which is my usual last-day-of-con costume.  Since it's all my normal clothing, with the addition of a hat and a tactical vest, I can just take the tac vest off at the car and drive home in my usual clothing.

So that was my 2009 Dragon*Con experience.  It's really hard to convey just how awesome D*C is if you haven't been there.  Costuming is a passion of mine, especially since I choose characters that I'm passionate about.  Science and Skeptical Activism are other passions of mine, as is learning in general.  Although I got very frustrated the last time I went back to college, I dearly love learning and school.  If I could afford it, I'd be a lifetime student, but, unfortunately, most schools (even the junior colleges) expect you to actually pursue a degree in a particular major.  I have no interest in that, so I believe that getting a degree in something I'm not interested in would be a colossal waste of time and money.  

If I could just take classes that I liked, with no degree or direction in mind, I would consider returning to school.  Until then, it's educational conventions like D*C where I can learn new things and meet interesting people.  The parties were fun, but the bonding was even better.  Yeah, the sex was great, but what I really got out of the whole thing was a *poly* experience.  I got to spend time with all my sweeties and some of my metamours at once, in a group that wasn't merely accepting or tolerating, but actively engaged with each other as friends (or more) on their own terms.

I've been independent friends with my metamours before, and I very strongly value those relationships, even now that some of them are former metamours.  But I have never had partners who were independent friends with each other, or had cross-partnering going on within the group.  Usually it's more like a line (out of those of us who can all be together at once).  This event really made me feel like it was a family.  I've used that term before, and I really do consider my network to be a "family" in the sense that I care about everyone in the network and how my actions affect them.  But it's more like a very extended family, with cousins, aunts and uncles, second cousins, etc. who maybe don't know each other all that well or spend time together.

This group feels very close.  Of course, everyone in it has quite a long history together.  They've all known each other for years, even longer than I've been living in this state.  So D*C has become, in my mind, a "poly event" because it gave me the chance to feel like, just maybe, the idea of a poly family isn't such a pipe dream after all.