I started with the Paul & Storm concert. They were good and it was a heck of a lot of fun. I chatted with them for a little while and found that they had taken me up on my recommendation of Jun-Bo for good dim-sum.
After the show I did a fair amount of chatting with people. I know I'll forget someone, but some people who were there were:
cleo, romeoa, 7thstranger, kerros, mle292, vanaabegra, jmanna, geohard, realsarah, mattmn, and michaellee. I hung in the cafe for a while w/romeo, 7thstranger & kerros. I caught a bit of the masquerade. Cleo was with her gang of DC superheroes. Then it was time to start hitting the parties. This was also about the time it got interesting. While in the cafe we had noticed a couple groups of guys in military uniforms that weren't American. We assumed they were coming from the nearby Air Guard part of the airport. It was later that evening that we found out the real story.
It was a regiment (I believe) of about 90 members of the [redacted]. They had been on their way from [redacted] en route to [redacted] for training before heading over to [redacted]. But one of their flights was canceled and so they ended up with an unplanned overnight layover in Minneapolis and just happened to end up at the hotel where the con was. Yay! Yes, like just about every girl out there I am a sucker for a guy with an accent!
All of the con-goers did what we could to make them feel welcome. They all had one day passes for the convention (even though it was pretty easy to figure out which folks were part of the British Invasion!) I'd heard that the badges for them were comped, but then I also heard that the commander had been in ops and asked the registration people where the tip jar was and he dropped a wad of twenties. Either way, it was pretty darn cool that they were there. I talked to a bunch of them. If you had seen me yesterday and you hadn't known me for a while, you would probably have a hard time believing that I used to be too shy to go talk to people I don't know!
One of the guys that I talked to for a while, Nick, was just so darn adorable. (And young enough to be my kid!) He's a [rank redacted] and has been in for [x] years, and just looks far too young and innocent to be going off to war!
I also met the commander of the group. He was all decked out in full Scottish dress. His name was Mike and he was just a wonderful charming man. His accent wasn't nearly as strong as all the young boys. He said it was because he had spent a large part of his life in Canada. Throughout the course of the night he hit every room party and thanked the hosts for letting his boys in. Also, when people stopped to chat with him he would ask if the guys were causing any trouble and no one had had any problems with them, had they? He just wanted to make sure that they all weren't being a bother.
Since Moose is home from his Antarctic adventure I had him with me, and he posed for pictures with several of the soldiers. The pictures are still on my camera at the moment though, because I'm not on *my* computer. I've got Mike's (the commander) email, and so I'll be sending copies of the pictures along to him. At that point I'll find out from him about if there is any problem with posting them in my journal. I can't imagine there will be though.
The addition of a regiment of adorable young soldiers with dead sexy accent certainly did make the con a bit different than previous years!
*edit* My post has been slightly edited. This is due to a request from the soldier's commander: "I want to say thank you for helping take care of the Troops. I know that they had a great time. In regards to posting the pictures, THIS IS IMPORTANT. Pass this on to anyone you know that took photos. Please do NOT post any pictures of the soldiers that show their faces or are in bad taste. (anything you would not show your Priest) If you DO want to post pictures, please block out their faces and any reference to their names or where they are going. First names would be OK. Do not post any mailing addresses or e-mail addresses if you were given them. If you can, please block out any visible rank or insignia on their uniforms as well. It was overlooked that photos could be posted and irreparable damage could be done. Some of the lads deal with sensitive stuff if you know what I mean. We cannot risk showing their faces or posting where they are going."
