A Knight in the Entourage at ASSCon-LV2

Where: SF to LV and back again
When: Who can remember by now ... Sleep deprivation is a strange
thing. 

For some strange reason a group of clearly insane people decided that
it would be reasonable to leave the Chez Paree at closing time on
Friday, drive down to Las Vegas for ASSCon-LV2 and then drive
back. Now, I'm sure I would not normally be considered insane enough
for such a venture (no sniggers from the back row please!) but since I
have been known to function on less than reasonable amounts sleep and
didn't learn to drive in California, I was included as an emergency
spare back-up chauffeur and substitute bodyguard for the Pope :-).

So, we did indeed head south at 3 am on Saturday morning for the
Camalot road trip: ALS, Molli, Abnormal and myself - you get to decide
who played each role but lest you doubt the Pope is a real magician,
I'll tell one story of the trip ...

It was about 5am and we were somewhere on I5, with ALS driving,
traveling through thining fog at somewhere around 90 mph (yes it was
safe .. provided the driver is not quite human). We're just about to
pass a car cruising along in the slow lane when said car turns on blue
and red flashing lights! ALS drops back and tucks in behind the cops
and decides that he can't quite get the meaning of the yellow flashing
arrow ... We drop back just far enough for the cop to momentarily fade
into the mist when another car passes us. This car is another white
MBZ of a very similar model, so we let them take our place behind the
cop car in case they feel the need to write a ticket for the guy who
almost passed them. Luck or Magic? You decide ... but I guess you can
place Merlin now :-).

We arrived in LV after about 8 hours, so with the fog taken into
account, I didn't drop ALS's average too much. We headed for Treasure
Island to borrow a room to clean up.

Obligatory incident of maximum humor: We walked into the room,
expecting JustPhil to be there. The only shape visible was curled up
in a bed, so Molli began jumping up and down on the bed shouting
"Dogpile, dogpile on .. um .. you're not JustPhil ...". I'm not sure
whether the funniest expression was hers or Phil's roomates :-). Again
I guess you had to be there - but since Molli seemed like a goddess for
the rest of the night, it's necessary to point out she's not absolutely
perfect :-).

After showering and changing we headed out to Cheetah's. Abnormal and
I were following Molli and the Pope as they walked through the
Casino. Those of you who were there and saw Molli will not be surprised
to hear that we saw 27 men and 5 women stop what they were doing and
turn to watch as they walked by ... and spectacular as he is I'm sure
they weren't watching ALS!

Mark Green has to be thanked for hosting this event since everything
was up and running by the time we got there and a large group of
ASS-Cers had taken over the corner of the club next to the main
stage. I'm sure I don't remember exactly who was there but I heard
about 33, so that's the largest ASS-C gathering I've yet attended. I
won't try to list the names since I'm sure Mark will post the entire
guest list.

I won't even try to mention everyone but there were a couple of people
who managed to stand out:

It was good to see that Bubba was in full form, complete with Dog
Collar and food bowl! It must have been the company that inspired him. 

CP-1 was enjoying the hospitality of Cheetah's to the full and was
rarely seen without someone sitting on his lap. I'm sure he raised the
average spent by the group a fair amount :-) 

Visitors from far away that it was a pleasure to see again included
Ginger (even if we didn't get to say more than a few words all
evening). 

LMR was ... just being LMR :-).

Trighap sat at the back of the room, trying to make sure he attracted
Molli's attention whnever she wasn't otherwise occupied. He seemed to
succeed from time to time too :-)

Anyway, back to the event ..

I was looking forward to seeing how long it would take JustPhil to
fall off the wagon .. but by the time we arrived he was already
rolling around in the dirt behind it while it headed off to the hills!

I have to say that Cheetah's is a high energy noisy smoky flashing
lights kind of place, and not exactly to my tastes, so I tried to find
a quiet corner to sit in and watch the activities.

The pope was in fine form for the evening, displaying more energy than
any other 3 people and I'm sure everyone who interacted with him will
remember it for a long time - especially JasmineT ... but maybe Mark
doesn't know what they really got up to under that coat. Actually,
since he was being "hugged" by Molli at the time, maybe he didn't even
care :-).

But for all of the Pope's magnificence, the star of the show for the
evening was clearly MissMolli. I'm quite sure everyone who saw her
will agree with that - and those fortunate enough to receive one of
the "hugs" being liberally (if not freely) dispensed will remember the
evening for quite a while, I'm sure ... :-)

We did eventually get JustPhil to break entirely and even spend his
own money on a lap dance. He was last seen chasing after the Wagon
he'd previously been on ... we'll see if he can catch it and climb
back on!

I didn't get to talk to as many people as I would normally have done,
since the noise and smoke kept me restricted to the corner near the
stage where the HVAC was maximally effective and the speakers were
pointing away, but I did get to chat briefly with a number of people,
some of whom I'd met before and some I'd only seen on-line. At least I
have faces to connect to names now, including ZBone who'd been on my
"must meet list" for a while - we didn't get to talk but I did see his
face ... peeping over Molli's shoulder as I remember it :-).

Anyway, I'm trying to surprise everyone by keeping this short (and, for
me, short is < 500 lines :-)), I'll elide the rest of the detail since
I'm sure the censor would anyway ... I'm sure they will be enough
posts to give those poor unfortunates who didn't make the trip to LV a
clue about what went on!

So all in all, it was a spectacular event that I'm glad I attended -
even if the ratio was 15 hours in the car to 5 hours in the club!

And yes, we did make it back in 7 hours, including food stops - which
is only an average of 80 mph after all. The maximum speed is left as
an exercise for the interested reader, and if any CHP folk are
reading, you can regard this entire work as a piece of entertaining
fiction.

Come to think of it, perhaps I am insane enough to be included in this
crew after all ... so when's the next trip?

Once again Congrat's to MG for hosting the event so well; to JustPhil
for being the object that stirred up so much interest; to ALS for
being the source of energy that keeps all this going; to Abnormal for
being the only person that sat on *my* lap all night :-) and to Molli
for .. well .. for just being Molli (do I need to say more?)

=========================================
=    Sir Kay, Wandering Knight Errant   =
= Dragons Slain and Damsels Appreciated =
=========================================