Ravenwood Castle - A GWJ Friendly Travel Destination

And voted.

Thanks everyone. I personally appreciate all of your support, Thank you.

Thanks Nevin! I hope you guys are planning to come out again some time soon.

Thanks again for the votes guys. We'll find out this week if we made it into the finalist circle on this one or not. In other news:

We've hired one Assistant Innkeeper, a gamer we met at GenCon last year. We have an offer out to a second as well, so we're looking good on the staff side of things.

We also have more details on the Beer Tasting Weekend that I linked a few posts back. We've secured our second featured brewery: Thirsty Dog! Maumee Bay Brewing will be joining us Friday night, and Thirsty Dog will be joining us Saturday night. I think this is personally going to be my new favorite event.

Teneman wrote:

We also have more details on the Beer Tasting Weekend that I linked a few posts back. We've secured our second featured brewery: Thirsty Dog! Maumee Bay Brewing will be joining us Friday night, and Thirsty Dog will be joining us Saturday night. I think this is personally going to be my new favorite event.

I mentioned this to my wife. I really hope this is what I'm getting for Christmas

Kyekye wrote:
Teneman wrote:

We also have more details on the Beer Tasting Weekend that I linked a few posts back. We've secured our second featured brewery: Thirsty Dog! Maumee Bay Brewing will be joining us Friday night, and Thirsty Dog will be joining us Saturday night. I think this is personally going to be my new favorite event.

I mentioned this to my wife. I really hope this is what I'm getting for Christmas

I'll keep my fingers crossed for you, and look forward to hopefully sharing an adult beverage with you!

First, thanks for the votes guys, we made it into the finals for the Corporate Event Destination of the Year award. MonoCheli and I really appreciate it.

Second:

Nevin73 wrote:

I just hope you guys have some events like this (and the murder mystery events) in the spring, summer, and/or fall. It's just too far for us to drive through the hills of WV in the winter.

We haven't officially announced this yet (it should be on the blog next week), but you may want to take a look at the newly updated Con in the Castle page. It's in the summer. It involves games, barbecue, and Richard Launius. And while there won't be an official beer tasting, there will be lots of beer to taste...

Actual barbecue, or grilling?

Actual barbecue, or grilling?

Isn't barbecue about the sauce, not the heat source?

Malor wrote:
Actual barbecue, or grilling?

Isn't barbecue about the sauce, not the heat source?

Not at all, and here we have one potential issue.

The other is with people who claim to "barbecue" hamburgers, or even hot dogs.

Getting back to your question: Texas barbecue (I won't claim expertise on other sorts) doesn't receive sauce until it's served, if ever - but this does not mean it exists in a quantum state until then. It is barbecue because of the manner in which it has been smoked.

Fedaykin98 wrote:

Actual barbecue, or grilling?

It's a barbecue in the sense of an outdoor gathering at which food is prepared and consumed over flame. The chef isn't cooking hot and fast as in typical grilling, but he's not smoking it either - at least not onsite. I believe there's some prep being done at his location, but I do not believe he's doing a full on Texan barbecue. It's been so long since I lived in Texas that I'd forgotten the difference!

Teneman wrote:
Fedaykin98 wrote:

Actual barbecue, or grilling?

It's a barbecue in the sense of an outdoor gathering at which food is prepared and consumed over flame. The chef isn't cooking hot and fast as in typical grilling, but he's not smoking it either - at least not onsite. I believe there's some prep being done at his location, but I do not believe he's doing a full on Texan barbecue. It's been so long since I lived in Texas that I'd forgotten the difference!

You can still use some smoke and indirect heat, but at a higher temperature; for proper Texas/Carolina BBQ, you're looking at about an hour/pound of meat. Indirect smoking lowers that to about 30 minutes/pound.

I like smoked meats and I cannot lie.

We announced two new murder mysteries yesterday: an encore to our Night of the Living Dead zombie mystery, and a Doctor Who mystery.

