I didn't think it was actually going to happen. Even after I booked my flight to Denver, I didn't think it was going to happen. In fact, the whole ordeal was quite surreal. I'm still not entirely sure I was ever in Colorado at all. I must have imagined the whole thing.

But no, there are bits of paper and photos on my digital camera that would say otherwise. There are scribbled notes about bus routes in my duffel of dirty clothes and new knowledge of how a psaltery sounds in my memory which prove that I actually DID meet some of the coolest people ever. (You know who you are.) It was amazing meeting everyone for real. Some people were totally different than I had expected. Some were exactly the same. Some were kind of in between.

But enough enthusing. It's the actual account I am here to write, and write it I shall.

I knew it was going to be a good weekend because it started off with ice cream (Coldstone's, to be exact) for dinner. Hey, it's not my fault Quizno's closed four minutes before I got there. Anyway, I got to the hotel without much event (much less event than I had on the way back; more on that later). Sam, Leen, a mostly-sleeping ahmoacah, Randy, and Enigma were in the lobby. The latter two I didn't recognize at all, a particularly awkward moment occurring when Sam introduced me to Randy and I didn't know who he was, heh. Leen was more extroverted than I had imagined (don't ask me why), but ahmo and Sam were almost exactly as I had pictured. I don't remember much about that evening, except for Stephen, Mia, famous, wintermute, and Dave making appearances later that night and Enigma being ecstatic that his pizza delivery didn't take two hours like they told him it would. Sometime after the pizza, Sam, Leen, and ahmo left to pick up Maryam and TalkingDog from the Westminster park and ride. Evidently they had caught the very last bus of the day *to* the park and ride, making it impossible for them to get any closer to the hotel. Buses are a pain in the neck. :-p

Oh yes, Ticia and Don and their procession were also there that evening, despite a failing transmission in their van. At some point, we piled into the convention room and I think I fell asleep across some chairs in the back. I vaguely remember that Sam pulled the tablecloth over my face and pronounced me dead or something.

The real fun began Saturday morning. We breakfasted in the hotel's cramped little breakfast nook, where I met a very mischievous Abby and a very shy Rose. Abby, at one point, walked up to wintermute's chair, pointed at his Belgian waffle, and declared, "Mine!" with a grin that only a two-year-old up to no good can pull off.

After breakfast, we again assembled in the room. Leen had brought one of her saddles and a model horse. (Photos do absolutely no justice to either. Until you see them close up, comprehending the detail is nigh impossible.) I brought out a couple of small dolls I had customized. (Mr. T, a Breyer carriage driver, and a rendition of Blood Drops, although I forgot I had the latter until the afternoon. By the by, if anyone has pictures of him, I would love to have a couple as I *also* forgot to take any of the finished doll.) I then settled down in a spot in the back, fished out some cord I had brought, and started making monkeyfists (see link below) for everyone. Sam gave out bags from his work with paper and pens and this cool little safety razorblade thing that he'd written "RinkWorks" on. It came in handy with making the monkeyfists, that's for sure, although I had to throw out the razorblade itself when I flew back home. famous handed out Batman bags (which made Stephen's day) with noisemakers and toy rings and bouncy balls in them, Enigma gave everyone a cool fossilized rock thing with crystals in it, and Maryam passed out "Hot or Not Bot Live!" papers with photos of all the RU attendees on them. (Everyone was a 7, of course.)

At this point, I think it was Enigma that mentioned he thought he'd seen PenaltyShot in the breakfast nook, so he and Sam went to go find her. Evidently, Sam sat down in front of whom they thought to be PS and asked, "Is that you?" Silly. :-p But it was, and she and her boyfriend Seth came to join the party.

Sam started things off with the bingo chips, as is tradition. Enigma, Randy, and I got chips for first RU attended, I think ahmo and Sam and Leen got one each for furthest distance, I and someone else (can't remember, sorry!) got one for longest hair, Joseph got one for least hair, famous got one for being at every RU but the first, and there were some other ones that I have since forgotten.

Then he progressed to stupid e-mails, the most notable of which was a rejected Computer Stupidities entry. Some kid was trying to convince a friend that he had hacked into her computer by telling her that, revelation of revelations, she had a My Documents folder. The most inexplicable part, however, went something like this:

Sam: I can see you don't use My Pictures very often.
famous: Crap! Crap! Jiggle jiggle!

The author of the email had seemingly typed his friend's response as "crap! crap! *jiggle* *jiggle*." What "*jiggle*" was supposed to mean is still anyone's guess, but it had the entire room roaring (except for me, who snorts when I laugh to hard, thus my fellow Rinkies to a chorus of gigglehonks). famous couldn't even read her lines without completely cracking up the first couple of times. "Crap jiggle jiggle" became a favorite phrase of the weekend.

Somewhere around this time, daniel78 wandered in.

