Thursday already?
Tuesday, 7:00 PM
Dinner with a bunch of folks. Mostly the Chicago bid, plus a bunch of others. Lisa, Matthew, Seamas, and Isobeal from Columbus, Grant and Theresa from Portland, Jill and Don from Boston, and I can't remember all the Chicago folks (Dave, Helen, Raymond, Ron, etc.). I had the basil duck with ravioli. Marah reminded me after I ordered that I didn't like duck. Still don't, though overall the food was very good. Service was kind of below average.
Tuesday, 10:00 PM
Found Becky smoking outside the hotel, chatted with her for a while. Then Bobbie and Danielle found us there and we talked to them.
I caught up on email, Facebook, and LiveJournal for a while. We crashed around 2:00 AM local time.
Wednesday, 12:00 PM
We slept in; caught up somewhat on the sleep we hadn't had for days. Lunch at Johnny Rockets. Burger was great (better than Five Guys, IMO); service was unexceptional.
Found the convention center. Got con badges. Hugged many people. By 3:30, we found the Seattle table and relieved Bobbie, Danielle, and Pat; we sat with Amber until closing. Pat and Marah packed. Pat and I took heavy boxes out to the street, I went back, then Marah and I brought the rest of the stuff out to the street. We dragged everything to the Seattle suite.
Wednesday, 7:30 PM
After dropping stuff off at the Seattle party room, we found the Chicago party in the sub-sub-basement. We shared the party room with the Texas not-yet-bid-party. Our party was extremely festive with many balloons and beautiful fruit baskets. The smoothies were very popular for the first couple hours; we went through thirty (96-oz) batches quickly. Things got slightly quieter around 11. Plenty of Chicago folks there, so I went to what was listed in the pocket program as a bardic filk. It wasn't bardic; I didn't sing. I went back to the Chicago party and stayed until it closed around 2:00 AM. Then I helped clean up the juice pitchers. After that, usual Chicago party denouement: Helen tells Dave and Leanne what to do, the rest of us were redundant, so we left. Got back to the room around 3:00 AM, caught up on a bit of email, crashed.
Thursday, 10:00 AM
Helped carry stuff to the Seattle bid table, so we were a little late for the business meeting. The controversial motion about limiting membership prices did not appear at the meeting. Other Hugo award-related motions, although nominally not very controversial really, generated much discussion about wording, etc. We got out just before noon. I spoke to Bill Taylor about the Worldcon Runner's Guide, and to Grant about worldcon.org (and nasfic.org).
I had not realized the fannish inquisition was coming up so quickly. Danielle took Bobbie to get food; I went along to help her prepare for the inquisition (I had a computer and Internet, so I had the email with the stock questions). Finding food at noon was challenging; we ended up at Einstein Bros Bagels because they had a table we could sit at. I gave Bobbie a couple suggestions (mostly along the lines of "good idea!" or "don't forget to mention X", but she was generally quite prepared.
Thursday, 1:00 PM
After presentations about Australia and Reno, Bobbie spoke about Seattle. She showed the SFM letter. Seattle as a destination and Seattle fandom as a community are an easy sell, so Bobbie's presentation was well-received. Dave talked about Chicago and made a very good impression too. Little bit of stuff about possible bids in the future.
Marah and I grabbed a bite at the pizza place on California near 16th, then we relieved folks at the Seattle table until the fan table area closed at six. Someone helped us, so we were able to get all the stuff out to the street in one go. Once we got back to the Sheraton, other Seattle folks took charge, so we were free. Marah posted the new Toronto convention meeting minutes in email from the 22nd floor lounge. I caught the last third of the LiveJournal meetup. Then we went for dinner. Marah wanted Johnny Rockets again because it was close, fast, cheap, and good. While we were there, Jill and Don came in, with Persis, her companion David, and a couple of their Boston friends, so we made a table of eight. Service was better the second time.
Thursday, 9:00 PM
The Seattle party was open and packed by the time we got there. Very, very packed. The room was decorated with tons of amusing steampunk stuff. On the Emerald City theme, a couple of people were dressed as the Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion. Danielle, her friend Paula, and then Susan R. took turns as door greeters, two at a time, plus Marah on the other side catching people on the way out, so we had excellent eye candy for hours. Everyone stopped by, too numerous to mention. Dave and Helen came in, told us the Chicago bid table had been very, very successful today. I conceded that the thousand-dollar blender was a justified expense. Bruce and Leah attempted to recruit us to work on Anticipation. I told Leah (as in fact I told Rene in Japan) that I would do whatever I was asked. The party was well-staffed, so I was able to visit the Arisia party briefly; I hugged Eva. When I went back to the Seattle party, it was still well-staffed, so I visited the "Peggy Rae's House in 2010" party briefly, then rested for an hour.
Every corner of the suite was packed until after midnight, and the party was still going moderately strong when party-pooper con ops came along and told everyone we had to close our doors. I talked to Danielle and Christian for a bit (kind of introduced them, I think).
The Seattle party made enough money that people were concerned about what to do with it until we could get it into the bank. Susan took charge of that discussion. Some of the Seattle folks were staying in the suite, so we didn't need to help; we left around 3:00 AM. I caught up on email, blogged.
