Embedded Files
Scheduled Events
(that actually happened)
FRIDAY
Dueling Quotes
SATURDAY
Breakfast @ Eden Resort
Book Group
Dinner @ Cat's Meow 5PM
SteamWerk Ball @
Chameleon Club 9PM
SUNDAY
Skiffy Surprise Scavenger
Hunt
Paper Airplane Contest
Bake Off
Fireworks by
ExplosionMaster Paul
Name That Tune with
TuneMaster Bill
MONDAY
Breakfast @ Eden Resort
GrangeCon4 was held at the Eden Resort on July 4th weekend. This year we had a 2 floor Villa, #547, instead of the usual 2 suites in the main building. This gave us much needed space as well as a full kitchen but due to the additional cost there was a registration fee this year: $10 for the weekend, $5 for a day.
GrangeCon4 began on Friday evening July 2 and ended Monday July 5 at 1pm. GrangeCon4 was the most fun yet! We had 14 attendees staying over in the hotel and 7 who joined us every day.
Jess & Green joined GrangeCon for the first time (first SF Con?) and Kira, who was visiting the Raffensperger’s for the weekend, also attended for the first time.
Friday evening was quiet: settling in, visiting, catching up. All of the “con committee” (read that as gang, melee, or chaos) had an unbelievable amount of stuff to cart in, with Bret being the undisputed king of stuff (2 car loads). But WOW what great contributions. Bret is now officially our con decorator! He brought a stellar mobile of the solar system, which was hung from the chandelier; a green inflatable alien, which stood on the landing to the main floor, arm raised in greeting; an inflatable Dalek which was given its own name tag reading “Dale K Fleet”;and many posters which were hung around the main room. Everyone got take out for dinner and afterward we attempted Dueling Quotes, in which everyone attempted to guess the source of a given quote. This was only marginally successful – if any attendees have suggestions to improve this event please let us know!
Since we had a full kitchen with a built in eating area we had plenty of space for lots of munchies and drinks.
As Con Suites go, or even con parties, GrangeCon4 was better dressed and better stocked than any I have been to in a long time!
Traditional Saturday evening dinner
We convoyed out to Manheim to the Cat’s Meow for dinner. The Katz Klan, who had spent the day at Hershey Park, met us there as did as did Steph’s fiancé Tim, bringing the head count to 22 for dinner. A record?
New This Year! Paper Airplane Contest
Bill organized a paper airplane contest. Since the main floor had a cathedral ceiling and an open stairway to the 2nd floor it was ideal for this event. Everyone who wanted to take part made up to 3 designs. The flights were judged for time in the air and distance, with awards (books or DVDs) to the best in each category.
Skiffy Surprise
As promised, Skiffy Surprise Scavenger Hunt returned this year. The prizes this year were SF books and DVDs. Although there were multiple ways you could win a Skiffy Surprise the most fun, by far and away, was the Skiffy Surprise Scavenger Hunt for the hidden winning stickers on Sunday afternoon.
Bake Off
Bret won the coveted Frying Pan of Doom for his Vegetarian Chili. This year all the top contenders were main dishes or appetizers: Steph’s Sausage Dip, Roger’s BBQ chicken, and, of course, Bret’s chili. Green recognized the source of the Bake Off (the only person to do so!) and even though it was her first GrangeCon she brought her ‘Mum’s Muffins’ as an entry.
Bake Off Entries
Fireworks
After the Bake Off 10-12 of us trooped over to the empty parking lot across from the Eden Resort to set off fireworks. Unfortunately a security guard showed up so we decided to adjourn to a field down the street. The uneven surface did not lend itself to fireworks but we persevered. One of the most entertaining fireworks were the pyramids that whistle and sail off into the trees, onto housetops, etc. Green proved unusually adept at locating the spent pyramids, even in the dark!
Name That Tune
As usual, Name That Tune Tune (actually Name That Film from a snippet of its score) stumped everyone most of the time. No surprise there. Bill always has more faith in our memories than is warranted by our yearly performance. It does, however, elicit a discussion of films. In between Bill’s tracks Bret offered snippets of TV themes. This proved to be Pat’s forte. He astounded Bret by getting them within a few bars, often a few notes, and in some cases singing the entire theme song!
Source That Dialogue
Bill tried something long suggested by Cat, playing bits of dialogue extracted from films and asking the audience to identify the films. Unlike the movie scores game, this one proved too easy, partially because the extracted quotes were so well-known, but more so because in many cases the actor’s voice was immediately identifiable. The suggestion for next year is to have the excerpts printed out and read aloud by Bill (or whomever) to eliminate that identifier.
There were late night discussions; movies & movie discussions; communal breakfasts; gaming; and the Lancaster SF & Fantasy Book Group discussed Robert Sawyer’s WWW.Wake, a Hugo nominee, at pool side. Nate, Paul, and Bill created the GrangeCon4 (faux) Program Book for the entertainment of all. Hopefully we will have it uploaded and available for viewing on the site.
Attendees – Staying over
Cat Calhoun – leader of the Lancaster SF/Fantasy Book Group & co-chair of GrangeCon
Paul Calhoun - author in residence & explosion master
Bill Brown – co-chair of GrangeCon
Bret Bowen – leader of the E-town SciFi Group
Steph Allen
Nate Snelbaker - our master of hilarity
Roger Katz
Marisa Katz
David K
Christine
Ryan
Megan
Pat O’Neill
Jill O’Neill
Attendees – Day Trippers
Jackie
Bryan
David R
Racheal
Kira
Jess
Green
Cat 8.10.10
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