Well, made it back home safe and sound on the 6th, never got a chance to post with all the decompressing and then FA going down thing and what have you, but, long story short, I made it home. ^.^

Whole trip was pretty harrowing right from the start. First I get to the bus station to pick up my tickets and get told that the order may have been cancelled due to too long a delay between my ordering them, and picking them up, despite the site and confirmation email saying I could pick them up at /least/ an hour before the bus leaves. To say the least I was kind of panicking a little since my bus literally was due to depart in a matter of hours. Fortunately with my reservation number they were able to 'find' and print the tickets in the system. Ride to Toronto was pretty uneventful for the most part, though the layover had some guy talking to me. He was nice and all and the conversation was appreciated but the underlying tone was "I'm talking to you because I need you to cash a cheque for me." Of which he blatantly asked me like, 2 or 3 times. The rest of the trip to Detroit I barely remember anything of, at this point I kind of passed out and woke up at the border crossing, which was kind of a disappointment since I kinda wanted to see London again since I've only really visited it once, but c'est la vie.

The border crossing was the eventful part of the trip this year, usually there's not a whole lot that happens and it's pretty routine, although, for the Detroit crossing, the 'routine' is slightly gruff and a major hassle no how much you cut it, but this time, a lady on the bus happened to have a DVD that they didn't like whatsoever. It apparently had foreign writing on it and zero production information on the case, nor could the lady tell them what it was or what was on it, other than she was told to "give it to someone." They must have searched her bags a good 5 times, by 5 different people and I'm pretty sure she got 'searched' at least once. Long story short, 3 hours later and the FBI got involved and 'released' the bus to continue onto Detroit. The lady with the DVD did not get back on the bus.

Stayed over at RABlackpaws's for a day. We hung out, checked out around town, hit a great Chinese buffet for lunch had a big dinner which almost keeled the next morning on the bus, just lots of fantastic hanging out, chatting and enjoying company. Was really great to spend time with them. Especially considering they wouldn't be at the con, which made me sad. RA also had a couple of pony blind-bags for me, Namely Fluttershy, which Is very difficult to find in Canada, so that was happy for sure. ^.^

The next day I took the bus to St. Louis to meet up with mideonwerewolf and the rest of the MFM convoy. Stayed over the night before heading out Friday morning for the con. I got to ride with mideonwerewolf and Tron in the truck, which was a different experience for me, at least as far as arriving at MFM goes. There is a great deal of silly banter that goes on over the convoy's radios. We got in around noon and immediately took about unpacking the truck, which was done as quick as possible with the threat of storms rolling in. In fact it started to sprinkle before everything was in, but fortunately we had some cover over the entrance. Ended up stashing my stuff in mideonwerewolf's room until my TimothyFrisby and Zen_Fetcher arrived. Until then I made myself busy helping things get to where they needed to be, hit the staff meeting, grabbed my conbadge from Reg and ended up running into Marius. Upon having a second body, I wrangled him into hanging out and helping a bit with prelim Video Room setup, getting most of it down for when TimothyFrisby arrived for final buttoning down. Overall I was pretty happy with the setup this year. Another huge surprise I got this year was the Anthrocon and Sly Cooper PS2 game TimothyFrisby and Zen_Fetcher presented me with, signed by the creator of the franchise, who was AC's GOH last year. Totally blew me away and is greatly appreciated. The poster is definitely getting framed at some point. ^.^

Was a pretty good con, most of it seems more like a blur at this point but I actually got to see some of it this year, as well as spend time hanging out with friends and for once, actually get to meet and hang out with some new ones, such as , Buck, Tempest_Panda and Vanier, among others that I don't know the FA accounts of, which was a nice change. Also got to see a few faces that I wouldn't have expected to see so far from home, but sometimes life just surprises you like that. The Munchkin tournament I hosted went fairly well, though I wish we would have gotten a bigger turnout for it. Though I think that was mostly due to the time it was set, as I heard there were a good number who wanted to come but couldn't because of the time. Live and learn I suppose. Of course, it didn't help that I had a /massive/ headache for it either. Fortunately everyone participating was pretty easy going and understanding which was appreciated.

The real event of the weekend was definitely the tornado that touched down near the convention hotel. I hear it touched down a couple miles from the hotel on Sunday night. Think con staff moved something like 500 people into the middle of the hotel in about five minutes, which is pretty impressive. The storm knocked out the power as well and when the initial threat was over, people were allowed to move back to their rooms and about the hotel, which was kind of weird given the hotel was on backup generator emergency power and the lighting was low. The funny part was the whole ordeal did more to bring folks together, as it drew everyone out of their rooms and out socializing, which was pretty interesting, and awesome to see.

The trip back was pretty uneventful for the most part. I got to help unload the con's truck into it's 'home' storage locker where all the con's 'stuff' stays for the year, which was pretty neat, despite getting back later than we had anticipated. Crashed overnight again at mideonwerewolf's place before heading back out to Michigan to spend another day at RABlackpaws', where after a short shopping trip to get some extra supplies, was able to rather successfully make one of my, at least to my friends, well known scratch pizzas, which seemed to go over well. RA was also gracious enough to let me do a bit of beer shopping, since, after a long trip, really could use one.... or four... that evening. Ended up getting a sampler pack from Krogers. They had some really nice selections, ironically, the ones I thought I'd like the most, I didn't like nearly as much, and the ones I thought I'd like the least, I wound up liking the most. The two most notable, were the Sierra Nevada's "Torpedo 'Extra IPA'" and a Belgian beer called 'PALM.'

Trip back to Canada was even more uneventful. Border crossing was well under 10 minutes for the whole bus and everything was smooth sailing all the way back home.

Anyway, that about sums up my trip. Know I probably forgot to mention a lot of things, and possibly people, and for that I apologize. It was great seeing everyone again, and for some, for the first time. Thanks for making the weekend amazing!

For those that are interested, my entire photo gallery of 450 or so photos can be found at the link below. Enjoy!

Click here to visit my MFM 2012 con photo Gallery