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When one looks in the box, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the cat.

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Well, it’s 1:00 am and I’ve been up since the previous 5:00 am, so clearly this is a perfect time to write a blog post about my first day at JordanCon 2011!

Yes, I am aware I am insane, thank you for playing.

Anyway, as promised I am once again braving the wilds of Atlanta, Georgia to attend the third annual iteration of JordanCon, and also as promised I am braving the wilds of sleep deprivation to tell you about it. Please check all expectations of coherency at the door.

So far? It’s been just lovely.

Despite the best efforts of Delta Airlines and the public transportation system of Atlanta, I got to the hotel without any major difficulties and settled in. I tried to take a nap, but then Jennifer Liang, JordanCon Organizer Person Extraordinaire (I’m sure she has a more official and less silly title, but have I mentioned it’s 1:00 am?) texted me that she was hanging out downstairs, and I decided sleep wasn’t all that important.

I went on down to find that a number of Con People had already shown up, followed swiftly by none other than Harriet McDougal and Maria Simons, aka two quarters of Team Jordan and thoroughly awesome people in their own right. I may have squeed a bit when I saw Maria, as she is one of my favorite people to hang with anytime I make it to one of these WOT things. Alan Romanczuk, the third quarter of the Team, flashed by for a hot second but I didn’t get to do more than wave hi to him.

Aaand I am seriously going to put my foot in my mouth if I attempt to identify and/or introduce everyone I met and/or saw again while we hung out and chatted in the lovely late spring weather, so I ain’t gonna, except to say that most of the Usual Suspects were there in fine fettle and form and whatever that saying is when people are cool, and there were some new folks I greatly enjoyed meeting for the first time, and a delightful leisurely afternoon was had.

All told there were (I think) about thirty of us there by the time the fourth and final TJ quarter, namely Brandon Sanderson, arrived to general hails of “Who’s that guy again?” I kid! Well, no, that’s what we actually said, but we were kidding. So I kid, but not in the way I originally led you to think I was kidding. Kiddo.

(1:35 am now…)

And THEN we went to the dinner, which was at Maggiano’s, which is a chain restaurant but quite surprisingly good for all that. (Yes, I am a snob about chain restaurants. What can I say, I grew up in New Orleans and then lived in New York. Me and chains were never meant to be, man.)

I sat next to Brandon and another gentleman who turned out to be this year’s guest of honor, David B. Coe, whose Rules of Ascension I have totally just ordered on Amazon. And who also turned out to be an awesome dinner companion, as we all munched on family-style Italian and chatted and debated about everything from the worst Star Trek episode ever (three words: lizard space babies) to the reason for the decline in new epic fantasy in the nineties to whether late-era Metallica is as good as early Metallica (because I always avoid controversial topics!) to why I should read and review what is apparently the worst fantasy novel ever (and I’m totally going to, now. I have been Challenged).

In between, Brandon and I amused ourselves by throwing grapes at Matt Hatch and Jason Denzel, because they totally deserved it, oh yes, and debating with Linda Taglieri of 13th Depository fame over whether Vegemite is grosser than… uh, whatever American thing we came up with that might be grosser than Vegemite, but honestly probably isn’t. (Sorry, Aussies, but seriously, yech.)

And this and many other things, but it is now 2:00 am and the con officially starts tomorrow and it is going to be A Lot, so I will sum up by saying that we all hung out and it was awesome, and so far so good.


More As It Develops. G’night!

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Leigh Butler

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