Pennsic Setup...

Back from the war, and no, it’s not over yet.

Brute Squad weekend is over. It was a lot of work to pack into what was really, one day. To recap for those who didn’t go or know about it:

Friday, leave work around 1:00, ride to Greensboro for a 6:00 flight to Columbus. Upon landing, we set off to find a White Castle. We had directions to one, but it turns out that was only the former location of a White Castle. So, we walked around downtown Columbus a bit figuring that out, then got back in the car and hit the road. We then saw a sign for a White Castle, and Gaston had to have it, so we pulled off and went inside.

The employees were behind inch thick bullet proof glass. They turned on the speaker for us, then we ordered, slid our money though the slot, and waited. And waited. And still waited some more. Our drinks came out. Then we waited again. I think it took like half an hour to get our stuff. Once the last of the “burgers” were obtained though the glass pass though box, we got back in the car and started driving again. I only ate half my 4 burgers, because they were already starting to make me feel sick. Gaston would continue to eat from his two sacks of burgers all weekend, which was a marvel to us all.

The original plan was to go Troll in on Friday night, but we were passing our hotel at 12:30, and very tired, so we decided to ditch and handle that in the morning.

Saturday: we were on the road at 7:30, and dropped off people at landgrab as Gaston and I went to deal with the first load of stuff from the shed. The shed was emptied in 2.5 trips, and we got quite a lot done for one day on site. The camp was all lined out, and the kitchen and shower tents were assembled (although the walls were not on them, even if the roofs were), and the shower system was all hooked together and was ready for propane the next morning. There were also 2 trips to Lowes made, the first for paint to mark the ground, and the second to get a “back pressure valve” for the plumbing (has anyone else ever heard of this, that you have to put a check-valve thing on the spigot that prevents a back pressure from forming? It was new to me…)

Lining out the camp got a little messed up. I think it was a combination of factors that caused it. Mostly, it was the fact that the block was not the shape it was supposed to be. The side along the road was not angled the way it is on the map, so what I thought was the hypotenuse of the triangle was really more like the long leg. That accounts for the 10 feet or so that seems to have disappeared. However, it didn’t help that I was offsite on a shed run when we started laying out the camp, and my map wasn’t super clear on some of the tents (a 15x14 rectangle can look very much like a square, and it’s tough to figure out which way is 15, and which is 14). Lastly, a rental tent showed up and had to be put up, and they don’t move, so that added to a bit of pressure during the process (my fault again, as I said they could do it). In the end, we made some on-the-fly changes that means everyone fits, and it should still work out well. The lessons learned are: he who makes the map implements it; re-measure the block to make sure it’s the size you think it is; use a different visio shape that tells you the dimensions of a tent automatically; and no tents get setup before the entire camp is lined out (4:00 PM on Saturday). I also think, with the size of the camp we have, I should have run a line down the center of camp, then measured everyone off of that rather than starting from the edge. If you don’t measure square, it can start to really squeeze your walkways…

Sunday: we got on the road at 8:30, then hit Wall Mart for a couple things (new shower curtains!) and then tried to get some breakfast. That turned into a bit of a fiasco, as we totally missed that the bagel place was in the same parking lot as the Wall Mart, and thus drove around a bit looking for it. At last on site, we got the propane for the shower, and that gave me about 20 minutes to hook that in and get hot water running. We were about 15 minutes behind schedule when we left, but hot water was attainable.

The flight back was uneventful, and we got home around 9. We just hung out on the couch for an hour, then went to bed.

I just got off the phone with Beatrice, to checkup on what’s the deal up in camp. The shower has walls, and Calli stopped by to help out with a leak in the filter system. Overall, sounds like things are going well up there.