NOTE: At several points, I mention that I don't remember something. If anybody does remember what I don't, please post a reply. The record must be as complete as possible! Or...or bad things will happen!

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Darleen and I pulled into the Comfort Inn in Erlanger, Kentucky, around 2:30 and asked at the desk if famous (well, I used her real name) had checked in yet. Much to our shock, she hadn't. We were the first to arrive, it seemed, which is just ALL WRONG, because I had to sustain the initial adrenaline that accompanied catching sight of the Comfort Inn sign from the highway (another one of those needlessly tall pole signs) for an indefinite period afterward. I called her house on my cell phone and emphatically demanded that she come immediately.

Some hours later, she did, and I met Monkeyman and Travholt, and after I spent all kinds of time trying to pronounce his real name (not bad on the first name, utter failure on the last), I showed them the humongous room we had landed for the next day. It was about the size of the double room we only paid half of for RinkUnion II. It turned out later that a mistake had been made, and that wasn't the room we were supposed to have after all. But we got it until dinner on Saturday anyway.

So we hung out in the conference room Friday night, which turned out to be very convenient, because, although we weren't that loud (Dave and Stephen being absent), we were pretty far away from anyone we would bother with noise.

Somehow we wound up in the lobby again, and by and by, a throng of familiar people entered -- Cynthia, Kaz (introduced by Cynthia as her fiance), flyingcats, James, and Zarniwoop. Shortly thereafter, Cynthia made the first RinkChat joke of the weekend by saying "slash away" before momentarily leaving the conference room. I noticed the sliding bolt on the door and did a "slash private" number.

When ahmoacah popped in the conference room, everybody applauded and shouted "Encore!" I don't know why. Enter Mr. and Mrs. Grishny, too. That Mrs. Grishny! I go to greet her and say, "How are you doing?" and she recoiled from me with wide eyes and exclaimed, "What did you say?!?" and I said, "I said, 'How are you doing?'" and she said, "I thought you said you were going to kill me!" And I was agape and shocked and said, "I wouldn't say that!" and then added, "I'd at least wait until tomorrow." And she said, "Sam, I like you, but you're weird," and absolutely everybody laughed.

Yeah, well, I wasn't the one wearing a T-shirt with a picture of a one-antlered moose and the caption, "Is that your FINAL antler?"

A bit before eight, we gave up waiting for others for dinner, so I jotted a note on the big sign I had put in the lobby ("RinkWorks, Kenton Room ----->") that we would be at the Cracker Barrel down the road, and we all piled into vehicles and took off. I'll just interject a note to say that, unlike RU3, we were never short on vehicles but generally had gobs of room to spare, and this made things generally so much less stressful. Of course, the fact that we were driving around in Kentucky (admittedly a Cincinnati suburb) instead of absurdly overpopulated and road deficient San Diego made a big difference, too.

The Cracker Barrel was mobbed. The giant porches Cracker Barrels are famous for were packed. There was no way we were getting 14 people in there in a reasonable amount of time. But I figured I'd pop out and check anyway. If you're counting, you'll note we only had 13 people by that point, but Monkeyman stayed behind at the hotel, expecting Issachar to arrive at any time, and they would meet us there.

Anyway, it turned out the wait would only be 30 minutes or so, so I hopped back out to tell the people in our car not to shoo away the other cars in our convoy, because we could eat here after all. I jogged ALL THE WAY AROUND THE BUILDING before I saw them or they saw me, because THEY ARE LAME.

While we were waiting, and just moments before our tables were ready, four more people arrived: Selah, her mother Julia_AM, Gahalyn, and TOM. But accommodating four more people was not a problem. I didn't meet any of them, though, until we were already seated, and moments later Issachar showed up, too. We were split between two different tables, and ours included Travholt, who was trying out southern country cooking for the first time. It's hard to know what he liked and didn't like, although I'm pretty sure he liked the fried apples (a favorite of famous' and mine) and did not like the dumpling part of the chicken dumplings, which are not really dumplings at all but slimy stuff in sauce, and I sympathized with his feeling on those. Meanwhile, Grishny passed around a secret birthday card for The Scotsman, a hilarious construct with the professionalism and wit one would expect from someone who is both a graphic artist and a Rinkie. I had the honor of being immortalized in the card, which was made to look like the front page of a newspaper, although the capacity in which I was mentioned was in how I did not answer Grishny's memos.

