TequilaCon 2008

“The liturgy, like the feast, exists not to educate but to seduce people into participating in common activity of the highest order, where one is freed to learn things which cannot be taught.”
-Aidan Kavanagh

Leaving the AvitaSuite we moved down to the lobby to see what kind of food offerings the hotel we were in had.  As it turned out, they had a nice restaurant who’s name completely escapes me.  Had I remembered, I might have brought my camera to take a picture of the sign.  Instead my two brain cells were spinning from my previous tequila shots that were courtesy of Hellohahanarf.  So, through the miracle that is Twitter and a cellphone, we were actually enlarging our group with fellow bloggers from another hotel who were on their way over.  The restaurant readied our own private little room Which we converged on immediately like a pack of angry raptors.

Once inside though, it seemed as if a line had been drawn down the middle of the table.  On one end was Poppy, myself, Hellohahanarf, and Avitable at the head.  The other end had Karl, his roommates Jan and Christine, with Britt at the other head.  Hilly maintained a Switzerland like stance and sat in the middle… which in hindsight was really pretty prophetic as you’ll come to find out.

So as we sat there and broke bread waiting for the other group to arrive, conversation was pretty light and airy.  We talked about sports, where we came from, and of course we talked about blogging.  There is something extremely liberating about being able to sit around a table with people that you literally met less than an hour ago, feel like you’ve known them for a long time, and be able to talk about something that you actually really never TALK to anyone, rather than type, about.  Part of the conversation did revolve around how we were a bit spread out.  Then it suddenly happened… Avitable broke ranks and moved down to the other end of the table.  While I don’t think its a big deal… it did make me think that perhaps I hadn’t put on enough deodorant that morning.

Finally, the door to the room swung open and in walked Shelli, Finn, Libragirl, and Geeky Tai-Tai with her husband Mike.  Unbeknownst to us, they had literally walked 1.4 miles to the hotel, and were pretty dehydrated.  So once we got everyone a round of water, we were able to move forward with the meal in a typical feast fashion.  A very LOUD feast.

There was quite a bit of conversation at both ends of the table as everyone finally got to meet people they had been communicating with for months, and in some cases years, for the first time face to face.  The conversations, in typical blogger fashion, spilled out into the blogosphere through Twitter.  Some of the conversation happened to spill through the open doorway for the waitress and the rest of the patrons to hear… of particular note was the conversation about fisting.  Yeah… we needed to get fed before we got asked to leave.  Imagine being kicked out of a restaurant in the City of Brotherly Love for talking about acts of loving?  Well… acts of lovin’ for someone… somewhere.

The dinner plates arrived… everything from fillet mignon to the live lobster formerly known as Stan landed on our table.  More importantly, the drinks flowed quite heavily.  In an odd biblical parody, Hilly in the middle of the table, surrounded by 12 other bloggers (and one blogger spouse) gave thanks to good sweet Baby Hey-soos for providing us with Lemon Drops.  Of course… the waitress passed by the open door during this as well.  They probably thought we were an alcoholic sex cult at this point. 

After dinner, I was enjoying this delightful little Blue Crab Margarita when my phone rang.  It was Delmer who had just made it to his hotel.  He was running a bit late since he also had some issues, but I told him we would probably be in the bar since dinner itself was wrapping up.  Of course… I think I mentioned it to Poppy that Delmer was coming over, or maybe not… but then got involved in another conversation that was a loud one… and then another… and yet another.

Suddenly, the door flung open yet again.  A guy roughly 10 feet tall strode in, pointed at me, and called me by my real name.  My first thought… Shit!  Someone told the sheriff I was in Pennsylvania! Unfortunately… due to the fact I have not paid my yearly garbage bill yet on my Pennsylvania property… there is apparently an arrest warrant out for me up north.  Ooops.  My second thought… Fuck!  Someone hit my truck in the parking garage! Considering how tight and crappy it was… a total possibility.  My third thought… Damn!  They’re gonna try to pin all this fisting and praying over Lemon Drops ruckus on me!  I’m the fucking quiet one! Granted, I doubt I was all quiet… but just in case I was poised to get up, go to Hilly, kiss her once on each cheek, and call her Sensei.

