So Much for Sleep
I had a pretty late night last night, and I'd hoped to get more sleep on Tuesday morning, but it was not to be.
I got to the Closing Ceremony so early that I was up close to the stage. I was there in my t-shirt for Pemmi-Con (the Winnipeg 2023 NASFiC) sitting with other members of the committee. This was the same room and same stage at where the WSFS Business Meeting was held.
This was what the same stage had looked like a few hours earlier.
The turnout was very light for the final Business Meeting this morning, thanks to there being only three pieces of business remaining.
The room was a lot busier just before the Closing Ceremony!
Toastmasters Charlie Jane Anders and Annalee Newitz took the stage.
Chair Helen Montgomery called on members of the Chicon 8 committee to come on stage for thank-yous.
Helen also reminded people that even though the convention was ending, the convention's mask policy remained in place in convention-managed spaces (programming rooms, parties, etc.).
With all of the thank-yous and announcements done, she closed the convention as I described in my previous entry. I already wrote about what happened after that, so I won't repeat it.
I needed to be in two places at once in the evening, so the CanSMOF / Winnipeg NASFiC meeting had to wait while I went to the Past Worldcon Chairs ("Old Pharts") Party, where an important ceremony was taking place.
Dave McCarty presided over the serious business of inducting the newest member of the society of Former Worldcon Chairs.
Helen Montgomery holds her newly-earned ribbon, realizing that she'd forgotten to wear her membership badge to which it should be attached.
Then Kelly Buehler and Norman Cates, co-chairs of CoNZealand, the 2020 Worldcon, got their turn in the spotlight. Because their Worldcon was forced to online-only due to COVID-19, they never got a chance to be "ribboned" at their own convention's Old Pharts' Party, which was held online only like everything else at the convention.
I left the party after the ribbon ceremony in order to deal with the CanSMOF/Winnipeg meeting, and I did not go back. Too many maskless people, and not just those actively drinking, of which there were many. Besides, we had a lot to talk about in the Winnipeg suite. Also, with so few people in the suite, I felt safer unmasking (and moving farther away from the others in the room) to consume some of the food and drink we had there. Among the things we had to plan for was the move-out from the suite. My room was around the corner from Winnipeg's suite, and I needed to help them move out on Tuesday morning, which meant sleeping until Noon wasn't in the cards. I went back to the room and set the alarm. I didn't need to be up as early as for the Business Meeting, but it was still earlier than I liked. It was after midnight before I got to sleep.
I set the alarm, all right, but I forgot to turn it on! I woke up at 8:30, more than an hour after I'd set the alarm. I had also forgot to un-mute my phone (I'd silenced it for the Business Meeting), but I woke up with a message from Janie Shae, who was staying in the suite and who would be transporting most of the thing in it back to her home in Oklahoma. I quickly pulled myself together and headed over to the suite.
It took hours (and four bell cart-loads) to clear out the suite. I wish I'd remembered to take a picture before we started loading the ball carts.
We moved the furniture back to approximately where it was when we moved in. There were several pieces of old luggage that we left behind with instructions to discard them.
Around Noon, we finally managed to close out the Winnipeg Suite and help Jannie get the last of the stuff into her car. Lisa and I finally got something resembling breakfast.
Late in the afternoon, we finally ventured out with a simple plan of just walking around downtown Chicago looking at things.
Kuma Bear is confused by the Big Bean.
Unfortunately for me, just after taking this photo, I dropped my phone. It's still working, but the screen is cracked. Not as catastrophically as when it spiderwebbed last year, so it's still usable for now. Click through the photo above for the photos I took in the afternoon.
I did have a little bit of an errand. For reasons that will be more apparent in a few weeks, I had a check I wanted to deposit at an ATM rather than using my phone's mobile app, and there are lots of Bank of America branches around here. I dropped the check and we continued wandering around.
We showed Kuma Bear the "center" of Chicago.
We then went to the Chicago River and walked along it for a while before circling back to the hotel.
Lisa made dinner from some of the things we have in the room. I redeemed an offer from Chipotle, went over and picked it up, and came back via Bockwinkle's grocery. We're still here through Thursday night, so we still have two days to think of things to do, but we've made no firm plans. I would have got to bed early tonight, but I had to do a couple of hours of Day Jobbe work. Maybe tomorrow morning I can sleep.