Stuffed full, we convoyed back to the Comfort Inn. Everybody that was going to arrive that night had, already: the Rivikah/Mensekemeser car wasn't supposed to arrive until after midnight (after 3am, it turned out), and the Scotsmans (Scotsmen?) would not arrive until the next morning. Jonathan wouldn't arrive until the next morning either, because I guess he was driving his own car or something and, I dunno, had to work Friday night...I forget what Grishny said about that.

I also forget what time things started in the morning, although the official time was 8:30, and the actual time was closer to 9, as usual. Saturday's events went as smooth as they ever have: I must be getting the hang of it, because I never seemed to be terribly off schedule: things happened exactly when they should, with a comfortable amount of time around the edges. I like showing Sinbad before dinner, rather than after, as was the case at the first RinkUnion, because it leaves the evening completely free.

I began with the question, "Are you for RU4?" (Monkeyman was against it), and, in strict adherence to tradition, a joke or two at Darien's expense. Usually I plunge right into letting people give out whatever giveaway stuff they have, but it seemed to work better the way I did it this time, doing a thing or two first to get things rolling. And so I threw Bingo chips at people and explained why. The Bingo chips were a last-minute moment of inspiration, an idea conceived just the Wednesday before, when Leen and I went to Walmart to look around for jun--prizes to give out. We bought out Walmart's supply of little sewing kits in colored (orange, blue, purple, yellow/green) cases ripe for black markerdom, and I picked up a carton of magnetic Bingo chips which are not magnetic. I spent a good deal of that evening with the black marker, writing the RinkWorks "R" on one side. Originally I was going to put a "W" on the other, but it quickly became apparent that I would be sick of marking up bingo chips before I was done with the "R"s.

Anyway, famous got the first four Bingo chips, one for being at each of the four RinkUnions. She's the only one, now, besides Leen and I, who have been to all of them. Everybody else got one per RinkUnion, and then I started asking questions, more or less as a way to loosen people up and get into the swing of things, not that this is terribly necessary at a RinkUnion, even for most of the people who have never been to one before.

Most of the questions, with most of the answers:
- Who is the youngest person here? flyingcats
- Tallest? Travholt.
- Shortest? Cynthia.
- Most like Leen? Leen.
- Darkest hair? This was tough, and involved Kaz, Mensekemeser, and Selah stepping up for a closer look. If I remember correctly, Mensekemeser won it.
- Lightest hair? I don't remember who got this one.
- Darkest eye color? I don't remember this either.
- Lightest eye color? This resulted in at least three people coming up and sticking their eyes out at me as we tried to figure this out. Meanwhile, Leen spotted James hanging back, so she went over to him and made him come up, and as soon as he showed up, it was no contest. Good for you, Leen.
- Came the shortest distance? famous.
- Came the farthest distance? Travholt. But he had been here for a couple weeks, so I asked who came the farthest distance in the last couple days, and that, it turned out, was Leen. Not me, just Leen, because she picked me up at work on the way.
- Who was here first? Leen and I.
- Who was here last? Mr. and Mrs. Scotsman.
- Who is the loudest? I tossed a chip to Monkeyman before anyone could answer.
- Who is the quietest? Here I was really hoping people would pipe up and make cases for themselves, thereby disqualifying themselves, but that didn't happen. I ended up giving chips to several people, including James, Rivikah, Selah, and I don't know who else.
- Most likely to run a shelter for injured animals? Rivikah.
- Most likely to write an autobiography? famous, since she's already got one conceived.
- Most likely to compete in the Olympics? TOM, as I recall.
- Most likely to build a working hovercraft out of Tinker Toys? I don't remember, but if it wasn't Julia_AM, it should have been.
- Most likely to go to jail? Kaz had a relative in jail, so he came the closest.
- Most likely to become a stand-up comic? Don't remember.
- Most likely to become Editor-In-Chief of a newspaper? Julia_AM.
- Most likely to become a starship captain? Two winners; one was Monkeyman, because of that RU photo that looks like he's wearing the uniform, and I don't remember the other one.
- Most likely to take a walk in the rain? Several people claimed this one, so I narrowed it down by saying *cold* rain, and there were still a few.
- Most likely to build a machine to create rain? Don't remember.
- Most likely to fall asleep in the middle of a conversation? Don't remember.
- Most likely to read stories to children? Mrs. Scotsman, as she's a teacher.
- Most likely to genuinely frighten children when playing monster? Don't remember.

If anybody remembers who got the bingo chip for the ones I don't remember, please speak up.

Anyway, this was as structured as the Bingo chip dispensation ever got. Thenceforth, if you did something cool, you got a Bingo chip. The idea was, whoever had the most Bingo chips at the end of the day got to go home with the special prize of...more bingo chips than anybody else. The big winner was famous, who had 13, so that RU attendance came in handy.

