Day 1, Friday January 11th, 2002

It was a typical Cleveland winter day - cold, windy and gray. As I pulled into the lot of the Holiday Inn Independence, home of Ohayocon 2002, I was immediately struck by my ability to find a parking spot directly in front of the main entrance. I couldn't help but wonder if I was in the right place.

That concern was immediately put to rest as I entered the hotel lobby. Scores dressed as everything from Sailor Moon to Saber Marionettes filled my field of vision. There was even a Gundam awkwardly trying to make his very large way through the crowd.

I decided to first check into my room, then head down to scope out the crowd and pick up my badge.

This proved more trying than I had expected. The check in went fine, reservations were made and honored, but it would appear that the lock on my door was "tricky." That's "maintenance-man-eese" for broken. After nearly an hour of standing in the fifth floor hallway while they worked, the door was finally fixed, and I entered my surprisingly comfortable room.

Wandering back downstairs, I found the lobby nearly empty. The very long line for registration had formed in my absence. The Ohayocon staff was doing their best to speed up the process with "gophers" running up and down the line handing out registration cards and pens.

I was standing dead-last in the hundred yard line only a moment or two when a gopher came up to me and asked if I was pre-registered. I told him I was picking up a press pass, and he immediately said, "Follow me." With guilty-pleasure I went directly to the front of the line.

This is where I discovered the cause of the slow moving line. The staff at the registration desk had to explain the reasons for no schedules, no programs, and no maps of the hotel to each of the attendees. There was no way to locate the various areas of the hotel where different events, panels, and rooms were located.

I stood there nearly ten minutes as the staff put together and laminated my badge, explaining the printer, with whom Vice Con Chair Jon Brands was conversing on the phone, had not yet delivered the attendee packets.

Once I got my badge, I wandered about in frustration attempting to locate the different facets of the con. After about an hour of trying to find out what was where, the door-lock situation, and several hours in the car getting there, I was extremely frustrated and suffering from severe caffeine withdrawal. In other words, it was time for my coffee break.

By now a "Master Schedule" had appeared near the registration center. One of the many confused con-goers, I ambled the hallways and lobby asking other attendees and staff where the various programming was. Nobody knew.

I decided to visit the Artist Gallery, which was the only obvious area of the con and strangely vacant. As I strolled down to the end of the gallery, I found some staff from Panda Rage Press comfortably chatting behind their table bearing the sign, "This is not the information desk."

The main event room was labeled now and a line was forming outside only a few minutes before the opening ceremonies. I asked Godai, King of the Gophers, if there was a press section. He immediately escorted me past the line and into the empty room so that I might sit wherever I chose.