Norwescon: had lots of fun
Wednesday night after the seder, marahsk dropped mvt at our house, and then Marah and I continued onto Dad's house in Niagara Falls. John and Paul have taken some things out of the house, not a lot, but the bathrooms were completely empty, which was depressing and a bit spooky. Around 1:30 AM, I set an alarm for 3:00 AM. Actually I set three alarms ten minutes apart ("Pinky and the Brain" ringtone on the first, meaning we have Things to Do and today is the day to carry out our plans, then "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life", meaning it doesn't matter how tired we are, we actually do have to get up and face the day, and then the theme song from "24", meaning we really have no time to waste). Got up around 3:15, got out the door for 4:10, made it to the airport for 4:50. Buffalo Airport has revamped its security area so it's much wider now. There was almost no line, actually no line at all up to the ID check and only a short line at the x-ray lines. Still TSA was slow checking our bags; guess they hadn't had their morning coffee yet.
Got to O'Hare just after 6:30 AM local time. Thought about calling sciffy_circo to see if she was still up. But we had to switch planes from United to Alaska Airlines, which means walking from Terminal 1 to Terminal 3, which must be in a different suburb. Made it with thirty minutes to spare, except that we boarded the plane 15 minutes early. Anyway, made it to Seattle for around 11. Slight delay as Marah's suitcase had not managed to follow us from Terminal 1 to Terminal 3, so it came out on the next flight. But we still got to the hotel checkin before noon. But they weren't ready for us, so we had lunch in the restaurant. After lunch, I made the mistake of trying to register for the convetnion. There were less than 25 people in line ahead of us. 45 minutes into this line, Michael Citrak came by and I complained to him about the line. After more than an hour in this line, Marah (who had gotten a membership transfer so had gotten through another line in only about 20 minutes) realized that I was paying cash because my credit-card payment had not yet gone through. She took pity on me and took me over to the credit-card line. Two other people standing with us also gave Marah cash and got badges. 80 minutes after I got in line, three of the people who had been ahead of me were still waiting to pay cash. Standing so long hurt my back, so I had to crash and have a nap in the afternoon.
Had dinner with felicitoussk8er at Bahama Breeze; had the lobster and shrimp pasta. Seafood was great but the alfredo sauce didn't like me later. Sharon gave me a signed (to me) copy of Exile's Gate, the fourth book in the Morgaine trilogy (i.e. one of the few books I hadn't read), and a condolence card. When we got back to the hotel, I introduced her to Marah, and we hung out. We went to the casino. Sharon won one of the million-dollar bills at the blackjack table.
Saw a bit of the convention on Friday. I think we hit Denny's for breakfast and Jack in the Box for an early dinner (both sites for exotic American cuisine that we can't get in Toronto). I spent part of the day printing party signs and reg flyers for ConComCon. Dinner at the Roaster; we saw Paul C. and Julie McG. there, plus some other Vancouver friends of theirs. We party-hopped a little on Friday. We followed Sharon's friends to the SFWA party. I don't think Sharon realized where we would be ending up; without a proper invitation, I didn't take any food or drink at that party. But I saw Pauline from Vancouver, and Chris Nilsson. Chris didn't know Sharon, but they had a mutual friend in Jane Fancher, so they had plenty to talk about.
Saturday hung out some more. We went to Safeway to party-shop. We didn't connect with Sharon en route to the store, though she was kind enough to meet us there and drive us back to the hotel. The SWOC meeting went very well. Bobbie announced a bid for 2012 Westercon in Seattle. Since this had been my idea originally, I was allowed to move the motion. As I have noted elsewhere, I'm not in a position to play a big role in a Westercon (and hopefully I will have something else to focus on in 2012 anyway). I can't see how I can possibly, like, possibly make it to Vancouver, Phoenix, and Spokane in five weekends (let me rephrase: Kansas City, Vancouver, Chicago, Phoenix, and Spokane in seven weekends), so I will not be at the Westercon launch party. But we'll probably throw a few parties in our time zones, just because we like throwing parties.
After the SWOC meeting, I got to Dave's Diner with saphyre_blue, Sharon, Marah, and other friends. Susan was wearing a Xena costume. Sometimes she has this almost-mundane accountant-mom vibe; this was not one of those days.
Saturday night we threw a party to promote ConComCon. This was very successful for us, we sold several memberships. We had decided to throw a party instead of sitting at a fan table all weekend, which seemed like a good choice for us. Chris came to the party with his wife, Jackie, and his daughter (whose name I didn't quite get, Kaylin or something). Many of our other friends dropped into the party briefly. We spent $114 on the party, a bit more than we wanted but Seattle groceries were expensive and I guess we overbought a little. We didn't serve alcohol; apparenlty one needs some sort of liquor license if one is serving alcohol at an open party. We did not know this at the time I decided not to have alcohol.
Sunday we cleaned up, checked out, had lunch at the hotel bar. I bought a con t-shirt for myself and another Defot-shirt for Merle. Managed to get to the dealer's room before it closed (this is unusual for me); I found the second and third books of Hobb's Soldier Son series and third book of Bujold's Sharing Knife series. Caught up with a few things online, then we poked our noses briefly into the dead dog party. I told Becky that it was a very nice con.
Left the hotel at 8:00 PM. With books and t-shirts I had more stuff, so I reorganized my suitcase. No lines at security at that hour, so it was easy getting through. Marah ended up talking to one of the TSA people who was a fan (or at least a reader). We found a sasquatch-themed restaurant at the airport, so we had to eat there. The flight to Washington was too short and too interrupted, so I didn't really sleep much. Got to Dulles just after 6:00 AM. The D to A shuttle wasn't running yet so we had to take two shuttles. When we were coming to the gate, the Five Guys restaurant (that I had only seen in construction before) was opening for breakfast! Yay. One of the few things I miss about Virginia. Our flight left Dulles at 8:00, got to Buffalo before 10:00. Didn't stop anywhere, got to the border just before 11:00 (I turned on the radio for CBC news after we cleared customs), made it to Toronto around 12:15 PM. I dropped my bags at the house, then Marah drove me to work. I was very tired, but I was able to catch up with some email and reports.
Sharon wants us to come to Spokane in July for "Shejicon", which will involve hanging out in Herself's backyard and admiring the new fish pond. One can see this was on her mind as she was writing about the fishtank in Regenesis. I can hardly turn down an invitation to spend quality time with perhaps the most influential (and my favorite) SF author of the past few decades, so I said I'd be there. Speaking of which, she has a new blog, Wave Without a Shore. It's a WordPress blog which supports RSS feeds. (Trying to figure out how to incorporate that into LiveJournal; I've done it before but I can't find the help page now.)