I’m gearing up to head out to GenCon in just two more days, and getting pretty excited. I had dreams last night about GMing a game at GenCon, though naturally it was fraught with problems — I had forgotten material, I was making people create characters which was taking up too much time, etc. Still, it’s better than dreaming about the travel.
This year we’re heading out pretty early on Sunday. Our flight is at 11:15 AM, and due to needing extra time to administer drugs to my wife (she aint gettin’ on no plane, foo) it basically means we’re leaving right after we get up. There will be no early Sunday games for us, no roaming listlessly through the dealers’ hall as half the dealers are already packing up, and no searching for the alleged last-day deals.
Since scheduling that flight I’ve regretted it several times. Each time I end up searching the airline’s site and discovering the same information: the next direct to Boston flight is at 4:55 PM, and it would cost us $300 to switch our tickets to that flight. Sigh, why is there not a middle time of flight, and why on earth does it cost so much to change your flight? Is 4 extra hours of GenCon Sunday really worth an extra $300? Fact is, I rarely do much on Sunday at the convention. It feels too rushed to me to try and squeeze in one more game. If there was something I wanted at the dealer’s hall, I’ve already bought it. Really it’s just so much wandering around feeling that bitter-sweet end of convention feeling.
Still, perhaps that kind of cool down time is important. Will it feel more violent to go from playing games late Saturday night to a hurried check-out and drive to the airport to get home? Is it better to rip the band-aid off with one quick jerk, or to tease it off slowly?
The indecision eventually leads me to decide to not rock the boat. It’s easier to do nothing and just stick with what we’ve got, and if it’s unpleasant I will hopefully remember that next year and go with the later flight. And really, how is it that I’m already moping about the end of GenCon when it’s still two days away from starting?
If the stupid airlines would post flights more in advance, we’d have been on the later flight like we have the past two years, but Delta didn’t list it until at least a month after we got the tickets! And as I’ve said, it’s only been recently that we’ve gotten the later flight – the early one is the norm and you dealt with it fine before 😉
Maybe next year we should delay longer before buying our tickets. I know in the past we’ve left early, but this seems earlier than usual for some reason. I certainly don’t recall ever leaving so early that we didn’t have time to go pop over to the convention center for one last goodbye first. Is it possible that they shifted from having one early afternoon flight to having a late morning and late afternoon flight?
That’s possible – we used to fly Northwest before Delta absorbed them, or whatever happened. I do def. remember years of breakfast and go, no last minute roaming, though.
Well, I’ll put you in charge of the tickets next year then.