It turns out, Julia_AM is, in her own way, as hardcore as The Mountain Man, but in a MacGyver sort of way. I don't know how many Bingo chips she wound up with, but throughout the day Saturday she was as studios at her table as Rivikah and Leen, and she kept coming up to me, saying things like, "Look, I made a picture of you out of wire," and "Look, I turned this styrofoam cup inside out," and "Look, I folded this Memory Game sheet into a book that opens four different ways," and everybody goggled, and I showered her with Bingo chips.

After dispensing the sewing kits, I opened the floor to others who had stuff to give out. There wasn't as much as usual, but Cynthia gave out RinkChat/AIM smiley tennis balls, and Gahalyn (later) gave out personalize construction paper constructs, and (also later) I gave out some bubble bottles left over from RU3 (the ones Leen had with her business card on them, until a bottle leaked and mucked them all up).

So we got to what is one of my favorite parts, certainly my favorite part to prepare for, which is the reading of stupid emails. Unbeknownst to me, Grishny was videotaping the whole thing and apparently later went home and watched it, I dunno, twelve times in a row, and on Sunday he was quoting bits of emails to me that even I didn't immediately remember.

Somewhere in there I did my 733t impressions, including one of Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire, a special request of Mousie's for RU3, except that I forgot to do impressions at all at that one, and Mousie wasn't there for this one, so next time I see her, if I remember, I will do an encore presentation of it for her. Anyway, everybody was dazzled at my impressions, because it's like the people I'm impersonating are really right there. It's uncanny, I tell you.

I skipped bringing Moxie last year, because it would have been cumbersome on the plane to California, but I made sure I had some this year, and I particularly made sure that Rivikah, who somehow managed to successfully turn it down it RU2, broadened her horizons. She thought it was awful, as did most others, but Zarniwoop loved the stuff, and Gahalyn liked it too except that she can't have caffeine and so she could only have a little. There were some great facial reactions, some caught in pictures, but I'm pretty sure that nothing will top Ellmyruh's expression from two years ago. Moxie, if you are not aware, is an old soda ("since 1884") that is pretty much only available in New England. Most New Englanders don't even like it, but it has a devoted following that keeps it on the shelves in grocery stores, if only a very small portion of the shelves.

I keep thinking that I won't do the Memory Game anymore, just like I keep thinking that I'll screen some other bad movie instead of Sinbad, but the thing is, the answers people give for the questions can be fascinating or funny or both, and it's a pretty good way to get to know people, particularly the ones that are scarce or quiet online. I asked mostly converses or variations of questions from last year: favorite word or phrase, least favorite sound, and something you'd most like to be or do if you could be or do anything. The stipulation on the last is that it had to be something theoretically possible in this world. As usual, people came up with some great answers. I tried to restrain myself from throwing out bingo chips during all this, but a couple people had answers that needed to be rewarded.

Mensekemeser was the big winner, winning the Official RinkWorks Soapdish and a bingo chip. He missed only two of the sixty six possible answers. I'd love to see a finals round between him and gremlinn. Gahalyn angled for a bingo chip by asking if I'd give one one to the person who got the most correct answers without any wrong answers, but the ploy failed, as Grishny earned the chip for that one -- he got something like 62 or 63 correct answers. James got a bingo chip for confessing to have the least correct answers, and his sheet was pretty interesting: most of the squares were filled in with "bacon." Leen's favorite word ("hungee") was given as "Hungee for bacon!"

Before the break for lunch, I did another quickie contest for...I forget the prize, but you had to write down all the RinkWorks features you could (acronyms permitted) in thirty seconds. I don't remember who won it, either, and I really should have written this up sooner.

People split up for lunch. Leen and I were with a group of nine or so that went to Applebee's, where Darien did not cook our food. Issachar taught us some origami with napkins, Travholt made Leen a bird out of notebook paper that survived the following week before we got home but in less pristine shape than it might have. The "WOW" on the napkins, menus, and billbooks could be turned upside down to read "MOM," which reminded famous to call hers.

Upon our return to the hotel, we saw the Grishnys and the Scotsmen having a cute little picnic together in front of the hotel, and I don't know why, but it looked so adorably idyllic that we, being mature adults and all, jeered and shrieked out the car window at them. Or something.

Back in the conference room, I did one more quickie contest before giving up the floor, and that was to write down as many RinkWorks black marker prizes from past RinkUnions, contests, and site market games as possible. famous and Gahalyn were the frontrunners on that one, and Gahalyn won it. I forget what she won.

