Last year's Dragon*Con was crowded to the point of being off putting. I was concerned about whether I would enjoy the con this year as a consequence. I had other concerns unrelated to the size of the con, including but not limited to areas for improvement in the volunteer staff on which I work. I was honestly thinking that this year might be my last, if my expectations were met.

As it turns out, the addition of the fourth hotel, the Sheraton, and some shifting around of different events and attractions really reduced the crush of humanity this year. I found the dealer room to still be a bit claustrophobic but outside of that didn't have any anxiety riddled moments like were all so common last year. The celebrities even seemed to be hitting the floor more, though that may have had more to do with the separation between the main programming rooms and the walk of fame.

As I was wandering, I saw (in no particular order) Walter Koenig, Adam West (twice), Michael Rosenbaum, almost bumped into Domic Keating, Peter Mayhew and George Takei. I also get to actually meet or renew acquaintance with guests who are not media stars, primarily skeptical thinkers of note including Dr. Michael Shermer, Phil Plait and D.J. Grothe.

I didn't get to see anywhere as many online acquaintances as I had hoped but more than last year as I was able to leave the podcast track room much more frequently. Thanks to the efforts of sambear, flyswatter, Kurt, Miranda, Andrew and Swoopy, no one person had more than a couple of panels to cover at a time. I was able to directly address my concerns from last year with some positive coaching at the outset and second chairing on the first day as other staff worked with and become comfortable running the mixer and PA. It helps thatsambear and flyswatter are ringers with experience volunteering elsewhere in years past at the con.

I missed Scott Sigler's party entirely Friday because of aforementioned coaching and a complete and utter failure of my crappy, crappy cell phone. If you saw my upset very late on Friday, I have to apologize for that as it really was nothing more than worry caused by said crappy cellular service. I did catch the latter half of the Parsecs and the launch party for Tee, Pip and blackwell and enjoyed that very much. I am concerned I bored a couple of my listeners who made the mistake of identifying themselves as such. I got to chat with one of the earliest podcasters, David Slusher, along with Evo Terra's lovely wife, Sheila. Andrea and I left before things apparently got less calm.

On Sunday, Andrea and I managed to get out to the Miss Klingon Empire Beauty Pageant which was a blast. We accidentally snuck in. As we walked in, we had wondered about the long line upstairs in the Sheraton. When we found an unattended open door, though, we figured it was for some other event. We sat down as the MC was doing a mic check, our first indication that we had perhaps jumped the line. I had my staff lanyard on and we figured if someone did see us slip in, they may have spotted the yellow ribbon around my neck and left us alone figuring we were supposed to be or allowed to be there. We sat row four, center, and definitely realized our blind luck when they opened the side door on that huge line.

The event was in the main ball room in the Sheraton which is literally ginormous. It took them nearly half an hour to seat everyone and they completely filled the place. Ethan Philips, Michael Dorn, Dominic Keating and an actual beauty pageant judge judged the pageant. All of the handful of contestants were enthusiastic and largely quite talented. It was a hoot and planetx has been trying to convince Andrea to enter next year.

We had a quiet night in that evening, watching the masquerade on D*CTV with some friends. It was a Dada-esque experience. But it is OK to be scared. I'm scared too. Ethan Philips MC'ed and you really had to see him to get just how phenomenally funny he was in a very dry, subtle way. I think it was some sort of defense mechanism for the surreality of the situation.

By the way, curse you, Brian Richardson! You know what you did. And you even told us you'd do it during your live What the Cast that day. Go watch the masquerade video if they post it either on the Dragon*Con web site or the D*CTV web site. You'll know why I am cursing him if you get to see the half time show, in particular.

I think both of us had a far better time than we expected. While we didn't get to see near enough of some of our friends, we both cherished meeting new friends and getting what time we could to renew acquaintance with those we did see. I think we are both leaning towards going again, next year, though there is a nasty rumor that the Hilton may start renovations which could put a damper on that. And another rumor that I may be asked to step up from mere volunteer to something more (many, many, many discussions must be had on this latter topic yet before anything of the kind will be decided).