Yet, while I’m thinking all this, he starts calling Britt and Avitable by name as well.  Then, it clicked just as he himself said, “I’m Delmer.” So of course I chimed in, “Hey everybody, this is Delmer!” Yeah… as my sweetie would say… I’m smaht.  Of course, I’m quite a bit smahter than our waitress Christine.  She apparently didn’t understand that we wanted separate checks… and only came in with two.  Luckily hours of trying to do math while slightly intoxed was resolved thanks to Geeky Tai-tai‘s husband Mike who covered the bill until we could figure it all out and send them the money for our meals.  Now THAT is a true sign of blogger trust… and he isn’t even a blogger!

So with dinner done and over with… we all moved out to the bar.  There were tequila shots, margaritas, Jameson and ginger ales, tequila sunrises, and diet coke all around.  The conversations continued, and I had an interesting conversation with Delmer about the nature of blogging and the fall of corporate mongering Starbucks.  I believe he sold his stock in them today.  Of course… a bunch of us bloggers were making trips outside to smoke… and occasionally dragging non-puffing bloggers with us.

Slowly the night wrapped up… I think maybe around 2:00am so Bag O’Bones should have been up and plotting her next sandstorm by then.  Poppy headed up to the room as I headed outside where I met with Karl who had decided to also have a pre-bed smokie treat.  We spoke about how great it was to finally meet the people we have read and gotten to know through the blogosphere, and how if this night was an indicator… then TequilaCon was going to be a real blast. 

So I finished my smoke, and said goodnight to Karl.  I left him standing in front of The Sheraton sign… and little did I know I would find him in the same spot first thing the next morning…

Pictures are reportedly worth a thousand words.  Well I think the photos from my Flickr set and the TequilaCon Flickr Group are worth a little more… but you can be the judge.  Photos for this post were culled from Karl’s Flickr Set and Poppy’s Flickr Set. 

How can someone smash 3 action packed fun filled days into just one post?  I have no clue… which is why I won’t try to do it as tempting as it might seem.  Like a good bottle of Tequila itself… it deserves time to sit and ferment to produce the best that it has to offer.

So Poppy and I headed out of New York City around 1:30pm.  We were fairly on time… having had wrapped up my morning’s work and then had breakfast.  I had turned my device alerts on for Twitter so I could follow the progress of a few people.  Let me just say that twittering and driving don’t mix well… and holy hell do those people twat alot!

We got to The Sheraton on 17th Street and Race Street at around 4:00pm with a little help from the GPS.  After driving around the underground parking lot looking for the entrance to the hotel for about 5 minutes, we finally saw the 12-inch by 12-inch signs with an S and an arrow pointing the way to a wall that read HOTEL ELEVATORS.  Needless to say… the elevators were on the other side of that wall.  So we parked and went to check in to our smoking hotel room that Poppy had booked awhile back (February/March?).  So imagine our surprise when we found out that The Sheraton had gone completely non-smoking since May 1… the day before.  Here we were with a smoking reservation in a non-smoking hotel. 

I turned to the manager and said, “So you guys don’t send notices out when you have a policy change on the type of rooms you offer?”

The manager said to me, “No unfortunately it is a very recent change.”

“So even though we have a print-out that says SMOKING, you won’t honor that?” I just had to confirm with him as my hand started to twitch nervously.

“Well, should you choose to smoke in your room there will be an additional $200 cleaning fee added to the bill,” the manager explained with a slight smile that bordered on the sadistic.  Bastard.

I nodded as understanding as I could be, but then warned the manager as he handed Poppy the room keys, “When the blonde whirlwhind yelling ‘Woo-hoo! Fuck yeah!’ comes in here… I suggest you run for your life.”

I knew this change would not make for a happy Britt.

Needless to say… I never saw that manager again for the rest of my stay.

Pictures are reportedly worth a thousand words.  Well I think the photos from my Flickr set and the TequilaCon Flickr Group are worth a little more… but you can be the judge.

The Blue Crab Margarita that is.  With Tequila.  Lots of it.

You know it’s been a good night when you wake up… get dressed to go down for a smoke (even though you HAD a SMOKING ROOM reservation CONFIRMED) and you find Karl at the same place you left him the night before.

Yeah.  Good times.