DragonCon 2017

So this year, we went to DragonCon as volunteers for MechCorps.

Firstly, this is apparently the 'hardest' convention I've been to.  As we were loading in the Battletech pods on Thursday, the day before the pop culture convention even opened, people were walking in the streets in cosplay.  This is cool and all, but within the first three hours of just unloading, someone was already carted off in an ambulance.  I recall hearing no less that four throughout the convention.  Whether or not it was from the convention, I don't know.

For MechCorps, this is a hard enough convention.  The fact they were located in Houston during Hurricane Harvey made it no easier on them.  Staffing that convention, it is optimal to have at least six people on staff for a shift.  There are three shifts which rotate at 6 hour intervals.

We drove from Louisville, Kentucky because two of the staffers were family.  My daughter and father-in-law.  The rest were friends.  Two locals volunteered to help.  One couple, who go damn near every year, their house as flooded badly.  Four people were taking flights, which were delayed or cancelled completely (and let's be honest, if your flight is delayed, you miss a lot of the convention...all because the runways were literally flooded out).  One guy and his two cats had to be rescued, and although they were taken to safety, his house stood in six inches of water.

But....at MechCorps in DragonCon 2017, all tips, cash and digital, were collected to help out our MechCorps volunteers that didn't make it with us.  We flew the Texas flag proudly. Although my family lives in Louisville, Kentucky, I don't think you'll ever get the Texas out of us.

I wasn't on shift when two women got hit by chairs while walking on the street, but one of the regulars was there (at DragonCon, there are some people which come to the convention solely to play Battletech on the VR simulators, the rest is kind of good background).  I did, however, go to the costume parade, which was insanely crowded.  We were right by the door to go upstairs and see the parade from where the pods were, but we went downstairs instead, my husband putting his niece on his shoulders (because his sister lives near Atlanta, Georgia and wanted to come out and see the family).  But as soon as I went to fetch something from the pod bay, I came downstairs and there was a guy on his side, throwing up.  From alcohol poisoning or having an epileptic seizure, I couldn't tell you.

The intensity didn't come from beating the concrete floor for six hours mostly on my feet, nor the hawking in calling out pilot names, but really from the lack of sleep.  Hiking three city blocks isn't bad, even though it's hilly in Atlanta.  It's the limited allotment of sleep (yeah, you get 12 hours, but in that 12 hours off, for people who need 9 hours of sleep, how much time does that give you to seek out things in the convention, or even find a place to eat on foot?).  It's rather grueling.  But it's a labor of love.

What most people do not understand is that when they call us Vols, we are volunteers.  We do it because we love the game and we love the people.  Hell, some of us don't play the game for the most part, and Vol just because we love the people.  The owners do not run it to turn a huge profit.  They run it for the love of it, because they want to share the game with players, young and old.  The pods are old enough to drink, and they require a lot of maintenance.  Frames brake.  Chassis break. Rio boards give out.  Joysticks come loose.  The pods take damage being moved to and fro.  This is a lot of work, but it's a labor of love for most of us.

I am blessed we got to go, double-blessed that we got to see family, and triple blessed that the people we work with are amazing.

Will I do it again?  If I have the opportunity.  Hopefully.  Don't know how much longer we can take the physical abuse it takes to do it, but ...again...a labor of love.  Hopefully, everyone will make it next year

I didn't get to take many pictures because my younger daughter absconded with my phone, but hopefully those that went with me will contribute photos to the public facebook album that I made.

So....just remember...if you loved MechWarrior, you'll probably love Battletech.  And that these guys aren't in it for the money, they do it because they want to share the game.  Charging for the game helps maintenance and repairs, pays for HQ in Houston, and gives a little bit of capitol to make some cool nose art and buy pins and patches to make them available to everyone.

The pods

One of the hobbies I've picked up along the way was Battletech.

I don't play the tabletop.  Hell, I don't even play the PC game.  None of those stupid copy cats like Mech Assault and stuff.  Grand Ole Battletech in Pods.

When my husband and I were first together, living on our own, we both worked in the mall, Memorial City Mall to be specific.  I worked at a place that's still around called Spencer's Gifts and my husband worked at Exhilarama, which was the old arcade place.  You can totally laugh about that.  We were married teenagers, working in the mall.  He was part of the distinctive team that worked in what looked like a small military-styled bunker, covered in camo.  He wore a (sexy) black jumpsuit, combat boots, and played on a computer all day - pushing both geeky kids and adults alike into giant black boxes, shutting a door, and immersing them in a VR setting of a pilot console controlling giant robots to blow each other (and sometimes themselves) up in pretty spectacular ways.  At this time, this was the cutting edge of VR gaming, with a whole slew of stars casting in the 'training videos', from Cheech Marin to Judge Rhinehold, and several other stars that were popular at the time.  

Fast-forward somewhere like 25 years later.

My husband finds this group in Houston called MechCorps.  I don't really pay much attention at first, but then I get to the point where, well, our kids are growing up fast, and I want to have other commonalities with my husband - things we can do together.  We've spend most of our lives together raising kids, so focused on it, that we have rarely had time to ourselves.  Before we know it, we'll only have one another, so ....kind of only good to have common interests, right?  

Firstly, I'm not a sci-fi person at all.  Really. I think that might have to to with the technobabble which comes along with it.  Some people really dig that kind of thing, and speculate on how to create it for reals (think about this...remember when Star Trek the next generation debuted?  They walked around...doing their work on hand-held tablets....now we have a whole generation of zombies...doing work and games...on handheld tablets...).  I was more engrossed by stories than anything else.  So beating around that bush, the idea was that I went because I wanted to spend time with my husband, I really didn't give too much of a shit about the game itself.

Um, truth be told, really....I still don't.  I can't tell you the difference between the Madcat and Timberwolf (aren't they the same mech?  Depending on what side of the alliance you're on, right?  Freeborn or canned, I can't remember which).  Or how many chassis the game offers (but I think there's 172 variants?).  Hell, I can't even remember how to unjam the guns and missiles when you're sitting in the cockpit.

But I still went with him, and I found something even more cool than the game itself.

I found the people that run it.

This game runs about every Saturday night from 6 pm to midnight.  They generally announce when they're open and when they're not in town, but that's part of the fun of being in the MechCorps crew.  We were there a lot.  We learned about the way the system was set up (probably more the husband than me, I learned more of the gruntwork of moving and setting up), and the nights that MechCorps was closed, generally, it was because either they couldn't find someone to run the game or they were out of town for the conventions they go to.

Yeah.....these guys tour.  Like damn rockstars.....

So in hanging out with these people, learning about them, getting to know them and how awesome they are, we volunteered to help out with conventions.  They gave us 'easy ones' first, and then we started hitting the road locally with them.  It's kind of cool, because really, they need the help.  You volunteer.  Which means you help pack everything up, you catch a ride, you set everything up.  You work a 'shift' daily during convention and then you get the rest of the time to yourself.  They even put you up in a hotel (but be forewarned, they cram 6 people to a hotel room sometimes - you're there to work so it's barracks style sleep.  You share a bed or you bring an air mattress).  So...it's like getting to go to a convention free.

But the kicker is this: you gotta be a cool person.  You gotta be dependable.  And they gotta like you.

I think we were fortunate enough that even though my husband and I have personalities that are almost like night and day, they kind of found us interesting and dependable.

I know this sounds like a shameless plug for MechCorps.  It kinda is.  They're kinda wonderful people.