This year, I went to Origins Game Fair in Columbus, Ohio for work. This is the first work trip I’ve ever taken that was longer than a day-long conference and not within driving distance. I was a little worried about how I would do, since I didn’t have a lot of roommate experience in my life, and I hated camp the one time I went. And, this was an entire week long…from Monday around 7am to Monday around 7pm. Would I be able to handle my co-workers for that much time? It turned out that I worried for no reason (…hmmm…seems to be a common thing in my life…). Everyone was fine, and the only times that I started to get even slightly annoyed with people, it turned out that I was just hungry. Luckily, I kept my annoyance to myself, and nobody had to deal with the wrath of my hanger. And, no apologies were necessary on my end. Phew!

I was also a little worried about how I would deal with being around people constantly, since Nick and I have a pretty quiet house, and I seem to do better when I get some down-time alone. But apparently, all the extroverted training that my mom gave me when I was younger didn’t go to waste, and I actually enjoyed going out after the conference closed with my co-workers and some of the volunteers. But after I got home…I crashed big time! And I took a smile break too. Not only were my cheeks in pain from all the friendly smiling at the convention, they hurt from all the laughing I did with our team. Good problems to have!

During the convention, my co-worker, Heather, told me about The Columbus Coffee Experience that one of our Instagram followers posted about. You pick up a passport, go to four of the coffee shops listed, and get a free Columbus T-shirt. What?! I have to drink coffee and try different coffee shops? Well, if I must… It was a lot of fun, and we even got Josh and Adam (Chip Theory Owners) to join us. We are now all proud owners of the t-shirt. And, it’s actually a pretty nice t-shirt that I would wear in public. (It’s pretty good for me if a free t-shirt doesn’t go straight to the workout pile!)

So how was the convention? It was good; tiring, but good. I met some nice people, played about three games, and stood a lot! We had an amazing volunteer in our booth that made me realize that I really need to up my game for our next convention. He had never played our games before, and he was running around and telling everyone about them and answering all kinds of questions that I had no idea how to answer. I could not keep up with him at all. Amazing!

As far as checking out other booths and playing games, I really didn’t do much of that. I did admire the art booths when I went past them, but I wasn’t sure how I would get anything home without damaging it in my suitcase. And I only played games on the night that I hung out with Seppy. Next time, maybe I’ll do some more browsing.

The next convention that I will be going to is GenCon in August. It’s supposed to be even more crowded and crazier than Origins, so I’m glad I had Origins to get me acclimated, since Origins was much bigger than Con of the North (the last convention that I worked at with Fight in a Box). Hopefully there will be another Coffee Experience to get me through!

This month I had a ladies’ trip to Charleston, South Carolina. This was my first time ever being there, and it was not what I expected. First off, since we were in the South, I expected everyone to have a Southern accent, but it seemed like the only people that we ran into that had Southern accents were tourists. (I guess now I can’t get upset with everyone who comes to Minnesota expecting us to have “Minnesota” accents. I totally get it now.) Second, I expected it to be more city-ish. I figured that since it’s a very old city and a capital, that it would have at least a few skyscrapers. I think someone told us that the tallest building is only 4-stories high. And the city seemed more like a sprawling suburb to me. Maybe because the buildings were so short?

But despite all that, I had a fun time! My friend, Sarah, who is 5’2″ (I can’t remember her exact height, but it’s somewhere around there) rented a car for us, and the only thing they had available was a huge truck! I think it was a Ford F-150. I tower over my friends at 5’9″, and it was not the easiest vehicle for me to get in and out of. I don’t even know how it was for them. Sarah was amazing navigating that giant truck through the tiny, winding streets of Charleston though. I would have at least done a curb check once, and been lucky if that was all the damage I did!

We took in some sights, went on some tours, went to an open house (curiosity!) and enjoyed the warm weather. Yes. It was in the 70s, while there was a super snowstorm here at home. I’m glad I missed it, but I felt bad that I was enjoying a stroll on the beach while Nick was at home fighting to keep the driveway cleared and being stuck inside in April!

When we were leaving, one of my friends asked us what our favorite part of the trip was. And I had two favorites. The first was staying up late with Sakura and laughing hysterically at Facebook videos. The second was when we took a tour of the Charleston Tea Plantation, found a white bridge near the entrance, and I took “Senior Photos” of Leslie and Sarah. (And yes, Nick told me as well that both of these activities could have been done somewhere closer to home. But it wouldn’t have been the same.)

This year I started working at Chip Theory Games. I’ve only been there for two weeks now, so I know I am still in the honeymoon phase, but I am loving it! It’s a great balance of production work and design. And the employees and owners are oozing creativity, which is so inspiring! Every day, I keep waiting for them to tell me something horrible about the job, because it seems too good to be true. There has to be something worse than just the commute, right?

Here is a tour of the office:

  

This is the door to the owner’s office from the outside and when it’s slightly open. It’s made to look like a trunk. How cool is that? It even has a padlock on it.

And here is the door to my office:

The wheel on the door spins too. (It didn’t when we first got the door, so I’m not sure if the spinning now is intentional or not…)

And here is my office:

And since you are probably wondering (I get asked this question every time that I show people this photo), yes and no. The chair is comfortable, but it’s kind of cumbersome and it leans back more than what I like for working at a desk. As long as I remember to get up and stretch regularly, I don’t have a problem with it. When I get into intense-work-mode and forget to get up and move around, it can get uncomfortable. The best part about it though, is that I can sit cross-legged in it, which is really helpful when your feet are cold! (And I haven’t tried it, but it seems like it would be really good for napping. I just need to bring in a little blanket, and I’ll be all set!)

And here is the conference room:

And that concludes my office tour! There are other rooms, but I just took pictures of the front office. I didn’t want to be the weirdo who takes pictures of the bathroom or get in the way of the people working in the shipping area, so I don’t have pictures of those areas at all.

Last week, I worked on a reprinting for a game, making minor changes and getting everything ready for press. This week, I am working on designing for a new game. I’ve gotten the go ahead to share work, so I will periodically post some things to keep you updated with what I’m up to. Fun!