06/13/07

Back from Otaku Omaha (permalink)

otaku omaha anime convention con nebraska travel

Last weekend I attended my third Anime convention this year, Otaku Omaha. While it was the smallest of the conventions I have attended, and there were some serious problems with the hotel (see the previous post about the horrible, horrible Carlisle hotel), there were some definite highlights to the experience.

To begin with, the dealer's room was one of the best I have seen this year. Though not quite as extensive as the Naka-Kon dealers' room, the Otaku Omaha version made up for it's size by hosting a much wider variety of merchandise as other cons as well as offering some tremendous deals. I took advantage of the con discounts and purchased several manga, a DVD collector's box set of FLCL, a gunslinger girl hat and a couple boxes of Pretz (much better than pocky).

Besides the dealers' room, the con offered several interesting events and panels. Personally, I attended the Masquerade, a AMV best of showing, AMV-Hell (adult oriented AMVs), the dance, a video-game gameshow (I won Pocky), and a panel teaching how to sew a plushy keychain. I found the plushy keychain panel to be especially interesting, since I had not sewn anything at all in over 10 years and because the hands-on style of the panel allowed me to walk away with something to keep. I may post a bit more about that panel later.

I very much enjoyed my trip to Otaku Omaha and may return in the future, at least if the organizers can find a new hotel.

06/11/07

The Funk of Forty Thousand Years (permalink)

carlisle foul disgusting nasty hotel con convention anime omaha otaku travel

I just got back from my trip to Otaku Omaha last night, and while I will be posting photos and information about the con later, I thought I would make a quick post about the hotel the con was at.

Without a doubt the Carlisle Hotel (a Days Inn) is the worst hotel I have stayed at in a long time. The hotel is obviously old judging from the architecture and decor and the state of repair and neatness of the hotel suggests that there has been no maintenance or cleaning done to the premises since it first opened. The EPA should categorize the place as a Superfund site and seal it off for the betterment of all mankind.

Because I am tired and lists are easy, here are some fun facts about the hotel:

• The whole place smelled like a mix of the chlorine leaking into the building from their chemically hazardous pool, disease, mildew, and the fumes of noxious cleaning chemicals (not that I ever saw any evidence of cleaners being used).
• One of the big selling features of the rooms on their site is the inclusion of a clock radio. It didn't work.
• The carpets had so many stains it was impossible to discern the original pattern.
• The rooms featured hung ceiling tiles, many of which were broken, sagging, heavily stained or un-matching.
• The wallpaper was peeling at almost every seam, missing in several places and was covered with an array of stains that I did not care to investigate.
• The beds were horribly old and would sag almost to the floor under normal weight making the springs creak.
• The view from our room was facing someone's driveway and an old beaten down car.
• The entire place was kept at about 85 degrees, causing the smell of a few hundred sweaty nerds to add to the general funk and greatly increasing the discomfort.
• There was no weather or sound sealing on the room doors, and there was about a once inch gap between the door and the floor where you could see out (or in).
• None of the staff seemed to give a shit about their customers, and were extremely unhelpful.

Click here for some shitty reviews of the carlisle hotel in Omaha, NE.

(as an aside, one of the only good reviews on that site contained this sage wisdom in response to the negative reviews: "donot aspect more crispy without oil.")

In short, DO NOT STAY AT THE CARLISLE HOTEL. If you must attend a convention or event at the Carlisle hotel, I recommend staying at one of the several hotels right next door, including:

• The Best Western Kelly Inn, Omaha
• The Hawthorn Suites Omaha
• Super 8 Motel Omaha West

Photos (these would be much more illustrative with smell):

The shitty smelly floor of the carlisle:

The crappy view from our room:

The door to go outside passed through a service room filled with trash and an even stronger odor:

Don't let this photo fool you, this cleaning cart never moved the two days we were here. I think it is a prop to fool future customers into thinking that they actually clean the place once in a while. Oh, and the lighting in this photo is very representative of the gloomy lighting in the hotel and not a camera defect.

A sign outside the carlisle hotel bar. I took the first half of the hotel sign's advice, and it did make the stay more bearable, but not by much.

06/08/07

This Weekend: Otaku Omaha (permalink)

otaku omaha nebraska anime convention con travel

This coming weekend I will be attending my fourth nerd convention of the year, Otaku Omaha, an Anime convention held in South-Eastern Nebraska. From what I can tell, it is a fairly small Anime con, but nonetheless looks to have some very interesting events in the lineup. Because Omaha is only a 2 and a half hour drive from Kansas City, and it is a smaller con, we will only be attending for Saturday and Sunday. Expect a report sometime after I return about the events.

05/06/07

Quail Ridge Park (permalink)

park missouri st_louis wentzville quail ridge disc_golf travel

On the way back from Anime St. Louis and ShowMeCon a couple weeks ago, we stopped at Quail Ridge Park just outside of Wentzville Mo, off I-70 and Highway 40/61 in St. Charles County to play a round of Frisbee golf.

The disc golf course at Quail Ridge Park is very well maintained and fairly challenging, with a wide variety of hole types, ranging from simple open distance shots to narrow paths in the woods. It is one of the shorter courses I have played, with most of the holes well under 300' in length. The shortness of the holes makes the course fairly easy, so advanced players may be left wanting more challenge.

The park has very nicely kept facilities, with many clean public restrooms, water fountains and faucets, and a number of picnic shelters. If you live nearby this park, I highly recommend a visit, but due to the overall simplicity of the course, players who live very far from this park may not find it worth the drive.

