I’m sure I’ve written about it already, it’s hard to keep track when everything is kept offline, but I’m not going to Dragon*Con this year, and I’m frankly at peace with that choice. At the same time, I don’t see the need to make an announcement over social media or anything because I’m really nobody, and nobody is going to care anyway. I also don’t want to be perceived as a downer dunking on the con, because I don’t dislike the convention one bit, it’s just that I can’t seem to find the magic recipe in order to actually have a good time anymore. So instead of risking impeding the anticipation and excitement for others, I’ll just keep quietly to myself writing my thoughts on a brog that isn’t even online.
But back to the point, if omens really did exist, then I think it’s a good thing that I’m skipping out this year. I’m not sure how many outside of Atlanta actually heard, but at the Sheraton AKA the hotel where goers usually have to go pick up their registrations, there was an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease, which is basically pneumonia on steroids not too long ago, and the hotel has been under a lot of fire and criticism about their sanitation and safety. A lot of people were afflicted with the ailment, and there was one reported death attributed to it.
There was a lot of speculation on whether or not the hotel could get the green light before Dragon*Con or not, to which of course they would, because Labor Day weekend is such a cash meteor for the entire city, that the Sheraton is going to damn well make sure that they can take part in collecting from the money printer as well. But the fact of the matter is that they did do a rush job in order to get cleared, which they supposedly are, but skeptics like me can’t help but wonder just what shortcuts were taken in order to get the green light, and honestly short cuts are what probably led to the hotel becoming a ground zero for Legionnaires’ in the first place.
Thankfully, I’ve never been a Sheraton guy, as most of my friends and I have always been Marriott people. But I definitely know people who are staying at the Sheraton, and of course they’re going to be a packed house, and I certainly hope that nobody comes out of the weekend with any weird ailments or reason to believe that the Legionnaires’ outbreak wasn’t adequately taken care of, in pursuit of money.
However, one incident is just that, but two incidents now makes it a story; and just earlier in the week, the Hyatt Regency, one of the founding core hotels of the con, reported their own fatal news, when a man was found dead after falling 11 stories, basically into the lobby bar where everyone gets their rum buckets from.
Naturally, one can’t help but wonder how a person would make this fall, and more importantly how could this fall have occurred without some sort of foul play being in the equation. Thankfully, nobody really had to wait that long to get the details, and it turns out that a man on the 11th floor exposed himself to a housekeeper, and while attempting to escape security, the guy thought he was a parkour master, and attempted to leap from the 11th floor down to the 10th floor, where he would presumably book it down the stairs and escape cleanly, Italian Job—style. But because he was no parkour master, he instead missed and crashed to his death in the lobby bar.
It’s not even Dragon*Con yet, and people are already acting like idiots in the Hyatt.
Obviously, there are no tears shed for some perverted shithead flashing hotel workers, but the fact remains that among two of the prominent four core hotels have the cloud of death and disease floating over them going into the biggest financial tourism boon weekend of the year for the city of Atlanta. Not that either is going to put anything remotely close to a dent in the festivities, I can’t help but feel a little bit of relief that I’m not going to be there.
I obviously don’t really buy into omens and the notion that these two things all but guarantee that some nasty shit is going to happen at the con, but I dunno, it’s still kind of a metaphor or some sort of symbolism that things are, or are close to, getting out of hand. I wouldn’t put it past the attendees of Dragon*Con to where someone(s) will dress up as a zombie or a corpse to symbolize one or both of these incidents, because it’s one weekend of the year where decorum isn’t necessarily expected of people.
Ultimately, I’m still glad that I’m not going, and not even the people locally or those whom I work with that are also nerds going, have given me any sort of temptation or feeling of FOMO, and any creeping thoughts that I should crash for a night. However, that doesn’t mean that I don’t want everyone I know who is going, to not have a marvelous time, and I hope that they all have great weekends full of fun, laughter and classic stories, and see some great costumes.
I think I may go test drive some cars, maybe build some furniture, or even try and go for a run. Either way, I’m embracing the fact that I’m not going to be sinking $1,500 on hotels, parking and booze, and although I will miss seeing my old pals at the Peachtree Center Willy’s, it’s not like I couldn’t still go to Willy’s ever day at another location.
