Off to Origins!

Steve Cole writes:

Steve Petrick and I (now on the road to Origins) have done the Origins trip ten times since we incorporated ADB, Inc., so this is number eleven. We did a lot of Origins trips before 1999, but mostly as event runners, but we started doing both and booth and a tournament that year.

Being military people, we have a way of doing things. We make checklists, and every year, we use the same checklist, updating it as we go through it, and save the updated list for next year. We have one checklist for things to do, and one for things to take with us. Many items on the "to do" list are to put stuff into the various boxes of the "to take" list, and the last part of the "to do list" is to check off loading each box on the "to take" list.

This makes it pretty straightforward to do everything (and forget nothing). There is still a ton of stuff to do, but at least we have a list. It's hardly stress free. (Sunday night, after Leanna went home, one of the print engines just stopped working for no reason, and she is the only one who could fix it, which left a couple of things not done, but those meant that other things could not be crossed off the list.)

Tuesday is "the good day". It's twelve hours of driving, with a stop at the best BBQ place in the world (Sweetwater, on I44 in Missouri, mile marker 163). No phones, no internet, no stress. Nice quiet relaxing day. The worst thing about Origins is that the only time we meet the public is at the end of the worst month (for hard work and long days) of the entire year. The relaxing drive on Tuesday is the only reason we arrive at Origins as functional people, not as babbling nervous wrecks. See you guys tomorrow.