04/25/07

Anime St. Louis / ShowMeCon 2007 (permalink)

gaming anime convention con science_fiction scfi st_louis missouri showmecon travel

During my trip last weekend, I attended the ShowMeCon and Anime St. Louis held at a Marriot hotel. It was a joint anime/science fiction convention and attracted over 1000 nerds, geeks, and other socially awkward types to come together and celebrate their nerdiness for a weekend.

Aside from the other anime convention I attended this year, Naka-Kon in late march, I hadn't attended a convention of this type in several years. Prior to this year the last one I attended was Otakon in 2000, at a time when the anime fandom was just starting to get huge and there were still only a handful of anime conventions. Now, even living in the midwest, there is one or more convention almost every month within driving distance of my home. Even more surprising is even the smaller cons are attracting upwards of 1000 people.

This year was Anime St. Louis' first year at a bigger venue, and the first (and probably last) time they partnered with SciFi con "Show Me Con." According to the numbers they gave at the closing ceremonies, last year's con attracted only 300 people and was located on the college campus. This year they were hosted at a Marriot Hotel (who treated the con horribly) and had upwards of 1000 people in attendance. At least 80% of those in attendance were there specifically for the anime portion of the con.

Overall my convention experience was awesome, though there were problems. The hotel, a Marriot located in south-west St. Louis, pretty much dicked the con over with some bad business practices. Originally the convention organizers had reserved many of the meeting rooms and salons as well as the grand ball room to host the activities in. The hotel, however, decided it would be a good idea to double book everything and also promised the grand ball room to a wedding, a fashion show and a bat mitzvah, and gave the anime convention several smaller rooms instead. This made the larger and more popular events uncomfortably crowded, and caused many con-goers to be left out.

The combination of Anime St. Louis and Show Me Con caused some problems as well. Though the two cons were supposed to be partnered for the weekend, the two had separate schedules, meaning people without both did not know the full extent of what was scheduled when. Additionally, from what I heard, the Show Me Con folks did not fully live up to their part of the obligations and left Anime St. Louis to do much of the running of the con. Finally, most of the con-goes were attending only for one con or the other, and the two groups of attendees mostly ignored each other. In the end, it would have been better if either the two cons were kept separate, or, if they spent more time truly integrating the conventions with crossover panels, joint events and a shared schedule.

Even with it's problems I had a blast at the convention, and only wish I had more time to see more of the panels. The ones I did make it to were: Dragon's Keep, a combination LARP and play, Piano Squall's Concert, the Masquerade, the Swimming party (and Mankini Con, which will only make sense to those who were there), a Filking concert with Gary Hanak, the strange Japanese fetishes panel, a panel on MMORPGs, a panel on single player RPG gaming and the closing ceremonies. I will make a more detailed post later on a couple of the bigger events. I was definitely glad I attended the events of the convention last weekend and hope that I can make it back next year.

04/24/07

Maggie's Cafe (permalink)

diner montgomery_city danville missouri restaurant travel cafe maggies breakfast

On day two of my trip last weekend, I stopped at a trucker cafe near Danville, MO and Montgomery City, MO called Maggie's Cafe. It was pretty much what you might expect from such a place -- Quaint, inexpensive, and home to some great American diner food. I had a huge breakfast, with biscuits and gravy, chicken fried steak, eggs, toast and truck stop coffee for just over $6. It was too much food to finish and was easily the best breakfast I have had in ages. If you are ever driving down I-70 between Columbia and St. Louis, I would definitely recommend a stop as a great alternative to the ubiquitous fast food joints.

04/23/07

Graham Cave State Park (permalink)

graham cave state park missouri friends travel outdoors

As part of my trip last weekend, I visited Graham Cave State Park (google map here). I was there primarily because the park is close to I-70, and is an inexpensive place to spend the night camping. However, the park turned out to be a nice place to visit for other reasons as well.

The park is named for Graham Cave, a shallow cave cut into a hillside which has great historical significance. University of Missouri Archaeologists discovered evidence in the cave suggesting that it housed human occupants as long as 10,000 years ago, much earlier than historians previously believed possible. Today, the cave itself is accessible to visitors to the park and is kept as a historical monument. The cave site is very well kept and features a number of informative placards pointing out locations of interest. I found the visit to the cave to be interesting, but not alone worth the trip.

The park is very scenic. The majority of the park is hilly and wooded with a few creeks and streams crossing through. The rocky hills offer good scenery, but are not severe enough to deter casual hikers visiting for the variety of marked walking trails. One larger creek can be accessed a small boat ramp and looks very promising for fishing. The park is segmented into several areas each with it's own parking, so you can spread out from other park visitors if you prefer. These open park areas offer many useful features such as covered and uncovered picnic areas and several playgrounds. Overall, it seems like a good place to spend an afternoon with friends or family, or just to go on a quiet hike through the woods.

As mentioned prior, our stay was primarily for camping. The campgrounds were clean and well kept, though they were positioned a little too close to each other for my preferences. We opted for a basic camp site which included just a parking spot, a picnic table and a fire pit. Some of the campgrounds offered extra amenities such as electrical outlets or water spigots. While we did not use them, there were two separate bathroom facilities with showers and laundry machines. Despite those good features, the campgrounds' proximity to I-70 causes constant traffic noise that can distract from the peacefulness of the thick woods.

As a place to stop and rest on our trip to St. Louis, Graham Cave State Park more than provided for our needs. I am not sure the park is worth the drive from Kansas City otherwise, but people closer to the site or those interested in very early American history may disagree.