221B Con 2022: Pre-Con Thursday

Settling into 221B Con's hotel about twenty-four hours early is about right, I think. I'm not the only one, of course, as the first familiar face I saw this trip was in front of us at the registration desk. And since it was @CumberCurlyGirl, who had also been in Dayton last month, I plainly wasn't the only one glad for all the events this spring, either. (Excuse the use of Kyndall's Twitter handle here -- unlike Holmes, Doyle & Friends in Dayton, 221B Con is a very Twitter-active event.)

But maybe I shouldn't have apologized about Twitter in that last parenthetical, because it's a real key for enjoying the con.  While I ran into Chris Zordan in the hallway on our way to our room, it was Crystal spotting my arrival on Twitter that let me know she and Shana were down at the bar to pop down to say "hi." And got me into Kyndall's Sherlock Cards Against Humanity game for a bit after dinner. 

I do like Twitter for events.

The good Carter and I went to supper in the hotel bar, whose menu, like many places, seemed a bit more limited after Covid did its thing. While Atlanta's airport Marriott is great for a lot of things, access to food is always a limit, as it's like an island that takes a little driving to escape, unlike previous con hotels. After dinner, I got a holler from the St. Louis contingent at the con, Heather, Kristen, and Alisha, and got to talk to them for a bit -- asking everyone what panels they are on from the get-go is always a good idea for steering your later course, so I got my start on that.

While dining, the good Carter noticed Con Air on the bar TV, so when we returned to the room and she put it on, Nicholas Cage lured me into finishing that movie's final ride with his determined "I'm gonna show you there is a God." The bizarre Las Vegas geography of the last part of that movie always fascinates me. (What is that long, long tunnel in the middle of Fremont Street?)

Once I was done being distracted, I ran to Starbuck's to pick up some Cheez-Its, said "hi" to that aforementioned Cards Against Humanity game in the lobby, got the crackers, then saw Greg Ruby was in the bar with Steve and Rusty Mason and Shana Carter, which rated a stop. Then back to delivering the Cheez-Its, back to play Cards Against Humanity for a round or two (of which, the BBC Sherlock version Kyndall had, with its many customized cards for fic-level topics, was very cool and fit the game perfectly). I one the first round by supplying the answer "John's moustache" to the question "What does Sherlock keep in his pocket?" Sometimes you just get the perfect card in CAH.

After that, I got back to the Masons, the Ruby, and the Shana in the bar, ordered a fruity red rum drink that had some name, but I since I actually ordered "some fruity red rum drink" I don't remember. And there we chatted until nearly midnight, with a road-weary Madeline Quinones joining us at some point.  My brain was pretty foggy by the time I finally called it quits, but we had covered a whole lot of topics, from the possibility of Talon King being at the con to how those Baker Street Elementary kids were going to deal with an Abbey Grange situation. Luckily, I sat far enough away from Greg Ruby to keep from poking his face with my finger to prove he wasn't just a Zoom screen version of himself.

So, all in all, a lot of hopeful signs for a good 221B Con this year, the biggest of which is just that we're securely inside the hotel and ready to rock. The number of Sherlockian faces I saw yesterday was actually a lot larger than just those noted above -- the thing about coming to this con year after year is that you become familiar with a lot of folks you don't know and never talk to, just because out of the hundreds and hundreds of folks who come,  a goodly share are regulars and create the friendly familiar atmosphere that fills the hotel for a few days.

And we're just about into it.