Dinner with a bunch of folks. Mostly the Chicago bid, plus a bunch of others. Lisa, Matthew, Seamas, and Isobeal from Columbus, Grant and Theresa from Portland, Jill and Don from Boston, and I can't remember all the Chicago folks (Dave, Helen, Raymond, Ron, etc.). I had the basil duck with ravioli. Marah reminded me after I ordered that I didn't like duck. Still don't, though overall the food was very good. Service was kind of below average.
Tuesday, 10:00 PM
Found Becky smoking outside the hotel, chatted with her for a while. Then Bobbie and Danielle found us there and we talked to them.
I caught up on email, Facebook, and LiveJournal for a while. We crashed around 2:00 AM local time.
Wednesday, 12:00 PM
We slept in; caught up somewhat on the sleep we hadn't had for days. Lunch at Johnny Rockets. Burger was great (better than Five Guys, IMO); service was unexceptional.
Found the convention center. Got con badges. Hugged many people. By 3:30, we found the Seattle table and relieved Bobbie, Danielle, and Pat; we sat with Amber until closing. Pat and Marah packed. Pat and I took heavy boxes out to the street, I went back, then Marah and I brought the rest of the stuff out to the street. We dragged everything to the Seattle suite.
Wednesday, 7:30 PM
After dropping stuff off at the Seattle party room, we found the Chicago party in the sub-sub-basement. We shared the party room with the Texas not-yet-bid-party. Our party was extremely festive with many balloons and beautiful fruit baskets. The smoothies were very popular for the first couple hours; we went through thirty (96-oz) batches quickly. Things got slightly quieter around 11. Plenty of Chicago folks there, so I went to what was listed in the pocket program as a bardic filk. It wasn't bardic; I didn't sing. I went back to the Chicago party and stayed until it closed around 2:00 AM. Then I helped clean up the juice pitchers. After that, usual Chicago party denouement: Helen tells Dave and Leanne what to do, the rest of us were redundant, so we left. Got back to the room around 3:00 AM, caught up on a bit of email, crashed.
Thursday, 10:00 AM
Helped carry stuff to the Seattle bid table, so we were a little late for the business meeting. The controversial motion about limiting membership prices did not appear at the meeting. Other Hugo award-related motions, although nominally not very controversial really, generated much discussion about wording, etc. We got out just before noon. I spoke to Bill Taylor about the Worldcon Runner's Guide, and to Grant about worldcon.org (and nasfic.org).
I had not realized the fannish inquisition was coming up so quickly. Danielle took Bobbie to get food; I went along to help her prepare for the inquisition (I had a computer and Internet, so I had the email with the stock questions). Finding food at noon was challenging; we ended up at Einstein Bros Bagels because they had a table we could sit at. I gave Bobbie a couple suggestions (mostly along the lines of "good idea!" or "don't forget to mention X", but she was generally quite prepared.
Thursday, 1:00 PM
After presentations about Australia and Reno, Bobbie spoke about Seattle. She showed the SFM letter. Seattle as a destination and Seattle fandom as a community are an easy sell, so Bobbie's presentation was well-received. Dave talked about Chicago and made a very good impression too. Little bit of stuff about possible bids in the future.
Marah and I grabbed a bite at the pizza place on California near 16th, then we relieved folks at the Seattle table until the fan table area closed at six. Someone helped us, so we were able to get all the stuff out to the street in one go. Once we got back to the Sheraton, other Seattle folks took charge, so we were free. Marah posted the new Toronto convention meeting minutes in email from the 22nd floor lounge. I caught the last third of the LiveJournal meetup. Then we went for dinner. Marah wanted Johnny Rockets again because it was close, fast, cheap, and good. While we were there, Jill and Don came in, with Persis, her companion David, and a couple of their Boston friends, so we made a table of eight. Service was better the second time.
Thursday, 9:00 PM
The Seattle party was open and packed by the time we got there. Very, very packed. The room was decorated with tons of amusing steampunk stuff. On the Emerald City theme, a couple of people were dressed as the Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion. Danielle, her friend Paula, and then Susan R. took turns as door greeters, two at a time, plus Marah on the other side catching people on the way out, so we had excellent eye candy for hours. Everyone stopped by, too numerous to mention. Dave and Helen came in, told us the Chicago bid table had been very, very successful today. I conceded that the thousand-dollar blender was a justified expense. Bruce and Leah attempted to recruit us to work on Anticipation. I told Leah (as in fact I told Rene in Japan) that I would do whatever I was asked. The party was well-staffed, so I was able to visit the Arisia party briefly; I hugged Eva. When I went back to the Seattle party, it was still well-staffed, so I visited the "Peggy Rae's House in 2010" party briefly, then rested for an hour.
Every corner of the suite was packed until after midnight, and the party was still going moderately strong when party-pooper con ops came along and told everyone we had to close our doors. I talked to Danielle and Christian for a bit (kind of introduced them, I think).
The Seattle party made enough money that people were concerned about what to do with it until we could get it into the bank. Susan took charge of that discussion. Some of the Seattle folks were staying in the suite, so we didn't need to help; we left around 3:00 AM. I caught up on email, blogged.