I am so tired - but this weekend was awesome.

I am, of course, speaking of our 5th Annual Southeast Trogland Giant in the Playground Uber Gaming Meetup of Doom - which always takes place the last weekend of June.  And this one lived up to the previous 4 incarnations of awesome just swimmingly.

Some of us have notice the scope of this gathering expand just a bit in terms of longevity.  It was conceived to be Friday evening to Sunday afternoon, but as the years have progressed, more and more people have been coming earlier and staying later.  This year, quite a few people arrived thursday evening and stayed until monday morning or afternoon.  Don't get me wrong, more time hanging out with cool people is great.  This is just and idle observation.  And perhaps further explanation as to why I am so tired.

Thursday night was the "unofficial" kick-off.  A few of us met up at the Hippie Hut that evening for dinner and some socializing.  Friday was the "official" kick-off, and what much the same only with 4x as many people and many, many more games.  Saturday was our traditional cookout at the challenge course with games in the shelter house, kubb on the lawn and Cash & Guns Live down at the course itself.  This was followed by a brief respite and a reconvening at Mid City Grill for tasty dinner and board games as late as anyone would care to stay and play.  Sunday's venue was our house, as usual, and despite being quite crowded, I think it went well.  As the day wore on, more and more people dispersed to return whence they came, but a few people were at our place till after midnight playing games.

The weather this year was pleasantly cool by comparison.  I think the highs on saturday when we were outside all day were only lower 80s.  Compare this to the upper 90s we've usually had in the past, and you can understand our relief.  The bugs weren't too bad either.

Pretty much all of my photos of the event this year are from saturday at the challenge course and Mid City.  They've been posted here.

Baby girl did, of course, impact our involvement in the meetup this year, but we still got to hang out and play games - and Hannah herself was fairly cooperative with our efforts to do so.  The only real issue (from my persepective, anyway) was timing her feedings.  Also, she was exceptionally popular. :-D

So now it has come and gone.  Kind of a bummer, really.  I loved getting to hang out with so many cool people.  All my awesome local friends - as always - but also Jerry, Amanda (+ Pickle, when he wasn't upset), Scott and Katie in particular - mostly because they happened to be around the most.  It was good to see all of the others again too - and I wish I'd had more of a chance to hang out with quite a few of them.  Ah well, so many people, so little time.

There's always next year.

~PS