Jeepfest

Yeah, add a description here... I'll also post more info on what happened in the past days, but I'll try to keep things up to date.

Early: Sara, Herb, and Cristina really went above and beyond the call of duty. If this goes well, they deserve all the credit. If it tanks, I probably forgot to do something.

Wed 22 June 2005: Tally arrived with Lump! We ate and chatted for a while. Tally was beat from the flight.

Thursday 23 June 2005: Sara entertained Tally while jeep worked. And mostly we relaxed. The calm before the storm.

Friday 24 June 2005: Big_Kanunia arrived! We chatted for a while, ate some apple pie and ice cream while playing Scrabble.

Saturday 25 June 2005: Alright! Things are starting! Coyote has arrived! He played a quick game of Trax with Big_K. Big_K and jeep went to the airport to pick up Cadmium and he wasn't there! We hope he's on the next flight with mith and crew.

mith: Cadmium was indeed on my flight. He wasn't a terrorist or anything. We're now playing Mafia with my awesome new cards that I spent way too much time making; I got nightkilled as usual, which is why I'm here...

mith: We played lots of games, but the important thing is that I won the last two. (We managed to lynch Mafia exactly once on day one. We suck.)

Pooky and Groza arrived late (1a.m.) as we were wrapping up and everyone was asleep by 2:30.

Pooky: arrived quite late in the evening in Portland after connecting through 3 flights, though watching the lights of the Pacific Northwest breeze lazily by as I sipped champagne in my comfy first class seat was certainly enjoyable after a long day of travelling. The cities are absolutely amazing seen from the air at night, no idea why they upgraded Pooky's ticket to first class but he sure doesn't mind! Found Hey_Herb waving a small Jeepcon2005 sign, lazily sat back and chatted while waiting for Groza. After waiting far too long for his bags, we started on our way to Jeep's, lots of chit-chat about games, religion, politics and work on the ride. We arrived late while they were in the middle of a Mafia game and after getting some very warm welcome hugs from Tali/IS/Jeep, we sat down and watched Mith/Cadmium walk away with a win in the last game of FTF mafia of the night. Jeep turned out to be far younger than I thought he was, probably because the only reference picture of him had the sun making his hair look much brighter. He has a wonderful smile and the sort of infectious energy that can energize a whole room. He turned out to be a wonderful host, taking very good care of us and being very responsible. After finally settling down, I am kept awake by the snores of Cadmium(and the fact that I pretty much slept through most of my flights earlier), the Oregon sunrise that morning was glorious, the grass was wet with dew and the clouds were overcast, expecting showers later that afternoon probably. I fell asleep with a happy smile on my face, dreamt of all the things to come, the people I'd meet, the places we'd go, the games we'd play.

The dreams were pretty far off from reality, but they were still pretty nice :).

Sunday 26 June 2005: jeep: I woke up to the sounds of Big_Kahunia blaring from my shower. I'm almost giddy with excitement for my surprise planned for this morning! (You'll have to wait, just like everyone else... ;) HeeHee, Mathcam and Halfpint showed up at 9:30am. We headed into IHOP so Tally could have the experience. It's 11:30 now, so it's unlikely we hit Taco Bell for lunch.

halfpint: Mathcam and I are ready to head out. We just finished playing about half a dozen mafia games, about 15 players each. Who's here right now you ask? Boomer/groza, jeep, IS, ISwife, MatthewV, Pooky, Mith, big_k, tally, casinopete, cadmium, coyote, fairyfire, boyfriend (of fairyfire), nonny, hey_herb, mathcam, halfpint, and the 3 little ones. A game of mafia is just about to start ... let's listen in. MatthewV is modding.

The mafia are jeep, bigK, Herb, and boyfriend, but they don't know that yet. Shhhh....

Okay, it looks like cop mith was axe-murdered night 1. This after a full day of modding...the thanks he gets.

