View and vote on the article here: CyberArmy US East Coast Meeting at the Waterfront
CyberArmy US East Coast Meeting at the Waterfront| Category | | | Summary | | On Saturday, US members of CyberArmy met in Pittsburgh, PA for the first ever CyberArmy US East Coast meeting. Read on to see what all happened plus pictures! |
| | Body | The meeting officially kicked off at noon and 4pm EST. Most attendees arrived for the 4pm (or sometime thereafter) meeting time. After some awesome potato skins ala drinks at Dave and Busters (before everyone arrived), the crew assembled outside with the stragglers joining us slowly, and spent a while swapping stories and info. It was a beautiful day, with the only annoyance being the muzak playing oldies on the outside speaker. We spent most of the day at the Waterfront, which is a car/pedestrian outside center filled with shops.
Those in attendance included alphabetically:
Kernel Condor191
Marshal Goliath
Kernel Jeian
Retired General Pandect
Paragon ? SummerCon's 2003 First Place Hacker
W00f
And one family member...
We all know each other by first name now, but you'll just have to attend one of these to learn all those for yourself.
The big disappointment for us was Dave and Busters. Because they serve liquor, which I found strange for a gaming/restaraunt center, they only allowed 4 people under 21 per every person over 21. I was the only one over 21, with 5 others (family member excluded) under 21, and we were straight denied access. All in all, I think being able to go in may have added to the meeting, considering we could have taken over the pool hall. However, no matter how good they were, no business with a giant arcade room should have door bouncers. D&B gets the CyberArmy ?Kiss My Asm? bumper sticker award.
I also must present another award as well at this point. The greatest humiliating moment award goes to.... (drum roll)... Pandect! All the poor guy wanted to do was take a leak. But, the bouncers denied him his urinary evacuation. Head hung low, Retired General Pandect politely asked the ranking officer at the meeting, me, to please escort him to the bathroom. This just goes to show, CA officers do have a purpose around here, even if it is escorting the lower ranks to the bathroom.
We all decided by a ?near? unanimous vote to head over to the local theater and check out Bad Boys 2. Sure, it was rated R, but at least most of us were over 18, though not all over 21. Paragon was gracious enough to buy us all VIP seating in the balcony with leather chairs and free drinks. With an hour to spare before the movie started, we walked over the Starbucks and loaded up on caffeine while Condor191 and Jeian got into a battle over who could take the most pictures of each other in embarrassing poses. The jury is still out on who won until Jeian (pronounced Jay-in for those of you who have been pronouncing it Jeee-ee-an... like me) has his film developed and posts them. For me though, the highlight was really my Grande Mocha Frappacino, mmmmm.
The crew then split up, with most of us going to the movie. As for the movie, I won't include a review of it, except to say that we all thought it was pretty good, especially the corpses. Go see it to see what I'm talking about.
After the movie, we were all pretty starved, so it was off to Damons restaurant. W00f had to catch a bus back, so unfortunately he had to leave us after we took some group photos in the lobby. And so, with those remaining, we enjoyed big screens, music piped to our table, and some very good dishes. Being the only one over 21 and the ranking member, I felt it my duty to have a Bud Light over conversation. It may become future protocol that at least one alcoholic beverage must be consumed for any meeting to be official. But, this comes at a high price to the poor soul who drinks it (read on).
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<img src="http://www.phantomzone.net/cameet/meet1.jpg" width="320" height="240]</img>
Left to Right: Jeian, W00f, Goliath, Condor191, Paragon, Pandect. Note: Goliath isn't that short, but was crouching down for w00f and Condor.
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<img src="http://www.phantomzone.net/cameet/meet2.jpg" width="320" height="240]</img>
Condor gets close up of Jeian in his Ub3r l337 CyberArmy t-shirt.
Dinner was good, except for cold fries, and the waiter never did bring the ketchup we asked for. Condor got him back pretty good for that. Instead of leaving no tip, he left 2 quarters on the table. Condor paid for our dinner, for which our stomachs and wallets are eternally greatful.
After more small talk outside, it was time for some goodbyes and last photo ops. Jeian and Pandect had to leave us, and we were down to Condor, Paragon, and me. Then came the revenge of my beer. I had left my glasses in Damons and they had locked the door just as Jeian and Pandect left. I realized this after the three of us remaining were a good quarter of a mile away from the restaurant. A quick sprint across the Waterfront parking lot, which for geeks, is not an easy task, and we were in Condors car racing back to Damons. After some window beating by Condor and me, we were let in. Then, to my great dismay, the person who cleared our table was the same person we had left 2 quarters on the table for. He first claimed he never saw them, at which point, Condor and I started thinking out loud about having the manager help us look for them. What a coincidence that at that moment, the waiter runs up to us with my glasses in his hand. Gee, lucky thing he found them 45 minutes after we left at exactly the time we were talking about asking for the manager. </sarcasm>
After our close call with the waiter from hell, we did what any good geeks do when they have no other options and crashed over at Condor's house to jump online and laugh at the fools who failed to show. About what occurred at this time, I simply must say... I can neither confirm nor deny activities that supposedly did or did not happen at Condor's house, except to say his dog was cool.
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<img src="http://www.phantomzone.net/cameet/meet3.jpg" width="320" height="240]</img>
Condor's dog loves Paragon!
By this time, it was clear that everyone was pretty dead on their feet. Paragon was nice enough to let me crash back at his place instead of paying for a motel room to grab just 6 hours sleep. While not part of the official meeting, I was allowed to touch Paragon's much coveted trophy he had been awarded at SummerCon. And, for those wondering if he is really that good, I'll simply say... His Kung-Fu is the Best!
The CA-US East Coast Meeting was a success. While we would have liked many more people to attend, the smaller group gave us all a chance to really bond in ways not possible online. I've met a lot of people in real life that I first met online, but it was really a treat to meet people in real life that I'd known for years online without seeing. This may become a yearly event (though the city may change around each time), but that will be up to those who wish to participate. I can say with certainty that if and when this happens again, I definitely want to be a part of it. It was a great experience, and it could only get better with a full year to plan the next one! |
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This article was imported from zZine. (original author: Goliath)
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