DragonCon 2006: Last Day Monday

Monday is a little more sedate at DragonCon. Even though programming runs until 5:00, many people spend the morning checking out of the hotel to save on an extra night.

We spent the previous night shaking our groove things at the Drum Circle after the Yule Ball so we slept in a little. The drum circle made veritate and Lexial want to take up bellydancing again, and made defender75 and I want to hit the Gym. We are coming back to D*Con as bronzed gods.

I honestly don't remember much of Monday. I don't think I wore a costume beyond my geek patch shirt. I had a nice little lunch then off to some panels.

First up was "Unsolved Codes" hosted by Elonka Dunin, a noted cryptographer. First she debunked the Da Vinci Code as the load fiction that it is. Then she gave a brief review of her work with Kryptos, the Code challenge sculpture on the CIA grounds. She is the leading expert on Kryptos and is very passionate about the work, the artist and its eventual solution.

She also reviewed some of the world's famous unsolved codes, including the Voynich Manuscript. I was a little disappointed to find out that she thinks the work is a hoax, as it has intrigued me for several years. I will save a detailed explanation of the Voynich Manuscript for another post, but I will include a sample page to show why it is so compelling.

The next panel up was "The Wikipedia Effect" which I was quite excited for as I am a strong supporter of Wikipedia, but the presentation was directed towards convincing neophytes of the value of the project, and not to long time contributors. I left this panel early.

• Panel Count Monday: Two
• Total Panel Count: Seven, a record?

We hit the dealers room for some last minute deals as things were shutting down. I wore my "Down with Pants, Up with Kilts" shirt and got a few compliments on it. Mark Goddard (Major Don West from Lost in Space) told me it was a good shirt, and asked about all the Kilts worn at the convention. "Is there a show on now where some guy wears a kilt?" He asked, thinking the Utilikit was an homage. I informed him that, "No, the are just fun to wear."

And then the event was done. Not with a bang but with a *sigh, that was fun lets do it all again soon*.

Our whole squad got together for the first time Monday in preparation for dinner. Individual schedules kept us in smaller "fireteams" through the weekend so it was nice to see everyone all at once.

(missing from this picture is iRob/iJenn as they had to leave early for home)

We all want to go back again sometime, though for me it may be an every-other-year thing to save money. I will eventually post some conclusions I came to during my trip, but that will have to wait.

Yours in Fandom
Drhaggis.

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Dragoncon 2006, Elonka Dunin, Kryptos, Convention report, Fandom