Day 1 accusations are flickering between Cadmium (who threatens to claim, and is thus released from his bandwagon), JEEP, and Coyote, most bandwagons being the byproduct of random rantings from IS. Herb is apparently "smiling big"...good enough to draw an accusation from Pooky. IS is now being verrry, verrry, quiet...what's up with that? IS, perhaps sensing his own silence, picks up with "Oh, mith was a cop? I thought he was a serial killer. Ohhhhh.....," followed by much laughter. Discussion becomes boring, so we're outta here.

(p.s. It looks like Herb is the lynch of the day...he was, of course, mafia).

Today's Quote of the Day (thus far):

Pooky (as scum): "I'm not saying I'm good."

Cadmium: We just finished taking pictures of the complete group in jeep's back yard. Mathcam and halfpint had to leave to visit cam's dad. At the moment, the rules of Diplomacy are being explained to those who haven't played before (I'll join them later on as a supporter). I've been told that this game takes like six hours. We'll see. I'm pretty sure mith will be eliminated first ;o).

halfpint & mathcam (11:24pm): We got home (just!) safe and sound. Thanks for hosting this thing Jeep (and Hey_Herb) and letting us come hang out and meet everyone. It was a lot of fun. Can't wait for MeMeMeet 2006! :-)

jeep: The day was a blast! We played some more mafia, started a game of Diplomacy. I'm Italy, Big_K is Austria, mith and IS are Turkeys... err Turkey, CasinoPete is Russia, Groza and Nonny are Germany, MatthewV and FaerieFire are England, and Pooky is France. I'd give some more details, but we haven't finished yet...

jeep: Then we took a break from the game to eat. Pizza Schmizza... good stuff. Apparently, I didn't get enough, though. It was all gone before Tally got back. They usually sell pizza by the slice, but Tally wouldn't let me take her to there to let me get her a piece.  :(

jeep: After dinner, we sat around for a while. I set up a TV/VCR in our bedroom for Willow and the Onion. Those two are REALLY getting along well. I'm impressed with them both. THEN, I was able to return and no one else was doing anything, so I started a game of Zendo. After that, we had a huge game of Fluxx going. I dug out my 2.1 deck and we split into two groups.

jeep: All that wound down and we sat around reminiscing for a while. Nonny was falling asleep in the chair and Pooky was holding a conversation that was completely unrelated to what the rest of us were talking about, so we decided to sleep.

Pooky: After waking up and stretching out Pooky's aching joints(evil Mith made poor Pooky take the small couch), Pooky committed to a few games of Trax with Big_K, a fun game that Pooky didn't really understand, Pooky kinda randomly put stuff around and manage to score a victory in his first game due to Kahunia's aggressive play, once Pooky figured out all the rules though he was utterly run over by Kahunia, mainly cause Pooky kept forgetting which color he was(which kinda makes you lose pretty fast in this game =/), the rest of the crew got together and we began a game of Risk! a game of Global Conquest by the movement of spiffy looking miniatures around a well painted board prinicipally guided by dice rolls. Pooky made his usual comments about it being a huge "crapshoot" and how we should just roll dice for the winner. Nobody believed Pooky of course, we chose our own starting spots so Jeep/Cadmium went for the sure winner in Australia and Mith/B_K went for South America, Pooky being the genius he is, decided to grab a huge chunk of Europe(What beats French Wine, Italian Pasta, Irish Luck, Scandanavian Women, German Discipline, Russian Vodka and Icelandish... uh uh um..... Volcanoes?)

Pooky figured he had it all locked up if he chose Green for his color and put most of his troops in Ireland(no idea why people think England is the more important island of the 2)

After some bad people raised a ruckus about how Pooky was going to take Europe, the rest of the board decided to raise military presences on Pooky's borders doing the reinforcement phase..... and Poor Pooky only had the most peaceful of intentions too!

As soon as the units were placed, the war over the 2 small continents broke out in earnest, the dice flew high! and Mith's large groups of troops which outnumbered B_k's at least 2-1 were utterly crushed by their pathetically low dice rolls.

Mith took a heavy beating but B_k was too busy listenning to him to take advantage and grab South America.

In Australia, Cadmium and Jeep were very conservative and fought only small skirmishes and took turns complaining about the horrid nature of their dice rolls.