After the e-mails, we took a short break, then began the memory game. The three categories were the first thing you would buy with a billion dollars (ahmo chose groceries), your favorite real or imagined Olympic sport (TD's was the 30 meter fall -- a hard event to train for), and what you wanted to do at RU8, disregarding practicality (wintermute wanted to have it on the moon). Stephen won, despite the cracks made about his memory at the start of the game. He got a purple magnet that picked up the bingo chips. Why people normally need a magnet to pick up their bingo chips is completely beyond me; however, it makes perfect sense at an RU.

At this point, my memory blanks out on details. We were told to write a haiku about ourselves (I got as far as "I suck at haikus," and hit a wall -- poetry's never been my strong point), and draw a caricature if we so desired (I'm about as good at drawing as I am at poetry), and then most of us (except Leen and famous, who drove) walked down the street for lunch. We went to Quizno's, but most of us decided to go over to Panera instead. Panera is the awex0me, but it is even better when shared with crazies met over the internet.

Leen and I made a quick stop to Super Target (I had no idea there actually was such a thing) to get Excedrin and a lighter for fusing the rope ends of my monkey fists, and then it was back to the hotel. The afternoon portion of Saturday was a bit sparse. A couple of people, myself included, couldn't make our plans to perform solidify for one reason or another. I was supposed to do a yodeling song, but because I had been coming down with a slight cold the past few days, my vocal cords cringed at the mere thought of doing it. (Even today they are still not up to it. I tried last night and my voice would cut out when I went into falsetto.)

Sam read the haikus and had us guess who wrote which. They were all clever, though I can't remember any of them now. He also showed the caricatures, of which there were only a few (famous did one of me and one of Sam, and wintermute did one of my Mr. T doll). Enigma got up and demonstrated a couple of Australian instruments, played a tune or two on his psaltery, and made wintermute look silly via a cool party trick. ;-) famous read some poetry, most notably her sequel, "I Am Pregnant," to last year's poem, "I Am Not Pregnant." It was, in its entirety:

Oh, the irony.

After a bit of debating, Sam popped in Sinbad. I had been anticipating this for quite some time, not only seeing the famed horrible movie, but seeing it with this particular group. I was not disappointed. However, while I was joking when I said, "Lou Ferrigno in drag is SCARY," upon the appearance of Sucra (or however you spell that), there are some scenes where he definitely could have done with a bra. Enough said.

After cleaning up the room and some other mundane things, we piled in cars and drove to Casa Bonita. Well, most of us piled in cars. Ticia and Don, whom we thought were right behind us, ended up not leaving the hotel until half an hour later than we did. Actually, it turned out to be a good thing, because in the rush to get to the restaurant, we had left PenaltyShot and Seth behind. Oops!

The restaurant itself was a pretty cool building. Standing in line (which we did for at least a half hour) reminded me of Disneyland. The architecture was awesome, as was the huge waterfall and pond in the heart of the place. I didn't see very much of the place, because the car I was in left right after dinner, but apparently there were cliff divers jumping off a platform into the pond and a pirates' cave with a dinosaur (?!) and other neat stuff.

Upon returning to the hotel, we found people camping in front of the hotel. Literally. With ice chests and lots of alcohol. They had been there the evening before, but I didn't remember them in such numbers. They accosted us with, "Isn't that guy who plays that one thing with your group?" Meaning Enigma, of course.

"Yeah, but he isn't back from dinner yet," we responded. The drunks looked crestfallen. (Apparently, they had made him play for them the night before, and wanted him to do it again. I think he did when he got back.)

After the encounter with the drunks, ThePhanVan pulled up. Leen said, "I think that's ThePhan, because I know she has a huge van like that. Oh, and incidentally, those are also her relatives inside of it." Heh.

The rest of the evening was spent talking and quoting jokes about Saturday that ThePhan didn't get. (TP: YOU MUST COME FOR THE WHOLE THING NEXT YEAR KTHXBYE.) Talking was probably the most fun "event" of the entire weekend, even though I was too tired in the evening to do much but listen. (I took some ribbing from my roommates about how quickly I fell asleep in a time zone an hour *ahead* of my own.) The oddest thing about the RU was that the dynamics of it were exactly like chat. The people who took the foreground of the conversations at the RU were the same ones who do that in Chat. The atmosphere changed based on who entered and left the room, just like in Chat. At points, I could *feel* myself "going idle" or "greying out." It was bizarre, in a cool way.

Sunday we drove to Rocky Mountain National Park, which is, as Sam so helpfully pointed out in a memo before the RU, in the Rockies. I rode with ahmo and the Ticia Group. We only got lost once for a few miles, but got to see some pretty scenery because of it. The longest conversation I had with any one person the entire weekend occurred on the ride, with Abby, whom I sat next to. Most of it made very little sense, but it was great anyway. I taught her how to work my dad's old Nikon and she sat there taking pictures of her knees (one reason I didn't get more pictures than I did -- my batteries died shortly thereafter). She is a firecracker. ;-)

The time at the park was a lot of fun. We did a lot of hanging out (obviously). Ticia got Sam with her "Look, there's Stephen!" while we were waiting for Stephen's load of people to show up with the charcoal. Sam grilled burgers and hot dogs, with the addition of only a little bit of, ahem, "mineral supplement" to select pieces.

