== Monday ==
Monday started fairly early as there was packing to be done. We decided that we wanted to get out and on the road, with any luck, by 11ish since we had 250 miles to go for the day. We managed to make it fairly close to our expected departure, but not without a few bumps along the way. The first was our day starting at something like 6am as an entire troop of con-goers (I’d assume) were passing by our door making, as per usual, as much noise as they could possibly muster. I don’t know what kinda shit they were on, but it must have been good. Me at 6am after a con-weekend… is not a happy camper. Disregarding that one incident the night’s sleep wasn’t too interrupted.
After we got all packed and basically ready to get out the door, we headed downstairs to the con for one last round in the Dealers Hall. We had a bit of time to burn so we checked out the other areas to see if there was any excitement going on. Granted it was before 10am, but there was still next to nothing going on. Out front of the convention center was very quite, just a few people sitting around (getting a tan?). As it turned out, a majority of the people awake were waiting for the dealers hall to open, all nicely queued up. We joined them since we had nothing better to do. The idea on going to the dealers hall is to get stuff on the cheap. At least… that was the theory because I heard many people talk about getting “good deals” and “cheap stuff”. Except… that isn’t how it worked out.
Getting into the Dealers Hall, almost nothing was discounted. Sure I saw a few ultra-expensive models here and there that were marked down. Though on the whole, the prices I saw Sunday were the same for Monday. I had hoped for deals, but realistically didn’t think there actually would be any, and for one simple reason: most of the dealers are local shops — they have ZERO incentive to dump inventory. Sure, they might have slightly over stocked for Fanime, but it isn’t that huge, and they probably sold most of that stock. Even the groups that made their wares, like the cat ear hats, weren’t on sale. I actually did end up buying something, a Moka-San (inner) figurine — my one (non-pocky/daifuku) purchase of the weekend. So I guess it wasn’t a total loss.
After the Dealers Hall was a trip up to the room, checkout via TV (first time we turned it on that weekend), and out. Of course the “out” part was difficult due to the elevator situation. The elevators in the Hilton were extremely slow and problematic all weekend, but Monday really pushed them over the limit. After a few minute wait, I just gave up and started down the stairs (from the 12th floor). John waited for the elevator and I beat him by a good five minutes. Apparently they packed the elevator to the brim (Tetris style), but still had to stop at every floor (but 3) on the way down and apologize to the people who wanted in.
The last hurdle on the way out was the Hilton Parking Staff. I feel the need to mention this because they gave me so much grief over the course of the weekend. Understand, John and I rode our motorcycles. These aren’t some huge BMW K1200LT or Honda Goldwing touring bikes, these are normal sized bikes. In fact, when we arrived, they asked us to park in some unusable space between cement columns. We had no problem with this. Why? Because that’s why we love our bikes. But guess what? They still charged us $20 a day to park there. On the way out, they tried (and failed, because I’m a miserable bastard) to charge us $20/day PER BIKE. I’m sorry, but we didn’t even take up a parking space… we shouldn’t have to pay anything. To be entirely honest, I could have entered and exited the garage without their permission because their gates didn’t cover enough of the driveway to stop motorcycles. Next time I just might…
Monday Signout — 23:30 (Monday) — Wow, before midnight.