Pooky in the meantime took over Europe.....

Huge Mistake here for the Pooky! Soon everyone pretty much agrees to attack all out to hurt Pooky.... Since Cadmium is the first to go after Pooky, he makes the first move, takes Southern Europe away, and everyone else pretty much schuffles their feet away from Europe since Pooky already lost the continent, Cadmium felt slightly ticked off at being the only one to sacrificem, meanwhile Jeep engaged in a futile assault against Pooky's lone Mongolian Garrison which bravely held out against overwhelming enemy forces.

At this point everyone was hungry so we made the trip to IHOP(International House of Pancakes) We met Hey_Herb/Hey_Wife and the people they were hosting at their house and we all sat down to a huge breakfast. Pooky had the country omelette with country gravy on top, resisting the temptation of the 4 delicious pancake sauces(Butter Pecan, Strawberry, and 2 other berries that Pooky can't really remember)

When we got back, we sat down to a few great games of mafia with lots of people playing, but soon we had surprise visitors! Mathcam and Halfpint arrived and we got to play some mafia games and take pictures outside before they had to leave for their flight back to Arizona, all manners of bribery and coercion were tried to get them to stay for the week but failed.

We decided to begin a game of Diplomacy(Risk without the dice, which is pretty much no fun)

After a fairly quick explanation of the rules, we paired into groups(one experienced and one not so experienced), Pooky unfortunately drew France but no partner. After some quick discussions with Russia/England/Austria, Pooky made plans that should've led to the destruction of his greatest threat, Groza's Germany.

But the Evil Mith stuck his head into Pooky's plans and manipulated Austria into attacking Russia, something that pretty much collapsed the Eastern half of Pooky's Anti-German alliance, after a year England turned to the German side and Pooky got stuck defendin against a really nasty England-German alliance while Mith backstabbed Austria and raked in the dough. We broke for a food break(and Trivial Pursuit), we've yet to resume the game. After a good half hour of lying around rubbing our contented stomaches from some very good pizza(sorry we didn't save you a slice tally :( ), we played some musical chairs( some1 moved and we all moved around, but Mith was a spoilsport and laid back in the really comfy chair all night long), Jeep finally showed up and decided to pick our game of the night. A pretty awesome game called Zendo, where we as the humble students tried to figure out the secret buddha nature of the ice pyramids under the tuteladge of our wise master(Jeep). The team of (Pooky/Nonny) managed to win the first 3 out of 4 games, mainly because everyone else though of the Buddha Nature as something complex while Pooky/Nonny thought it was something really simple.

Pooky then made a nasty puzzle regarding pip count and colors which Jeep ultimately solved.

After some more late night thinking, we settled into a game of fluxx(a game that takes no thought at all)

After the long day filled with fun... Pooky slept like a rock.

Mackay: Also, Samadhi, Pablo, and I arrived.

Monday 27 June 2005:

big_K: It was fun annoying people in the shower. mith was grateful that he heard my vocals this morning around. I sang: "A Whole New World", "Fire and Rain", (other James Taylor songs) and etc. Later today in the afternoon, we'll all go to Air Museum. We might go to the cheese factory, but that will be debated.

mith: I was wrong.

jeep: Wow, today was busy and fun. We got up and finished the Risk game. Pooky cleaned up, but Big_K put up a good fight. Cadmium and I destroyed each other and Pooky wound up wiping the floor with us and soaking up our cards. We played a couple random games while waiting for our second car, then went to eat lunch at Burgerville- a local burger chain. Good stuff. Then we went off to the Air Museum. Explored around there a bit. Went to Coyotes Cafe for dinner. Six people hung out and gambled, while the rest of us came home and played games. Trax and Mafia late into the night. We're still playing, and the last game is over.... back to it.

Tally: The air museum was great. That spruce goose is huuuuge. Much amusement was provided by 2 random girls who were stalking Cadmium. Nonny and Mackay re-enacted it. Coyote's buffet was awesome. I forget how many oysters I had. We stayed up far too late playing mafia, but it was great fun. I hope we play more mafia today. Face to face mafia > Forum mafia > chat mafia. I love it. (But I am terrible, I keep getting lynched.) Our hosts Jeep, Sara, Herb & Christina are so amazing. We're really getting so well-looked after.