And then I gave up the floor for one of the best parts of the RinkUnion. It's the part where I realize anew how talented a group we are -- I think I overheard a stray comment from Selah about not having realized that before, too. Cynthia did the deedly deedly song. Mrs. Grishny sang "Edelweiss," accompanied by Grishny on what he called his fiddle. Mr. and Mrs. Scotsman did some swing dancing, accompanied by an appropriate beat from Mensekemeser's keyboard (at first it was doing a polka thing, and I think it would have ruled if they had tried to swing dance to it). Mensekemeser played a composition of his own on his keyboard (which I really enjoyed and want to see in a musical someday). famous sang the Official RU4 Theme Song, written earlier in the day. Like any good theme song, it had a gratuitous rap interlude, performed by Issachar, which he wrote while famous was writing her part.

Julia_AM showed us some books that she had made, including one made out of a wax pear, another with an hourglass and watch gears embedded in the cover, and another she had cut and folded quickly out of one of the Memory Game sheets that could contain four separate stories depending on which way you open the front cover. The pages of these books (except this last one) were accordion pages, filled with beautiful calligraphy and artwork. Leen and I looked at her books more closely the next day, and she showed us her journal as well, which she says there are no rules for, regarding the aesthetics of the writing inside, but it's clear the creative side of her mind never stops working: whereas most journals pretty much just have writing on the lines, every page of hers has text angled in different directions, bumping up with differently angled and colored writing, waves and spirals and patterns and diagrams.

Anyway, things naturally devolved into party tricks from there. We had a small line-up of people doing eye-crossing tricks, accompanied by exclamations of, "Euhhhhhh!" from the audience, and Travholt earned the very last bingo chip by swatting the back of his head and making a water drop sound.

Then came the requisite viewing of "Sinbad of the Seven Seas." There were about six or seven who hadn't seen it before, and many of those who had hadn't seen it for a while. I started out on the floor in front, but Zarniwoop kept rolling on me and trying to hold my hand, so I moved to a chair in the back, near Issachar and The Scotsman, who seemed to be the most outwardly enthusiastic viewers, to the point where Iss started brainstorming the creation of a Sinbad board game the next day, with help from The Scotsman, Grishny, and several others.

Actually the real reason I moved to the back is much more interesting. Right around the middle of the movie, the hotel people discovered the mix-up with the conference rooms. Somewhere in the chain of communication, someone gave us the wrong room. The room we were in would be required by a wedding party that evening. Everyone was apologetic, and no one cared that we were in the wrong room so much as the prospect of a scheduling conflict. So a guy from the hotel popped by the room to talk to me. But it was practically pitch dark, and the worst movie ever was blaring out loud, so he found Leen, who was hanging out in the back of the room, and she tried calling me through the noise and across the body- and chair-strewn floor. Finally she got my attention, and I hurdled my way over and spoke with the guy. We stepped out of the room a bit, but you could still hear the wooden dialogue, and I was just dying to know what thoughts were going on behind his stoic exterior. I mean, it can't be every day that groups book their conference rooms so they can watch the most horrid movies imaginable and laugh insanely at them. "Horrible movie," I commented briefly, but he didn't react. Anyway, he asked how long we'd need the room, and I told him we'd like a conference room into the night but that we could be out of this one in an hour or so. He went to relay the message, and I hung in back from then on in case he came back.

He didn't, but later someone came to tell me I was wanted on phone at the desk. It turned out to be Ciaran. Bad timing, unfortunately; it's generally a bad idea to call RinkUnions just because there is almost never a time when attention can be paid. But I got to speak with him for a minute before I thought it best to surrender the desk phone and pop back into the movie.

"That's terrible," Julia_AM said to me, aghast in a composed sort of way after the movie had ended. It's always great to see the reactions of people who were previously unaware that any movie could be so bad. While the movie was playing, by the way, she had been at work making Official RinkWorks Cookies: Oreos with the RinkWorks "R" on it in frosting, complete with red stripe. RinkWorks and food go together so well, it's shocking that no one thought to create RinkWorks Food before.

It turned out to be a good thing that we had to evacuate the room then, because the worst part of RU Saturdays is cleaning up at midnight. We cleared the room and broke for dinner. People went their separate ways to eat. I was with the group that went to Steak and Shake, which was the first time Leen and I had been there. I described the restaurant in my earlier post, but there is more to say about this particular dining experience. We were seated at a table where the sun came through mottled glass so brightly that half of us couldn't see, so we scooted down a table. And then we wound up having a most bizarre waitress. I couldn't figure her out. She was nice but...strange. Here's an example of an exchange with her: after taking half the lunch orders of people at the table, she went back to famous and asked, "Did you want anything on your grilled cheese?" and she said she didn't, and she said, "Not that you would!!" and cracked up...strangely. People are funny.

