From the Screen to In Person
The 16-man raid on Pittsburgh, part 1
My raid group, Raiders of the Dusk, decided to begin a tradition of an annual, in-person get-together which we'd hold in the various cities where we all reside. This year, we chose Pittsburgh, PA, due to the fact that several people live there and it made a nice central hub for us to meet in.
The trip was planned to be from Friday to Sunday. Fortunately, everyone in RotD had the same idea, that a Friday through Sunday trip really meant that we scheduled our travel for Thursday and Monday, in order to maximize our time together. We had a four-man cartel that was originally planning on driving, however, that fell through when one of the four had to cancel due to his son's costly emergency hospital visit, so we punted and opted to fly instead.
We have one other person who lives in Texas (Scott, who lives in Dallas), so he took a train down to Austin. I ended up having to pick him up in Taylor due to train delays. The train station in Taylor was pretty unimpressive; in fact, it was basically a small kiosk. There was a building a few over that had been breached, and a voice yelling "Burglary! Burglary! Burglary! You have trespassed into an area protected by a security system! Leave Immediately!" in a loop. That was looping the entire time I was there, and nobody seemed to be paying any attention to it.
On early Thursday morning, it was time to go to Pittsburgh. Our plane left at 5:30 in the morning. Thankfully, Elli was kind enough to pick Scott and me up at my house (at 4:00!) and take us to the airport. The flight there had absolutely no issues, although the second leg of the flight did have to invoke the "Any landing you walk away from is a good landing," rule; it was pretty bumpy. We got off the plane and went through a tram to get to the baggage claim (I half-expected to come out the other side of the tram and be greeted by dwarves!) and out the other side, and down an escalator to be greeted by Buff, Megan, Geoff, and Allison, four old friends, who I'd never stood in front of in person, who I recognized and greeted immediately. One observation several folks made over the course of the trip was how not awkward the introductions were. Most people walked up and said, "Hey ____" like we saw each other every day. Liz made the valid point that, in actuality, we do see each other every day.
We piled into the back of Buff's seven-passenger van. I made a comment to Allison about the healers having a convention in the back, and Buff screams, "Pulling!" as she backs out of the parking space, and we all laughed. We drove to Dan's house, and got there without incident, to see two people who none of us recognized (to put this in perspective, none of us have met Dan before, although we know what he looks like) sitting in front of what we think is Dan's house smoking. Let's just say, they didn't look like gamers. Turns out that it was Dan's house, and no, we weren't supposed to know them; they worked for the auto repair shop next door. We invaded the house and began munching on chips while we all talked and waited for more people to arrive.
Backing up for a second: Although they never had a chance to use it, Buff had made a sign for us to recognize them at the airport, which was the famous yellow exclamation point (
) that signifies a quest in World of Warcraft. We got a chance to use it about an hour later, as Liz and Ronnie were looking for the house and a place to park (the latter issue was silly; there were open spots everywhere). So, Buff walked outside with her sign, and said, "They drive a van, right?" We answered in the affirmative, and a large van was coming down the road, so she holds the sign above her head, and the van immediately pulls over and parks. Then, we see another van behind them with Liz and Ronnie in it. Buff had just given Dan's neighbors a quest.
To make the matter even more amusing, Liz and Ronnie were taking forever to get out of their vehicle for some reason. Megan said, "Maybe they didn't see the RotD at the bottom of the sign in small letters?" I retorted, "As opposed to all of the other WoW guilds having a meetup in Pittsburgh right now?" Buff started laughing and simulating out that problem, much to everyone's amusement.
We had a bit of an adventure picking up Rob from the airport. He was the final person to arrive, and the world server in North Carolina was down, thereby significantly delaying his place (they sat on a tarmac for two and a half hours). We did pick him up without incident, and went back to Dan's to see the group as a whole together for the first time. There were 16 of us, from all over half of the country, piled in a room chatting, laughing, and enjoying one another.
Posted by Luke at 6:59 a.m.
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