ABCon 2018 Memphis, Tennessee
May 15-21, 2018
Clear, Scattered T-Storms, Cloudy
85°-92°
(ABCon = The Amazon Basin Convention – an online gaming Community)
“A gathering of friends who play games together”
The trek to Memphis this year to ABCon was an interesting one. For the last eighteen years, members of The Amazon Basin computer gaming guild have gotten together for a long weekend of fun, food, music, and the occasional game playing. At these events computer gaming is not the primary reason to get together annually; it is the friendship’s that have formed over the years and the social interaction of being together outside the computer gaming world that is the big draw. It is a chance for “virtual” friends to meet up face to face, share a drink, funny stories, and leave our computer world’s to become real life friends.
What started as a back yard Barbecue in 2000 has turned into a true gathering of friends, our extended family from all walks of life that get together and spend time with one another. Each year, we move the location around the country to make it easier for everyone to afford traveling to these events. We have even held them internationally. We have gathered together in fifteen different cities in the US and Canada with the first Las Vegas ABCon in 2005 bringing over 100 people from about twelve different countries to have fun. One year, it was held on a cruise ship out of New Orleans for a Caribbean party.
Every year it seems “food” is a major draw for everyone as meals are planned and cooked by several of those attending. A “Sekret” dinner location is chosen somewhere in the city where the event is held. This year in Memphis we ate at Memphis Barbecue Company, Pitmaster World Champion Melissa Cookston’s Restaurant.
Memphis BBQ Co
She is the “winningest woman in BBQ” having won 10 world championships and that great meal did not disappoint anyone. Fresh ingredients and nice flavors set this apart from many other BBQ joints. We ordered two of the “World Championship platters” which was a large trash can lid filled with two racks of ribs (baby back and pork ribs), brisket, pulled pork, BBQ chicken, sausage, corn on the cobb, fries, onion rings and cornbread.
We had 2 of these Can lids of food – Before
Can lid of food – After Dinner
It really was a championship platter of food.
This online gaming community is a very close knit group. Once we started meeting, it became even more so as the years have gone by. We lost one member in the tragedy of 9/11. Over the years, we have seen many births by members thus creating a second generation of gamers. Sadly, there have been illnesses and deaths within the Community, but the future is bright as some of our younger members when we started have graduated from high school, college, and are now in the business world. Playing together online has led many of us to become the best of friends in real life. From across the miles, we look forward to getting together each year to enjoy a beer or two, tell stories, and share what has been happening in our lives since the last gathering.
There are currently eight separate guilds for different games and several more that have closed since the game became outdated or membership shifted to other games. At the height of this Community there were over 20,500 members with active members ranging in the 5,000 to 7,000 range. This changes somewhat as older games fade out and newer games replace others. On the forum boards there have been over one million five hundred thousand posts by the membership, again showing what a strong online presence we have in the gaming community.
This year we rented a large house in the suburbs of Memphis, Tennessee with a private gated entrance.
There was the main house with multiple bedrooms,
a separate pool house with sleeping quarters
and a nice pond (did I say fishing anyone?) with many turtles swimming around giving this a beautiful country feel to this place not far from the city.
Pond
People drove or flew in from all over the country and I came in the motor home.
Everyone had somewhere nice to stay this week.
Music was provided again this year by several of the “Bacon Boys” (a whimsical twist on ABCon) members who bring their instruments to the gatherings to provide nightly music or sing a long’s. This year it truly was “back porch pickers” as the full length screened porch was this year’s music venue.
Back porch music venue
Colin and Fredrick provided a nice duo and anyone could get up and join them in the fun as this has happened many times over the years.
Bacon Boys - Colin and Fredrick playing the night away
One of the founding Bacon Boys members, Jim Brown, passed away last year and his presence both musically and his humor was surely missed. Several other members did not make it due to unforeseen circumstances so this year’s music was more acoustical in nature but still sounded so nice to everyone.
As with each city that we have gone to for ABCon, people went to various activities to take in the culture, local food, or attractions. This year groups went to the Gibson guitar factory, The Escape Room,
Escape Room gang won with 1 minute, 25 seconds to spare! Great Job
Beale Street, The Lorraine Motel (site of Dr. King’s assassination),
The Lorraine Motel sign
Room 306 Where Dr. KIng was shot outside the door.
and several BBQ places since this week was the “Memphis in May World Championship BBQ Cooking Contest”. 230 teams from 25 states and several foreign countries were here competing.
For Friday night’s meal, David grilled K-bobs
David K-bobs
and Saturday night, I grilled pork ribs while Jan made potato salad so with everything we had all the fixins’. As expected, it was a hit before the music got cranked up. Colin and Fredrick played three sets until late into the night giving us great music all night long. A few people played board games during this Con so everyone had a little bit of what they came for. It was another success for those planning this year’s event.
What’s up for next year? A ski ABCon in Lake Tahoe, see ya there!