Cadmium: After having dinner at Coyote's Cafe, Samadhi, hey_herb, CasinoPete, Mackay, mith and myself stayed to visit the casino. First, we went to the bar to have a couple of drinks. After that, hey_herb decided to play some blackjack. The rest of us stood behind him to watch for a while. Then CasinoPete and Mackay discovered the empty roulette table next to them and decided to bet on two numbers. And what do you know ... 700 bucks richer. But what else did you expect with Pete's name ;o). Samadhi joined hey_herb at the blackjack table and they played for another two hours or so.

When we got back home, the rest was still playing mafia. We joined them in a setup of 4 mafia, 4 werewolves and 4 docs. Doc claims all around! By the time we realized we were getting tired, it was 4:30 the next morning. We decided to go to bed since we were probably going to be waked again by big_k's singing the next morning.

Pooky: Oregon is a beautiful state, our hosts absolutely spoil us with the quality of the food and service, their warm smiles and friendships. If only everywhere were like this.

We decided to finish up the Risk game, Pooky kind of waited with his cards while everyone traded in and pretty much launched crazy attacks on each other(we were playing escalating sets, almost always a mistake)

After Pooky watched Jeep get up to 3 cards while everyone else only had one(which meant there wouldn't be a tradein by anyone else for at least 2 turns) Pooky prepared his eager troops for a quick swipe of Jeep's depleted Asian garrisons(Jeep had lost many troops in the fight for Australia with Cadmium, something that he ultimately lost), when the fight began, Pooky's troops outnumbered Jeep's, 29 to 11. By the very end of the campaign, Pooky was down to 1 guy, and Jeep still had 2 guys left, the same 2 guys that had killed 11 of Pooky's guys. Pooky kissed his dice and let them fly. After some very lucky rolls, Pooky took out Jeep and got his cards. At this point everyone pretty much agreed Pooky was a huge threat and had to be dealt with.

Pooky got very lucky quite a few times more and managed to barely ekke out a win, it was all a crapshoot.  :)

After Herb's crew arrived, we set off for the Aerospace Museum, home of the giant flying boat(The really big thing from "The Aviator" movie). Jeep distributed walkie talkies to each vehicle and we had a ton of fun singing songs. Pooky did the usual walk around the museum, sleepwalked past all the exhibits, played around with the flight simulators, fell asleep in the comfy airplane chairs they had in front of their large screen TVs(which played documentaries, the droning voice comfortably lulled Pooky to sleep). Pooky did manage to wake up in time to rejoin the group on the way out, Cadmium's stalkers went bright red upon being discovered and photographed by our group, it was pretty hilarious. Nonny and Mackay immediately began plotting to tease Cadmium for it for the rest of the week and pretend to stalk him. Or was it something more? 8)

We headed down to an Indian Casino with a fantastic buffet, Pooky had large servings of fried and raw oysters(not much beats succulent oysters, well maybe except the really big succulent oysters). IS told a pretty awesome story about how he got drunk in the basement of a French hotel when he was 12 and Cadmium talked about how he got to live in a building full of beautiful nurses. Some scummers live a charmed life :).

Though Pooky decided not to stay and test his luck at the casino, we had some very good games of mafia. This lasted far into the wee hours of the morning. Tuesday 28 June 2005:

Cadmium: We were waked by big_k's singing, of course. As usual, the first game started within half an hour later. Pooky, mith, big_k and jeep played some games of Spades. I still don't know the rules :o). When they finished, jeep had to go to work for two hours. Nonny, Tally and I joined the rest for some games of 5 player hidden roles mafia. Weird stuff!!

Later on, the people staying at hey_herb's house joined us at jeep's place. More mafia, more fun. In the meantime, Sara, Christina, ISWife and Tally were making dinner. Time for a Spaghetti Fest!! We cannot say this enough, our hosts are doing such a great job taking care of us, it's amazing! We had an excellent dinner and the dessert was just delicious.

