Orecon (plus a couple of other things)

First, I have one celebrity death to mention. About all I know about Maeve Binchy is that she was Irish and wrote novels. Maybe I will read one of them someday, after I get through the backlog of other things to read. Somewhere around 2073, perhaps?

Second, I really don’t mind if somebody uses my chair at work when I am out of the office. But I do mind if they change the seat height and other ergonomic settings. If you are poaching on my space, you can be uncomfortable. (And, yes, I am pretty sure I know who the guilty party is.)

Third, I have spent the past 3 hours on a telecon (with another 3 or so hours to go). So far, they have reached the startling conclusion that more capable systems cost more.

What I really wanted to write about, however, is Orecon, the 173rd convention of the the National Puzzlers’ League. This was in Portland, Oregon a couple of weeks ago.

I flew in on the Tuesday night before con started so I could satisfy my obsession with state capitals. The flight was delayed and, of course, United managed to do that about 20-30 minutes at a time, along with providing inaccurate information. For example, they claimed the incoming plane was in the air at least half an hour before it had actually taken off. (Knowing how to use flightaware is handy.) And they made claims about compensation they’d give, then gave us a runaround between the gate and customer service. I can deal with delays if they are honest about them. (I did manage to get compensation using an inside channel after the fact, but the old United handled this sort of thing much better than the current Continentalized staff.)

Anyway, I had no problems with picking up my rental car and getting to my hotel. The drive down to Salem to do the capital volksmarch was easy enough. The walking route followed a number of small waterways, went over to the river front carousel and crossed a railroad bridge before winding through the State Capitol complex. Willamette University, and Deepwood Mansion. Overall, it was a pleasant route and I felt it gave me a good tour of the city.

I got caught in very heavy traffic going back to Portland. Coupled with a bit of a search for a gas station near the rental car place, I ended up getting back later than I’d intended. I still made it to the con picnic while there was a little food (but no diet soda) left. There were also donuts from Voodoo Donuts, though going to their actual store is more entertaining. (Then again, I am not really much of a donut person.) . I spent much of the rest of Wednesday evening playing a dungeon-themed labyrinth extravaganza that Marcus Asparagus had put together and which was lots of fun, even when I felt totally baffled. Alpenhorn Hero, anyone?

I spent part of the day Thursday doing a walk-around puzzle, which required going to several light rail stations. I also had time for a brief browse in Powell’s Books before heading over to meet up with my friend, Leora, who I hadn’t seen in about 25 years. We walked around the impressive rose gardens for a couple of hours before having dinner at a Thai restaurant. It was great catching up with her and I hope it won’t be so long until the next time we get together.

Thursday night was the start of official con activities. hahathor had us do intros by groups, to the tunes of various songs. We had one person who likes to write song parodies and did all the work on our Brady Bunch theme song parody, while the rest of us whined about not wanting to sing. That was followed by Brainstormers, which required groups to solve somewhat twisted trivia questions. I am happy to say that I was not completely useless to my team.

The official activities that evening ended with the weekend cryptic for pairs solving being handed out. Dandr and I set right to work on Elfman’s and zipped through it pretty efficiently, taking maybe a half hour overall. I always enjoy good teamwork. The unofficial activities continued with playing a pub trivia quiz (which proves that I know nothing about cars) and the annual Jeopardy game put together by jeffurrynpl who (as usual) managed an especially twisted “before and after” category.
I needed some exercise, so spent Friday doing another volksmarch. This one started in NW Portland and covered the Pearl District, the South Park Blocks, the waterfront, and so on. After doing that, I went back over to Powell’s, where I was proud of myself for spending under a hundred bucks.

Friday evening featured more puzzles and games. My favorite of those was Uncertainty Principle, because it had a lot of the sort of trivia I am reasonably good at. A question asking what country the airport with the code CDG serves is, for example, right up my alley. As for the unofficial activities, I played a couple of other Jeopardy games and another trivia game that I was, er, far more challenged by.

The major outcome of Saturday morning’s business meeting was a reminder that next year’s con will be in Austin, TX and a vote for Portland, Maine for 2014. The afternoon puzzles had a couple of fun word puzzles (one of which I almost completed), followed by the annual flat competition. I solved with a couple of other people and we managed to get through a fair number of the flats.

Saturday night’s dinner speaker was Mark Saltveit of The Palindromist. The most significant thing he said was about the need for people to find their tribe, the people who are crazy in the same way they are. That’s definitely something I relate to – and I have been fortunate enough over the years to find a few tribes to hang out with.

The Saturday night extravaganza is always a highlight of con and this year’s, by LunchBoy, Rubrick, and Story, was no exception. The premise involved a convention of aliens and solving puzzles to figure out what inappropriate gifts they tried to give one another. My only disappointment is that my team divvied things up in a way that meant that I didn’t get a look at a couple of the puzzles until after we were done. But we did finish, which is what I mostly care about.

I had intended to get to bed early on Saturday night but there were games going on. I played a round of Unspeakable Words, followed by a round of Cluesome. 2:30 a.m. isn’t all that late, right? (Actually, by con standards it isn’t.)

As for Sunday, there was a particularly extravagant breakfast, followed by the awards. Then I headed off to the airport. My flight from PDX to SFO was on time, but the flight home was delayed. It got delayed even more, turning it into a red-eye (versus the pink eye it started out as), when they stole our plane to replace one to EWR with a mechanical problem. At least they gave us less of a run-around than on the trip out. I got to IAD at about 4 a.m., which gave me just about enough time to go home, shower, change my clothes and have breakfast before being a zombie all day at work. The trip was worth it, but boy do I miss the customer service I used to get.