Dirac Angestun Gesept

I got up early enough to get a reasonable set of snow gear together, figuring that some snow had been predicted and I might have to walk from the T, or even from the hotel if I stayed late enough. Based on past experience with Boston weather forecasters (”oh no it’s SNOWPOCALYPSE we’re DOOMED there will be TEN FEET of snow” means “expect 3-6 inches in town”) I thought it wouldn’t be too bad. (And my “reasonable set of snow gear” is good for fairly low temps and wind, since I have walked the Mass Ave bridge coming home from Boskone before.)

Well, I wasn’t actually wrong, or I wouldn’t have been if I’d left when I looked out the windows at 9pm to see how the street looked, instead of 1am when it had been falling for four more hours and the T had stopped running.

I’m getting ahead of myself somewhat.

So. Out the door, to the T, to the hotel, to the con. (By rocket to the moon, by airplane to the rocket, by taxi to the airport, by front door to the taxi….)

I got there and went to the one! actual! panel! that I managed to get to all con. (I did plan to spend most of my time in the gaming room, so this wasn’t a huge surprise, though there were some that sounded interesting that I missed because I was gaming, or that were scheduled for Sunday.)

Naturally, it was the obligatory LiveJournal/blogging panel (”The Very Examined Life”). Unlike the one at Boskone last year, it wound up being very LJ-focused (all the panelists and most of the audience were LJ users). Not a bad thing, as it led to discussion of neat things LJ allows, the whole “friends list” morass of issues, filters and multiple journals, and so forth. It also generated many wonderful lines like “your husband sounds like such a dork” (said by said husband), “I had a random thought, I must share that thought with the whole universe”, and “oh, you’re the one with the cat icon”. My contribution was “cut tags are love”.

After that, down to Urban Pain for a sandwich, and gaming. Gaming gaming gaming gaming gaming. With extra gaming. I then went to a birthday gathering, watching the masquerade on the snowy TV with no sound at intervals, did a bit of wandering around the party floor/con suite, then back down to gaming gaming gaming.

What I should have done is set an alarm to leave no later than 2359 so that I could get on the T and go home. I did not do this. When I looked up after a game of BANG! and realized that it was nearly 0100, I decided that it was time to leave anyway. I got to the lobby, and realized that the snow was really deep, the T had stopped running, it was probably too cold to wait outside for the Night Owl bus, and I didn’t think I had the energy to stay awake in the gaming room until the T started running again, since I had no crash space arranged. (I did consider it though.)

Other options were pretty meager, and boiled down to (in decreasing order of cost) “get a room for the night”, “try to get a cab or something back to at least the vicinity of home”, and “try to walk back home in very deep snow and high winds”.

Option 3 being too likely to result in bodily harm or death (though I would be pretty confident that there wouldn’t be anyone out in it looking to mug people), and there being a van outside the door that looked like it might take me somewhere, I opted for #2. A bunch of folks going a bunch of places were already on board, but there was a seat left and the driver was willing to take me to Cambridge for an amount of money that was, under the circumstances, probably cheaper than I deserved. As it turned out, the largest group was going to Comm Ave & Hereford, so I had the driver just drop me off at MIT (Lobby 7), rather than trying to get around to my house, not knowing which cross streets would have been plowed at that point, and not being too confident in the driver’s Cambridge navigation abilities. (Living near the Cambridge DPW on a main artery means always knowing your street will be plowed quickly.)

I walked through campus, taking advantage of tunnels and such as available, then slogged the last couple blocks home from the nearest tunnel-connected MIT building. Got inside, unwound a bit, and went to bed.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 24th, 2005 at 00:47 and is filed under Fandom/Congoing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the Atom 1.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.