Field Report: Atlanta Day 1

I got back into the office late Sunday night, found the necessary cables in Trev's medicine cabinet, and got to work chronicling our adventures in Atlanta. Accompanied by our resident gambling professional and Brian from House Rock Built, we had an away team worthy of the city's other main weekend event, Dragon-Con '06. My brother's wagering prowess, Brian's iron constitution, and my complete lack of directional skills complemented perfectly, especially after all of our equipment bonuses.

Steel flask of inebriation +2

We check in to our secluded airport hotel and immediately ask the front desk to hail us a cab for downtown. Fifteen miles and a hefty cab fare later, we arrive at a classy downtown establishment near CNN. My requests to throw some kind of glass bottle at the cable news network were rebuffed as we were wasting valuable socializing time. We were holding up what I hope to be a regular tradition, the annual CFB bloggers D&D module! Excelsior!

"My advice to you is to begin drinking heavily."

Actually, there was an informal summit of blog-writing types at the hotel bar, but Dragon-Con was literally a saving throw away, so you were never really sure. We met up with Jay from BlueGraySky, Orson Swindle from EDSBS, their lovely spouses, and Warren St. John, author of "Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer." Surrounded by football enthusiasts and various Notre Dame travellers, there was much revelry and merriment. I managed to hold my own amongst my more legitimate peers, but my cover was blown when Mr. Alberts drunk dialed me and the ice was officially broken. Tallboys, shots, and football anectdotes flowed like wine, wine was also served in liberal amounts, occasionally interjected by various Irish old-timers advising us youngsters "to keep the tradition going." I wasn't sure which specific tradition was being implied, so I continued to drink, hoping to stumble upon it eventually.

The younger brother mocks my camera work as Warren St. John looks on.

As the group proceeded to close down the lobby bar, the happy hour continued and plans for Saturday were discussed. I originally planned to wander aimlessly amongst bars found via google maps until more concrete tailgating options were established. There needs to be a google maps tag for "gay bar" as at least one of my prospective targets, the harmlessly named "Blake's," was outed by local resident Orson Swindle. Orson wasn't exactly discounting that porition of the plan:

Orson tells it like it is.

Once a general, more orthodox plan of attack was settled upon, talk returned to the topics of dayjobs, personal histories, and the Swindle family marital life. Going against all original predictions, the evening did not end in fisticuffs or even a gentlemen's duel. A trip to any one of the South's local Waffle Houses failed to materialize, and we were back to our hotel in time to get the neccessary five hours of pre-tailgating sleep.

I'm just going to label this "Before."

Overall, an outstanding beginning to the trip, waffles or not.

-irishoutsider