By now, if you're into tabletop games, you've probably heard of ZigguratCon, the first gaming convention in a war zone.

It's being run by soldiers in Iraq. Since they're low on supplies, they're taking donations.

Coincidentally, I've been busy moving.

I have a closet full of games. I had been planning on eBay-ing the lot of them, but then I thought, "Hey, maybe someone can give them a better home."

So I contacted SPC Amberson, who is running it, and asked him if they needed anything else. He answered in the affirmative, and I put together my list.

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And on the last day, I rested.

Just kidding.

Actually, I had quite a bit to do - mostly involving checking out of the hotel room, and the emptying of things out of said hotel room.

But, while I love my friends to death, I needed to relax a bit. This was Sunday, and I also had Monday off, but I jetted off to have lunch with a friend of mine at a little Korean BBQ place.

That helped more than I could imagine; just got my mind refocused.

It also helped that I'd had major help cleaning up at home. I live with my brother; he and his girlfriend, after I'd passed out, had followed up on the job that some friends had started and done a massive clean up project. I still had some cleaning to do, but it was relatively minor.

From there I had follow-up to the hotel that I wanted to do. Unfortunately for me, about a week later I came down with the norovirus, and that wiped out any energy (and impetus) to do much. I just didn't [em]care[/em] after having that.

Was it fun?

Everyone seemed to have fun. I did have fun, myself, but it was a ton of work and a ton of stress.

Would I do it again?

Maybe.

I've learned some valuable lessons. Thanks to the generosity of my guildies, I haven't taken much of a financial hit, relatively speaking. However, I would know to check the contracts much more carefully.

I'd also try to lay something out for the second day in terms of "here's who is doing what" to help people out.

Finally, I know myself, and I'd have to set some limits for myself for the amount of drinks I'd had at the second night's party. If it hadn't been for an angelic act of kindness in cleaning, Sunday would've been a very miserable day.

The biggest thing I'd say, though, is that I *wouldn't* do this in any city other than my own. I can't imagine how it'd be possible for (say) someone in Dallas to organize it in Denver.

But hopefully down the road someone else in our guild will organize another one, and I'd be more than happy to fly out there and go to it.

So - day two dawns bright and early (and maybe a wee bit hungover, but not that bad).

Most of the people are going to get together and go tourist-ing in downtown DC. I did absolutely no planning on that; in retrospect, it might've been good to set up some kind of central "here's who is doing what where and when" kind of thing as some people (for various reasons) felt they got left behind.

But no harsh feelings came about...

First I had to head back to the hotel, fetch my car, load it up with the stuff from the night before, and head back to my house. There I unloaded it, finished cleaning the place (not that it needed much, thank god for housekeepers), and after grabbing a quick lunch, go shopping.

I'd wanted to go down to Les Halles with some friends for lunch; unfortunately the timing just wasn't working out. It was off to Shopper's Food Warehouse, all the way over in Alexandria (as it was the one I'd scouted out before) to stock up. Then a quick hit to the liquor store, too, to make sure.

One of the funny things: I had insisted on taking two of my friends beer shopping with me. I remembered that as they wanting me to take them beer shopping. So I hurried up about it, not wanting to let them down, just to get the "you insisted last night..." thing and feeling a bit foolish.

No worries, though! We stocked up on beer, too, plus some good ones, then, realizing there really wasn't time to do the rest of the shopping we thought we needed, called one of my friends to help pick up sodas and ice - just before we saw that the Total Wine carried them, too. GAH. Oh well.

We got back to my place, finished the final set ups, and my friends helped me prep the food for cooking on my big-ass grill. During that time - completely sober, mind you - I managed to slice deep into my finger while chopping asparagus. GAH (again!)

That crisis averted, people all showed up in one big fell swoop, and the place was packed. We rotated foods on the grill, people played games (Settlers of Catan and Three Dragon Ante), lots of good stuff was eaten, etc. etc.

A hint on food preparation: Keep a variety of foods handy, especially finger foods - and if they're messy, keep lots and lots of napkins and plates around. I did the latter fine, but the variety I failed at - I relied on a lot of shellfish and pork during the weekend, and when you have someone staying kosher, that's a no-no.

Fortunately, I'd thought ahead and bought boneless skinless chicken breasts and thighs. The breasts became teriyaki breasts on the grill, and all was good, plus I had lots of veggie options. The boneless skinless thighs were the best idea for the party, though, compared to the breasts - they're pretty darn cheap, they have more flavor than the typical skinless boneless breast, and they're typically smaller, too.

Boneless pork country ribs work well, too, though with the shrimp, buy them deveined and peeled ahead of time if at all possible - it'll save you a ton of time. On the other hand, those little plates of pre-cut veggies typically are too expensive for what you get, in my opinion - it takes about no time to cut up vegetables.

Having things you can just open and leave out - such as salsa and chips, and one of the surprise hits for mine, pickled asparagus - also helped, plus the simplicity of cheese and crackers.

Back to the grill, the grilled green and spring onions (yes, there is a difference) sprayed with just a bit of butter cooking spray and sprinkled with a bit of salt, and the same done with olive oil cooking spray on asparagus, are easy and good (particularly with hot sauce, of which I had a number of varieties).

Of course, you should have more sodas and juice then you think you'll need, both diet and regular.

For alcohol, two important things:
1. Have a variety. Just because you love stout, or scotch, doesn't mean everyone does. Have a variety of beers, with a lot of the "in between" kinds that everyone at least will drink (such as lagers or ales, but without a lot of hoppiness). On the wine front, have your standard whites and reds, and for liquor, have the staples (such as gin, vodka, rum, whiskey) and make sure to have a variety of mixers (including ones you might not like, such as vermouth - and keep in mind vermouth is made with wine, and needs to be refrigerated once opened).
2. Keep the quality levels of alcohol separate. If you have some $50 bottles of wine, make sure that they're physically segregated from the other wine, more particularly, that only you know where they are. Same with (say) Scotch - keeping out a bottle of not bad, cheaper Scotch (such as Dewar's White Label or maybe Speyside) might not be bad, but keep your Johnny Blue away unless you want to share it with some specific people. (I brought out my Redbreast Irish whisky for some friends, but generally just the Powers was out - that, and the Bushmills bottle that I can't seem to get around to drinking.)

So we partied, we had fun, I broke out the stogies at the end of the night and seemingly dropped my humidor (doh!) and everyone went home drunk and happy (or, at least, most people went home drunk, and everyone seemed happy).