Quote of the day:

big_k to Cadmium: "You're stroking it all the time, that's why you have big muscles."

hey_herb: It is Tuesday evening and no one has got drunk yet at jeep_fest. Our guests have been very courteous and everything has been going great, so far. Let's see how it goes tomorrow when I start waking people up at 7 a.m. to leave at 8 for our trip to Multnomah Falls and around Mt. Hood.

Tally: It's 5am. I had the best intentions of trying to get some sleep before our day trip, but no luck. We had a few drinks tonight and simultaneous games of Settlers of Catan and Seafarers were played. mith won Seafarers and I think IS won Settlers. I was too braindead to learn a new game, but it looked like fun. Pooky and mith were fighting over who got the couch at around 4am. Funny seeing them floundering around together under a blanket.

mith: Cadmium won Settlers, for the record.

Wednesday 29 June 2005:

mith: Ice... Cream... Burger.

Tally: There's SO much more to say about Wednesday... [EDIT: We went to Multnomah Falls today. Absolutely beautiful. Most of us walked up to the top of the fall for a great view. Said goodbye to Coyote here. Then we went to the river bank and lazed around in the sun watching lots of windsurfers. After that, Mt Hood and the Timberline lodge. We stopped at Calamity Jane's burger restaurant for dinner on the way home. mith, IS, jeep, Groza and MatthewV ordered an ice cream burger. It was icecream, berries and chocolate sauce on top of a hamburger meat pattie and bun. Completely disgusting! They all said it didn't taste bad though.]

But it's now:

Thursday 30 June 2005:

Tally: Yoko's here! He turned up in the middle of the night when I was asleep. He's rather tall!

mith: And apparently is my long lost twin, other than that.

Tonight we had a barbecue... Samadhi's soon-to-be-world-famous steaks, IS's potatoes and stuffed chicken, beans, corn, frozen custard sent by MeMe and crew, all sorts of pies that I didn't even get to try because I was so stuffed from everything else... Everything was fantastic. We're going to have to start a fund to make sure those involved will be able to make any future meetups, so they can cook for us again.

Quote of the day: "And there are clean diapers in daddy's room." - Thomas

Game of the day: Snoggers of Catan. 1 point for each other member (of either site) kissed, photographic evidence required. 2 points for each *unique* member. IS currently leads with 9 points. I'm sure a fuller description of the rules (including various issues brought up that kept the discussion about it going for over 2 hours) as well as the pictures/videos and results so far will be put up when someone gets a chance.

Tally: We went into downtown Portland today. Got some pizza and then visited possibly the Biggest Bookstore in America! It was awesome!.. I spent $100 on books there. I could've spent the whole day in that shop. Bought some pink hair dye and Nonny got busy on my hair. It's pretty bright now :P

It is now...

Friday 1 July 2005:

mith: Cheese factory and more, coming up...

It is now...

Saturday 2 July 2005 Pooky: It's 5 AM and Pooky is the only one awake at Jeep's house, well maybe Tally too since Lump's crying could be heard... Jeep has left to ferry Mith over to the airport and bring IS/Samadhi/MattV back to Herb's house. Pooky's still in a bit of a shock over the ending of Jeepfest, it all seemed to have gone by far too fast... Pooky's definitely going to be missing everybody. *sniffle*

Our hosts went far beyond the call of duty in providing some of the best hospitality, warmth, entertainment, and food imaginable. Their generosity and energy were limitless. I met some people that I could never have met anywhere else, whose character, charisma, creativity, and energy exceeded anything I could've expected. I will never forget some of the finest moments I've enjoyed in your company.

I doubt words could express the feelings I have for all the people I'll be missing, and all the people who would've loved to be here and did not have the oppurtunity. I sincerely hope that we have the good fortune to meet again(and for the first time for all those who couldn't make it). Though fate might conspire to deny us another meeting, you'll always have my love and respect. No matter what path you decide to go down, you know Pooky's got your back.