I woke up at 5:00 (in the morning, to my surprise there really is one there) tiptoed past my sleeping family, took a shower (to try to give a lie to the standard convention stereotype), jumped in my car and headed north. This is how one of the most enjoyable days in recent memory started. I was excited because I was headed across the border to Breakthrough 2003.

Barreling up I-5 (the traffic was surprisingly light), I stopped at two McDonalds for breakfast, watched the full moon go down as the sun came up and listened to Al Franken's latest book on tape.

At 7:45 I passed the peace arch and approached the Canadian border. Now I am not a terrorist, a drug smuggler, or even a U.S. merchant trying to get my merchandise across the border without paying customs, but borders always make me nervous. Granted, the Canadian border has always been a bit easier than the U.S. given that they sit in their booths and ask probing questions rather than swaggering out to your car with prominently displayed sidearms to ask probing questions; but in the end, they both make me nervous.

I was a bit worried about the wait, but 5 minutes and 40 seconds after pulling into line I was handing over my expired passport and telling the nice man (he looked to be of East Indian extraction, why are ours always big white guys with short hair?) that I was going to a toy soldier convention. I had chosen this way to describe what we do because "Historic Miniature Wargames Convention" is a mouthful when you are nervous (have I mentioned that borders make me nervous), and contains the attention getting word "war", bringing up images of secret (and presumably small in this case) private military training bases. Whereas admitting out-loud that I am going to play with toy soldiers immediately put me in a "non- threat" class (it probably put me in a "kinda kooky, why doesn't he do something better with his time" class too, but that's OK).

My strategy seemed to work well, because he was immediately interested only in what I had brought to sell; I had transferred from 'potential threat to Canada' to 'potential threat to Canada's balance of trade'. Oddly he did not then ask how long I would be there, maybe he did not care as long as I was buying Canadian toy soldiers and not the other way around.

Much as I am irrationally nervous about going through customs, I am unaccountably excited whenever I go to a foreign country. Even though the vast majority of things in Canada are the same as the U.S. it is the subtle differences that spice it up. Driving north toward the convention, I encountered the always disturbing flashing green light. I still have no clue what this means; so I did what everyone else did: went right through. But it was a moment where I did not know quite what I was doing: a real thrill before 8:00 in the morning.

I arrived at the Hotel and pulled in to the underground parking. It would cost $3.00, so I pulled out three U.S. dollars and handed them to the guy in the booth. He stopped for a second and asked if I had a quarter. A tad confused, I handed over a quarter (I think it had the St. Louis arch on the back) and he gave me back a loony. What a great exchange rate, a quarter will get you a dollar; this was going to be a great convention.

I hustled upstairs to the convention room, and found that I had spent all of my free cash on Dick's Drive-In tshirts the day before (Christmas gifts for Australian cousins). Luckily Steve (our lovely and talented convention guy) let me sign up for the game I really wanted to play before I headed over to the mail to get money.

On they way I noticed that the 'walk' lights feature a guy who looks like he is stepping forward with his left foot and hand both extended, I am not sure if this is a subtle admonition to be careful crossing streets, but it did reinforce that I am in a foreign country, albeit not too foreign. Also, the cash machine (in addition to asking if I wanted the money from 'chequing') had a separate but equal button for getting your info in French, but it looked like it was used much less than the English one. Are there any of exclusive francophones in B.C?

Back at the convention, I got a chance to look around. The whole right half of the hall was taken up by DBM competition gamers. Now I do not really have a problem with competition gamers: I tend to be very tolerant of people with alternative lifestyles. It is cool for them, but I am pretty sure that it is not for me. I have heard some people decry competition gaming because it encourages ahistorical matchups, but that is not my problem; heck I even have red-shirted British with magazine rifles that fight Algerian Arabs, that's how ahistorical and wacky I can get.

No, my problem is that I am not a competitive guy, to have more on the line in a game than just watching a battle unfold with some really fun people is too high an ante for me. So I went over and watched the Fijians beating up on some Europeans (the airfare alone for that conflict ... ) The table at the center of the room seemed to be having much more fun than anyone else, then I realized that it was just the Kelly Jones affect: they were having more fun than the rest of us.

First Game

My first game was "The Breakfast Time of Man." What a silly game. But being silly is not a bad thing, in fact it was an absolute blast. With movement based on handspans (and NBA players penalized with the lack of a re-roll), it was luck heavy and extremely bloody (at least for the food). My Neanderthals took on a Cave ti~ar i ger, a Smilodon, and a Cave Be n rapid succession, only to lose on points to the tribe that took down the Mastadon. This was a perfect convention game: it moved so nicely that I noticed neither its silliness nor the passage of time.

I walked over to the Mall for lunch. It was a gorgeous clear day, with the sun up in the sky. I remembered that my wife had mentioned an eclipse, but that did not make sense, I had seen the moon go down this morning right? I got a sandwich, amidst the ubiquitous pretty women (what is it about Canada?), and noticed that a vast majority of people had little red rosettes on their lapels.

I later found out from David Sullivan (who was wearing one) that they are poppies for Remembrance Day. The odd thing to me was that it was not just one segment of the population wearing them (as you would probably find here in the States): young and old; male and female; dressy, casual, and downright ratty; they all wore their poppies.

Afternoon Game

In the afternoon I signed up for a gorgeous WWI trench warfare game. The terrain was amazing and the figures beautiful. While I was sifting there, waiting for it to start, I discovered to my horror that this was a two period game. I momentarily considered backing out, because I really wanted to try out Kevin's "Sky Galleons of Mars" game, but I was committed and like I said, this game was gorgeous.

It turns out this game was fun, too. It is good that it was two periods because it moved at a leisurely pace. I had a chance to talk with the guy sifting next to me, who went by the name 'The Angle' (some sort of old gang name I think) who was there with his son ('The Acute Angle?') from Newcastle, Washington.

It is always exciting to connect with a countryman abroad. Games seem to work well when everyone playing them is on the same page (or at least the same chapter), and here we all were: No one cared who won, we were all just fellow collaborators in making this reality unfold in front of us. It was like the conflict on the table took the place of any conflict between the people. It was great.

We broke for dinner and the guys running the game asked if we wanted to go eat with them. This was a new, but very welcome thing: I had not been asked to eat with gamers I had not previously known before. As we were walking over to Red Robin, I looked up and the moon was smiling at me: just a thin crescent at the bottom. Then it all fell into place: this was the LUNAR eclipse that my wife had mentioned.

I took a picture that I knew would turn out looking like a tiny white dot (and it did), and went to find a pay phone to call home. At dinner we had great conversations about anything and everything. And luckily it came up that these guys were from the North Vancouver Wargaming Cell, not, as I had mistakenly thought, the White Rock Cell (I am really, really sorry guys).

After we finished the game (our French lost, but is that really a surprise to anyone?) I jumped in my car and headed south. Blissfully listening to more Al Franken, I forgot that I had another border to cross. All of a sudden there it was and I knew it was going to be trouble. First off I had lost my voice and was afraid that I would sound like a godfather wannabe. But when I got to the border guard it got worse, when he heard about the toy soldier convention, he asked what scale. I mentioned 25mm and he looked at me blankly (but not unmenacingly) for a couple of seconds and then said "Oh, those metals... I do 1/32 Tamayas myself'.

For a few seconds I thought I had got myself in the middle of the old plastics vs. metals as well as the 'play with it' vs. 'just look at it' conflicts, and this guy had a (prominently displayed) gun. Luckily he let me go scot-free (I may never know why). Two and a half hours later (around midnight), I rolled into my driveway, my family still seemed to be sleeping, but I'd had a wonderful day.