We had an interesting side discussion going before we put the announcement out, as to whether the zombie theme or the Doctor Who theme would go crazier. I figured Doctor Who would blow zombies away, not just because bow ties are cool, but also because we've already done two full zombie shows. Twenty four hours in and the two shows are in a dead heat, with both 50% booked. I'm hoping Doctor Who pulls ahead. Mrs. Teneman is still putting money on the zombies.

So who wins in a fight, the living dead or Doctor Who?

Teneman wrote:

So who wins in a fight, the living dead or Doctor Who?

The Unquiet Dead (Doctor Who Episode)

Spoiler:

The Doctor, obviously.

Keldar wrote:
Teneman wrote:

So who wins in a fight, the living dead or Doctor Who?

The Unquiet Dead (Doctor Who Episode)

Spoiler:

The Doctor, obviously.

Those were spectral aliens inhabiting corpses. Completely different from zombies!

IMAGE(https://static.squarespace.com/static/51b3dc8ee4b051b96ceb10de/51ce6099e4b0d911b4489b79/51ce6192e4b0d911b4498b2a/1348674060277/1000w/doctorzombie8889102.jpeg)

Hey, saw that you guys had some McElroy's out for NYE. Sounds like that might have been an absolute riot!

They've been out to several of our mysteries. They're great folks, always a lot of fun.

McIrishJihad wrote:

Hey, saw that you guys had some McElroy's out for NYE. Sounds like that might have been an absolute riot!

Yeah, I was blown away when they very nearly mentioned Ravenwood on a recent podcast!

Fedaykin98 wrote:
McIrishJihad wrote:

Hey, saw that you guys had some McElroy's out for NYE. Sounds like that might have been an absolute riot!

Yeah, I was blown away when they very nearly mentioned Ravenwood on a recent podcast!

I'm a bit behind on my MBMBAM listening (lack of a commute has really cut down my podcast time), do you remember which one they nearly mentioned us on?

Teneman wrote:
Fedaykin98 wrote:
McIrishJihad wrote:

Hey, saw that you guys had some McElroy's out for NYE. Sounds like that might have been an absolute riot!

Yeah, I was blown away when they very nearly mentioned Ravenwood on a recent podcast!

I'm a bit behind on my MBMBAM listening (lack of a commute has really cut down my podcast time), do you remember which one they nearly mentioned us on?

I think it was Boycar. If not that, the latest one, which is Yogi Stareater.

I was travelling to a convention this week and used the plane rides to catch up on my podcasts (and sleep). It was the Yogi Stareater episode. They came soooooo close to mentioning us by name, didn't they? I did like the direction the conversation took though, re: the Dark Ages in Ohio. Thanks for the heads up.

Hoop & Stick Convention is of course a thing again this year (renamed from last year's RavenCon), with it's main goal once again being to raise money for Child's Play. Although the convention has been sold out for months, we're putting on a public donation drive for Child's Play, so those who couldn't make the convention can still help. Details at the H&S page above, or in today's Quoth the Raven blog post.

If on either page you don't see the donation widget (right side on H&S, mid page on the blog), just hit refresh on your browser. Not sure what the issue is with that, but I'm moving hosts and site providers shortly, so hopefully that will fix it.

You should totally do a Mystery Room thing.

Paleocon wrote:

You should totally do a Mystery Room thing.

Oooo...999

Just don't put an axe in the room. That would be like easy mode.

After almost two years here at Ravenwood Amanda and I will be moving on. I have accepted a job offer to be the System Application Engineer for a small company called Teledynamics based out of New Jersey. We will be moving back to Upstate New York where my family is so I can be closer to them. I will be telecommuting to work so I will still get to be close to my kids and Amanda throughout the day. I will greatly miss running the castle as I have become quite fond of it. I will also miss seeing all the goodjers that come buy to visit. It has been a pleasure meeting those that have managed to make the trip to Southern Ohio. I will have to try to catch up with you at PAX East or some of the other conventions/S&Ts I can make it out to. On the flip side expect to see me back on the internet playing games again later in April.

You'll be a tough one to replace, Steve.

Congratulations on getting the job, though! My life would be much harder if we had to raise these kids far from family.

Best of luck Steve. You and your wife made us feel welcome during our visit. We'll miss you when we make it out there again.