About flagpoles and trains: if you get a collapsible flagpole, you'll be fine. This last convention was my first one taking the train down to Portland, so beforehand I spent a lot of time looking at Amtrak's site for things that are/aren't allowed - and it seemed like the pole would fall under "not" allowed, since in a collapsed state, it's very much a bludgeoning object. So I didn't take mine. Lo and behold, I get to the station thinking it's going to be something like an airport, where there are security checks and whatnot... no, not at all. I could have gotten on that train with a backpack full of tiny endangered monkeys that were holding tiny endangered monkey-sized fully automatic rifles, and so long as they weren't visible, no one would have cared.
So by trying to be a good citizen, I was completely denied my flag epicness. But people can learn from my mistakes! At least I can bring it for Sakuracon without any problems. I'll need to get an Icelandic flag, too.
