North Texas RPG Con - a great show!

I'm back from spending the weekend with ~50 other gamers from The Acaeum, Knights & Knaves Alehouse, and Dragonsfoot, at the North Texas RPG Con.

I got very little sleep at the show, and for most of last week, so here are some quick highlights before I crash:

• meeting many folks whom I've only known online, from the various boards: it's always great to put faces to names, and spend time communicating without a keyboard!: getting to meet some folks whom I've known online for several years---including Adrian "TSR Archive" Newman, Matt "Mythmere" Finch, Jason "Philotomy Jurament" Cone, Matt "Center Stage Miniatures" Solarz, Jason "Index Greyhawkiana" Zavoda, and many others---was a special treat!
  
• catching up with Rob Kuntz, Paul Jaquays, Frank Mentzer, Dennis Sustare, and Tim Kask; I'd not met Paul or Dennis before in person, and it's always a pleasure to spend time with Rob, Frank, and Tim
  
• I DM'd 10 players (including Paul Jaquays) through my version of Castle Greyhawk, in a scenario that I apparently needed to make a bit more deadly since no single PC was killed, despite me dropping 7th-8th level characters into the 14th level of the dungeons (which included a 19 HD titan as a wandering monster!)
• A wonderful tour of the Reaper Miniatures warehouse and production facilities, arranged by Gus Landt, and lead by Matt Clark (Reaper production director); I also got to meet Ron Hawkins, the art director and his two cute sons
  

The convention thread @ the Acaeum has some highlights, starting on page 25, and I'm sure that additional stories will be forthcoming soon.

And a final shout-out to Doug "RPGMarketplace" Rhea (he runs _the_ alternative to eBay for OOP RPGs) and to Mike "Badmike Books" Badolato, for putting on such a great convention (especially noteworthy as first-time convention organizers!). I'm already looking forward to next year's show!