Flying Helmut

Blog Part VI

On to ‘Origins’

We surfaced bright and early, and after a cup of tea brewed by Jackie I settled into Jim’s car and we departed, with Peter following in his car.

The day was bright and sunny, the traffic was fairly light, and Jim and I chatted all the way to Columbus – so much so that I didn’t think to take any photographs! Columbus is not very far from Dayton, only around an hour or so by Interstate 70.

I was amused to notice that we passed by a place called London – it was a lot smaller than I remembered!

On arrival, Jim delivered his car into the ‘parking structure’ (did I get that right?) across the street from the Greater Columbus Convention Center, and arranged valet parking with the staff. We crossed the street and approached the main building, then Jim left to attend to an appointment, while Peter led me inside.



The place was huge; really huge, not the kind of ‘huge’ used in ebay item descriptions, but actually enormous! Fortunately, Peter knew exactly where he was going.

Registration

The registration hall held a long line of connected booths, the very furthest of which was designated for pre-registered attendees (that’s us!). I stayed back with Peter’s cart, while he collected his Convention lanyard and badge, and his game entry tickets were printed out. We then swapped places and I collected my badge and tickets – or did I? (see ‘What’s in a Name?’ below).
The lady behind the counter handed me my “welcome pack” and tickets, so I simply said “Thank you very much.”

That set her off! Her mouth dropped open, and she clapped a hand over it, and took a step back from the table. “Oh My God! I love your accent!” she gushed. Then, to my great surprise, she left her place in the booth, walked around the open end of the booth line, and approached me and took my hand! “Could you do me a favour?” she asked. “Could you stay here and just talk to me for five minutes?”

In my best ‘accentless’ voice, I quickly formulated an answer…

“Dear Lady, I fear no-one has ever managed to restrict me to just five minutes!”

She giggled, and held my hand in both of hers. I was rescued by Peter, who ushered me away from her, making polite excuses for both of us. We hurried into the complex proper.



What’s in a Name?

At this time, I discovered that my lanyard badge had “Peter Landry” printed boldly upon it – so too did all of my Origins Game Tickets! It seems there had been a glitch in the online Pre-registration system which Peter had used; it had correctly assigned his name to all of his tickets and his Convention Badge, but when it came to his Guest Registration it had once again recorded HIS name, and not mine! Henceforth, it seemed, I was destined to be Peter Landry. I thought this was funny, but, as it turned out, there were to be unforeseen consequences…

We were staying at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, part of the Convention Center complex. We made our way into the hotel complex, checked in and headed up to our room to drop off all the gear we didn’t need for the first day’s gaming.

Grabbing only what I needed, we then returned to the Convention Center floor and made our way towards the Gaming Hall. On route, Peter took me on a detour to the Food Court, to show me where I could get breakfast each morning, and he told me about other options close to the Convention Center if I wanted to try something different.



Getting back on track, we marched through the expansive building and finally reached the tables allocated to us “Ares Gamers”.

Now commenced a barrage of handshakes, as several other ‘Forumites’ were already there. I won’t try to list them here, since I didn’t make note of exactly who I met and when, and I’d be sure to leave some worthies out of my list.

At just before noon, I settled down to play the first of my 16 ‘Origins’ games – full AAR here:-

'Origins' Through the Helmut-Cam; Game #1 Weds. 21st June 2023

After a quick switch to the Spanish Civil War, I embarked upon Game #2, which began at 15:00, full AAR here:-

'Origins' Through the Helmut-Cam; Game #2 Weds. 21st June 2023

Regular Gaming was scheduled to finish for the day @ 18:00, but Peter had an evening game scheduled for 20:00, so after a pause to get a bite to eat in the Hyatt Bar, we embarked on Game #3, a BSG encounter, AAR here:-

'Origins' Through the Helmut-Cam; Game #3 Weds. 21st June 2023

We finished just before 22:00, and that was enough for Day 1. When Peter and I returned to our room, we found Jim already abed. After a quick sort through our suitcases, arranging clothes and bathroom essentials, we followed suit.