I just got back from a weekend in the Bay Area. I was down there as part of a promotion for GenCon Southern California (which is next month). Basically, Peter Adkison, who owns GenCon now, has been going to a different city each weekend and making promo stops at assorted game stores. Green Ronin was invited to participate and I chose the San Francisco/Sacramento leg of the tour. I stayed with my old comrade Aaron Loeb, who in addition to being a dear old friend is also the author of Book of the Righteous. Aaron was kind enough to drive me to the stores and help me promote Green Ronin. We visited four stores, one Friday, two Saturday, and one Sunday. We spent 2-3 hours at each store, meeting people, answering questions, handing out catalogs and the like. It’s also always interesting to talk to the store owners and managers and get their perspective on things, especially the folks that run outstanding stores (and two of those visited qualify). While the start was a bit rocky (turns out the first store was 99% minis, 1% RPGs), it got better at each stop and I’m glad I went.

The store we were at today, Great Escape Games in Sacramento, had a selection of Osprey books in addition to game stuff. Needing some reading for the plane ride, I selected World War I Trench Warfare, 1916-1918. Read the whole thing on the way home and it was quite interesting. The more I read about WWI, the more I think that the accepted truths about it are complete horseshit. I would elaborate, but it’s late and I’m tired.

Tomorrow, on to the next GR book (finished the previous one Friday before I left). No R&R; this week I guess.