Back from Cold Wars

Got back from Cold Wars yesterday in the early afternoon.  Early you say?  That bad?  Well no.  It was an interesting event with some odd changes.

1. The Host.  You know you are dying to hear about it.   Construction is going at a good pace.  There was a lot of stone work done on the exterior of the building.  There are doors where their once were no doors.  There are windows where their once were no windows.  The tennis barn, for instance, has a huge pane of windows on the front letting in much natural light.  The side effect is that the barn is now quite warm!  Some of the space has been walled off.  The space outside the HAWKs room, for instance, has been walled off to make another room.  The finished rooms are quite nice.  They are as nice as some of the nicer hotels.  Ours, however, did not have a phone and at one point some workers had to come in to fix a problem with the cable.
2. Food: The general food situation is about the same as before.  You could get tacos and burritos throughout the day from the upstairs station.  Downstairs was still serving the usual fair of cold sandwiches and hot dogs as well as coffee, soft drinks and even beer!  The kitchen food was a large disappointment.  The breakfast was merely OK.  It has been better in the past.  The dinner at the bar was a complete disaster though.  I ordered a burger cooked medium.  It came out well.  I would have sent it back had I not been pressed for time.  My friend got the prime rib sandwich, which in the past, is quite tasty.  His came out as a thick, tough slice of meat well overcooked.  I heard others complain the same about the food in the kitchen.  That was the only non-breakfast meal I ordered from the bar.
3. There were plenty of games going on.  Lots of interesting and beautiful games.  The HAWKs room remained very busy on Friday and Saturday.  Even on Saturday night, Distilfink room (the huge ball room) seemed to have every gaming table full.  I’d not seen that in several years.  Sunday was another matter and perhaps the big reason I left early.  There was not a single game going on when I walked around at 9:30am Sunday morning.  I did see one gentleman in the big room with some Star Wars stuff including an AT-AT but it looked more like he was just inventorying or repairing than setting up a game.  HAWKs room also seemed to have just one game setup.

It was a good time and I enjoyed seeing my friends who came from as far as Indiana.  I understand that 2017 will be the last year of conventions at the Host.  It seems HMGS-East and the new owners of the Host could not come to an agreement for future conventions.  From what I’ve heard, all HMGS conventions will be held at a Marriott (I think) in downtown Lancaster.  The last HMGS convention in the Host will be Fall-In 2018.