Oh, yes, also, ahmo stole food from a pregnant woman.

After eating, there was more hanging out and talking with swordfighting outbreaks sprinkled throughout. Sam found a rock to stand on. ahmoacah took a nap on a picnic table. Dave beat Stephen to death. (Okay, not really, but that would be a fun event for next year.) Abby and Rose ganged up on Enigma at one point, grabbing his legs and pulling him off the picnic table and onto the ground, giggling ferociously all the while. Rose later decided to whack Enigma repeatedly in the stomach with one of Mommy and Daddy's swords, giggling every time she hit him. (Of course, the rest of us found this hilarious.)

Around two-thirty, we took the group picture and started moseying out because the sky looked a bit threatening. I packed once back in the room, and started to try to figure out how I was getting to the airport since I was the only person leaving Sunday (if I make it next year, you can bet your hiney this will be different). The shuttle service, after putting me on hold FOREVAR, told me they couldn't come get me. To which I was like, "You're a freaking *shuttle service*. Picking people up is what you *do*." Okay, I thought, I'll just take the bus. So I asked about buses at the front desk and was informed that buses do not run in Westminster on Sunday. To which I was like, "?!??!" I was also informed that a taxi would be about eighty bucks to get me to the airport. Hell no. Sam marched up to the counter and asked the girl to double-check the bus schedule to make sure, whereupon she began consulting with another employee. They went back and forth while we tried to figure out what to do.

I really didn't want to make anyone drive me, since the point of the RU is to be part of the group and all. Someone (I want to say famous, but I don't know for sure; I was kind of distracted at the time) suggested that everyone in the group would pitch in five dollars to help me pay for the taxi. When I insisted I couldn't take people's money, Sam said, "Look, do you want to be banned? Because I can arrange that." Silly.

It was then I learned God really does send angels. Between all of this, we were going back and forth between the lobby and my room, which was just down the hall. At one point, when I was back in the lobby, a random woman staying at the hotel came up to me and said she couldn't help overhear what was going on. She had called her boyfriend who lives in the city and he had told her that RTD buses did indeed run every half-hour on Sundays. I didn't know how to thank her. The idiots at the front desk were STILL discussing whether or not the buses ran.

ahmoacah ran to her room and produced a daily schedule. It showed that if I were going to make it to the airport, I needed to leave NOW. So I ran to grab my stuff, a little procession of Rinkies following me. It sucked because I didn't get to say goodbye to everyone (Ticia, Don, Maryam, TalkingDog, Stephen, Mia, and Dave I missed), but I got a round of hugs from famous and Enigma (who got a ball cap brim to the eye) and Sam and Leen and ThePhan and Randy. wintermute got voluteered to drive me to the park and ride down the street. ahmoacah and someone else (Enigma? Man, my memory is horrible) squeezed in, too. They dropped me off, we said goodbyes, and I called my mother to let her know I would be on my way home shortly.

Now, being on the phone is a dangerous thing when you drive, because you don't pay attention. The same can be said of riding on the bus. Namely, I got on the wrong one.

The AB, which I was supposed to be on, was supposedly a straight shot from the park and ride to the airport. About ten minutes into the trip, the driver stopped to let someone off.

Crap crap jiggle jiggle.

Indeed, I had gotten on the B, not the AB. Keep in mind, I have no idea about buses, never having ridden one before. So I get off at the stop and sit there for a second, trying to figure out what to do.

"S***," I said aloud.

That was when I encountered my second angel of the day. A girl about my age was sitting on the other side of the stop and asked me what was wrong. So I explained that I had caught the wrong bus in an unfamiliar city, had no idea where to go from here, and was probably going to miss my plane as a result. Oh no, she said. So, for the second time, a complete stranger called her boyfriend to help me out. (These boyfriend things evidently come in quite handy. Maybe I should look into getting one. Riiiiight.) She got me the number for RTD and told me they would give me directions. Catch the 100 back to the park and ride, they told me. I hung up. Great, I thought, how the hell do I know where the 100 is?

Well, Angel #2 knew where it was, and walked me across the street and down the block to it. I couldn't thank her enough.

"No problem," she said. "My bus is running way late anyway." She smiled and walked back. I vowed then and there to be a nicer person, heh.

I caught the 100, caught the AB at the park and ride, and made it to the airport and through security with half an hour to spare. My plane was delayed about an hour due to thunderstorms, which gave me enough time to get dinner and ice cream, thus finishing off my RU experience the same way it began.

I'm already planning what I'm going to do in case I can make it to the next one.

La"Special thanks to everyone for putting up with me"Zorra