I apologize for the length of time between posts. My original plan was to post to Rusted at the end of each day, describing my experiences that day. However, as German strategist Helmut von Moltke said, “No plan survives contact with the enemy.”

My impression of our role at GenCon Indy: As the creators of the registration software, we would be responsible for troubleshooting any problems with registration and keeping the software everyone depends on operational.

The reality of the situation: As creators of the regsitration system, and some of the only computer technicians on-site, we have been responsible for printer maintenance.

Now, you wouldn’t think there’s much to printer maintenance, and if you’re talking about a nice modern laser printer, you’d be right. However, for the event tickets, GenCon is using these old Zebra ticket printers that don’t like printing more that 20 tickets, don’t like having their paper loaded crooked, don’t like being power cycled, don’t like being looked at funny, or much of anything. Pretty much every half-hour or so, we have to leave the server room and walk over to the registration area to reset 4 or 5 printers.

Plus, the convention is 24 hours a day, with the registration stations open from 7am to 9pm. So between showing up early and leaving late, we’ve all been working 14-18 hour days every day.

I had imagined that I’d get to see some of Indianapolis, maybe check out the convention itself, and take lots of photos on a regular basis.

The furthest I’ve gotten from the convention center (and adjoining hotel) is the mall, two blocks away, a few restaurants all within three blocks, and a large monument to Indiana’s soldiers (which is really impressive, but only five blocks away). I didn’t get into the exhibitor hall until today at 3pm, wandered around for a half-hour, and then went back to work (truthfully, it’s not that exciting if you’re not a gamer). And the only photos I have are of the deteriorating condition of the server room we’re based out of. Admittedly, those are pretty funny, because you can watch the room get worse and worse and worse, until it’s filled with discarded pop cans and reams of junk print-outs.

Anyways, I’m going to wrap this up for now, because registration is about to close for the day, and I have to take care of a few software upgrades.

I’ll just leave you with this closing moment. We’ve all been issued walki-talkis, and most people are on channel one, which has been designated for general chatter. About a half-hour ago, the normal busy chit-chat was interrupted by one loud shout:

“OH FUCK!”

Followed by several seconds of silence.