I got to the Closing Ceremony so early that I was up close to the stage. I was there in my t-shirt for Pemmi-Con (the Winnipeg 2023 NASFiC) sitting with other members of the committee. This was the same room and same stage at where the WSFS Business Meeting was held.
This was what the same stage had looked like a few hours earlier.
The turnout was very light for the final Business Meeting this morning, thanks to there being only three pieces of business remaining.
The room was a lot busier just before the Closing Ceremony!
Toastmasters Charlie Jane Anders and Annalee Newitz took the stage.
Chair Helen Montgomery called on members of the Chicon 8 committee to come on stage for thank-yous.
Helen also reminded people that even though the convention was ending, the convention's mask policy remained in place in convention-managed spaces (programming rooms, parties, etc.).
With all of the thank-yous and announcements done, she closed the convention as I described in my previous entry. I already wrote about what happened after that, so I won't repeat it.
I needed to be in two places at once in the evening, so the CanSMOF / Winnipeg NASFiC meeting had to wait while I went to the Past Worldcon Chairs ("Old Pharts") Party, where an important ceremony was taking place.
Dave McCarty presided over the serious business of inducting the newest member of the society of Former Worldcon Chairs.
Helen Montgomery holds her newly-earned ribbon, realizing that she'd forgotten to wear her membership badge to which it should be attached.
Then Kelly Buehler and Norman Cates, co-chairs of CoNZealand, the 2020 Worldcon, got their turn in the spotlight. Because their Worldcon was forced to online-only due to COVID-19, they never got a chance to be "ribboned" at their own convention's Old Pharts' Party, which was held online only like everything else at the convention.
I left the party after the ribbon ceremony in order to deal with the CanSMOF/Winnipeg meeting, and I did not go back. Too many maskless people, and not just those actively drinking, of which there were many. Besides, we had a lot to talk about in the Winnipeg suite. Also, with so few people in the suite, I felt safer unmasking (and moving farther away from the others in the room) to consume some of the food and drink we had there. Among the things we had to plan for was the move-out from the suite. My room was around the corner from Winnipeg's suite, and I needed to help them move out on Tuesday morning, which meant sleeping until Noon wasn't in the cards. I went back to the room and set the alarm. I didn't need to be up as early as for the Business Meeting, but it was still earlier than I liked. It was after midnight before I got to sleep.
I set the alarm, all right, but I forgot to turn it on! I woke up at 8:30, more than an hour after I'd set the alarm. I had also forgot to un-mute my phone (I'd silenced it for the Business Meeting), but I woke up with a message from Janie Shae, who was staying in the suite and who would be transporting most of the thing in it back to her home in Oklahoma. I quickly pulled myself together and headed over to the suite.
It took hours (and four bell cart-loads) to clear out the suite. I wish I'd remembered to take a picture before we started loading the ball carts.
We moved the furniture back to approximately where it was when we moved in. There were several pieces of old luggage that we left behind with instructions to discard them.
Around Noon, we finally managed to close out the Winnipeg Suite and help Jannie get the last of the stuff into her car. Lisa and I finally got something resembling breakfast.
Late in the afternoon, we finally ventured out with a simple plan of just walking around downtown Chicago looking at things.
Kuma Bear is confused by the Big Bean.
Unfortunately for me, just after taking this photo, I dropped my phone. It's still working, but the screen is cracked. Not as catastrophically as when it spiderwebbed last year, so it's still usable for now. Click through the photo above for the photos I took in the afternoon.
I did have a little bit of an errand. For reasons that will be more apparent in a few weeks, I had a check I wanted to deposit at an ATM rather than using my phone's mobile app, and there are lots of Bank of America branches around here. I dropped the check and we continued wandering around.
We showed Kuma Bear the "center" of Chicago.
We then went to the Chicago River and walked along it for a while before circling back to the hotel.
Lisa made dinner from some of the things we have in the room. I redeemed an offer from Chipotle, went over and picked it up, and came back via Bockwinkle's grocery. We're still here through Thursday night, so we still have two days to think of things to do, but we've made no firm plans. I would have got to bed early tonight, but I had to do a couple of hours of Day Jobbe work. Maybe tomorrow morning I can sleep.