A Tale of Two Hotels
Typically, conventions given their Guests of Honor some sort of gift. We had intended to do so at Westercon 74 as well, but those of you attending the Closing Ceremony (a recording of which should be online realsoonnow after I do some editing on it) at Westercon 74 know that all that Myrna Donato and Kevin Andrew Murphy got were "Lovely Parting Gift" ribbons from Match Game SF. I did that so they wouldn't go away empty-handed, but now you get to hear... the rest of the story.
Tonopah Main Street, a civic-improvement organization in Tonopah, sells a series of wooden models of Tonopah buildings, which started with the Mizpah Hotel (we showed that off at our table at Loscon last year) and the most-recent release of which was the Belvada Hotel. My plan was that we would give Myrna one of the Mizpah models and Kevin one of the Belvada models, as those where the hotels where they had been staying, as a souvenir of their hotel stay and their appearance as Guests of Honor. It was a good idea, but during the rush of move-in and the first day of the convention on Friday, I forgot to buy the models (the Convention Center sells them). By the time I remembered, it was Sunday. The TCC office (and Tonopah Main Street) are closed on weekends and holidays. It was too late to buy the presents. So I improvised at the Closing Ceremonies, passing it off as yet another cost-saving measure. However, on Tuesday (after both our guests had departed), I did go ahead and get the models.
Here are the two models, posted in front of Kevin and Myrna's GOH profiles in the Westercon 74 program book.
Last Thursday, I packaged Kevin and Myrna's gifts (being careful to get the right hotel model going to the right person, and mailed them priority mail from Fernley. Per the USPS, Kevin should have received his model on Friday and Myrna should have received hers today. I got an email from Myrna acknowledging her receipt, and assumed that Kevin had received is, so I went ahead and posted about it on Facebook and Twitter. To my embarrassment, Kevin Andrew Murphy hadn't received his yet, so the first he knew about it was reading the public Facebook post! I apologized and explained, and he said the mail to Reno is weird, and that maybe the package will get to him on Monday.
Tonopah Main Street, a civic-improvement organization in Tonopah, sells a series of wooden models of Tonopah buildings, which started with the Mizpah Hotel (we showed that off at our table at Loscon last year) and the most-recent release of which was the Belvada Hotel. My plan was that we would give Myrna one of the Mizpah models and Kevin one of the Belvada models, as those where the hotels where they had been staying, as a souvenir of their hotel stay and their appearance as Guests of Honor. It was a good idea, but during the rush of move-in and the first day of the convention on Friday, I forgot to buy the models (the Convention Center sells them). By the time I remembered, it was Sunday. The TCC office (and Tonopah Main Street) are closed on weekends and holidays. It was too late to buy the presents. So I improvised at the Closing Ceremonies, passing it off as yet another cost-saving measure. However, on Tuesday (after both our guests had departed), I did go ahead and get the models.
Here are the two models, posted in front of Kevin and Myrna's GOH profiles in the Westercon 74 program book.
Last Thursday, I packaged Kevin and Myrna's gifts (being careful to get the right hotel model going to the right person, and mailed them priority mail from Fernley. Per the USPS, Kevin should have received his model on Friday and Myrna should have received hers today. I got an email from Myrna acknowledging her receipt, and assumed that Kevin had received is, so I went ahead and posted about it on Facebook and Twitter. To my embarrassment, Kevin Andrew Murphy hadn't received his yet, so the first he knew about it was reading the public Facebook post! I apologized and explained, and he said the mail to Reno is weird, and that maybe the package will get to him on Monday.