Upon our return, we invaded a second conference room, much smaller but perfectly adequate for the reduced spatial requirements of an informal evening. Quite exhausted as I usually am by this point, I brought our pillows down, lined up chairs to lie on, and chatted with people as others played board games. We adjourned a bit after midnight.

By 9:30 the next morning, more or less everybody had congregated in the hotel lobby, and we meticulously copied down and went over directions that turned out to be completely irrelevant to the route we would have to take to Eden Park except for the name "Eden Park." Specifying "between Twin Lakes" was a modest help in finding where to go once inside the park, but there were no signs saying what or where Twin Lakes were until you were already there.

To be fair, the lady at the desk said she knew the route but didn't know what signs or landmarks to look for, as she knows the area well enough that she doesn't pay attention to such things. And since there is only one tunnel on I-71 north through Cincinnati, surely it must be the Lytle Tunnel mentioned in her directions to us, though it was not marked as such. But the exit sign for two particular streets did not have either on them.

Somehow, we all got there anyway. The Grishnies (and Gahalyn, who was staying at their house) were last even though they were the ones without the bad directions. We had no problems finding a large enough area and a grill. There was a chess tournament going on across one of the ponds, and a ways in front of us was a nice scenic view of the (brown) Ohio River and Kentucky across the way. I had stocked up on Pepsi, Mountain Dew, Code Red, and 7up when 12-packs when on sale for $2 (!) back home, so I loaded up our cooler with those and some left-over Moxie, almost all of which, I think, was consumed by Zarniwoop, who is clearly not right in the head.

We were short on lawn games; I intended to bring some quoits down and only realized the day before we left that my set of quoits is at my parents' house. But there was a frisbee, which I don't think hit any cars despite some close calls, and there was a beach ball, too, which seemed to gravitate toward those of us who were not playing.

The ordeal with the burgers is documented already in famous's write-up, and I don't care to recall it here, because meat that does not cook when placed over a thousand degree heat is personally frustrating to me. Still, thanks to famous, Rivikah, and Julia_AM, it all worked out. Meat is good. Leen and I brought chips and cheese puffs as well, and Julia_AM put together more RinkWorks Cookies.

Pictures were snapped from all angles, and they probably tell the story of the day better than words can. It was largely uneventful, except that we all had a great time *being* with each other and doing the sorts of things that cannot be done online. A close-knit community with such a lack of human contact is a trying thing.

As far as how smoothly it went, this was easily the best RinkUnion, due largely to the simplicity of Sunday's activities and the lack of tricky transportation logistics. For the first time since the first RinkUnion, which only had nine people, I actually felt that I could get around to see and talk to everybody at least a little bit.

Issachar had to leave first, as he was driving back the same day, but it wasn't much longer than we all started heading back to the hotel anyway. Julia_AM took Selah, Gahalyn, and TOM in her van, and they headed east. The rest of us went back to the hotel, and our vehicle was the first to arrive. But we hadn't lounged there long, waiting for the others, when the Grishnies and ahmoacah showed up and said that Rivikah's car wouldn't start. Leen and I drove back to bring Rivikah a cell phone and some comfort and see what the plan was going to be. Rivikah, Mensekemeser, and Monkeyman were still there, sprawled out on the lawn in front of the car. It turned out that Rivikah's car had periodically had this sort of trouble, and her mechanic said she'd get to Ohio but not necessarily back. That was looking to be the case. But when it started an hour or so later, after the afternoon heat had cooled off, we concluded that the engine was pretty temperature sensitive. And if they'd only stop at populated areas on the way back the next day, they'd make it all right. But during that hour or so, Monkeyman called a tow truck, and I coordinated with famous, back at the hotel, to make sure that the Cynthia car would be available for her if she needed transportation after we had left, because we were leaving with famous that evening. The tow truck never arrived; when, on a whim, Rivikah tried to start her car again and it worked, Monkeyman called back and said we didn't need one after all.

It occurs to me that there has only been one RinkUnion so far without someone having car trouble of some sort. Darien and Mina had it on the way back after the first one, and Dave had it on the way back after the third one. I think we're due for a no-car-trouble one next year.

After we got back to the hotel, we said pretty quick goodbyes, because I can't tell you how tired we all were and how nice the thought of spending the night in a quiet famous house was. It took the edge off saying goodbye to people, but it only lasted until the next day, and then I started missing everyone again.

Well, there's only eleven or twelve more months until the next one.