ASLOK Friday October 1

Friday October 1

Up at 6am to catch the 9am train to Sydney for the 2:35 pm flight to San Francisco. I was bringing my PTO boards, a folder of Action Pack scenarios and the AP6 boards, the rulebook, some dice, system counters and the Japanese, Chinese and Soviets along with some Red Barricades mapsheets.

Met up with Aaron Cleavin, Andy Rogers, Neil Andrews and David Longworth at Sydney. bought a couple of litres of single malt 12yo scotch at Duty Free only to have to get Aaron C to take one bottle with him due to duty free restrictions.

The flight to SF was pretty dire - I used to really like the window seat but I was hemmed in badly by two heffalumps and suffered mild clautrophobia for the whole flight. Not a great start as I managed to not sleep at all which is unknown for me while travelling.

Clearing Customs at SFO was pretty straightforward but getting through to domestic was a nightmare as the security alert had gone to Orange and the queues were horrific - ended up missing my flight to Denver and had to get placed on a flight to Chicago with a later arrival at Cleveland around 11:30pm.

Caught up with the Cleavinator at Chicago which was good. The Cleavinator had unfortunately dropped the ball and forgotten to transfer the Glenfiddich to his checked luggage before transiting through domestic which meant TSA got the benefit of a litre of scotch gratis. The day was only getting better.

Arrived Cleveland at around 11:25 and managed to get to the hotel by around 11;45 after much fluffing around on my part. Credit Cards are blocked by bank at home despite specific instructions to the contrary - some heads will roll. Pay hotel bill with spending cash

Aaron had me playing a scenario by 11:55pm so we could say we were playing on the Friday - as I was wired as by now, finishing at 4:30am was no hardship. Result as expected: a win to Cleavin.