I walked down to the nearest Starbucks this morning to get breakfast, and learned that is closed weekends. I'm glad to learn that today so that I can make plans for tomorrow. It's a huge hardship; the next-closest one, which is open on weekends, is only about 350 meters farther away ( Read more... )

As the Keeper of the Keys (of the Tonopah Convention Center), on account of being the person who locked the doors late last night after we finished set-up, I also had to be there shortly after 7 AM to let the people who needed to run the online/hybrid programming in the Gold Room. Consequently, I got maybe three hours' sleep last night ( Read more... )

There have not been many people complaining directly to Westercon 74 about our vaccination-and-masking policy. What they don't seem to get is that the choice is not between holding the convention with our policy or holding it without such a policy. It is between holding the convention with our policy or not holding it at all because you can't run ( Read more... )

Two years ago, when we drove from Fernley to Bishop on our trip to Loscon (part of a multi-leg tour that took us on to SMOFCon in Albuquerque), things did not go that great. We were running late, crossed the mountains after dark and as snow started falling. The Vagabond Inn where we stayed was fine, though. This year, everything was reversed. We ( Read more... )

I finished prepping Match Game SF last night, which took some hours as I sorted through what prizes we still have and picked out the questions I want to use. Our show is only 1 h 15 m, so I'll be surprised if we get more than three games, but it should be entertaining. Also, as it has now been more than two years since our last show, if we are ( Read more... )

I'm at (Virtual) Norwescon 43 this weekend, staffing a Club Booth (as their online platform, Airmeet, styles it) for Westercon 74 Tonopah along with
( Read more... )

Not too long from now, I'm apt to be attending several conventions virtually on behalf of Westercon 74. I would of course prefer to be at conventions in person, but I still don't know how long it will be before such things can happen. I hope by early November (World Fantasy Con) or December (SMOFCon, and possibly Worldcon if they can get untangled ( Read more... )

Today was a meeting of CanSMOF, parent non-profit corporation of the 2009 Montreal Worldcon and a number of other conventions including next year's World Fantasy Convention. We do have to periodically meet and review the conventions with reports from the committees under our umbrella. Yes, that means another Zoom meeting, but I'm sort of used to it ( Read more... )

I'm sure everyone has heard that events are being canceled left and right. As a consequence of all of these pandemic-related cancellations, I've decided to call off the three-week trip to the Bay Area and then on up to the Pacific Northwest, where Lisa was going to drive to meet me and where we would attend Norwescon to promote Westercon 74. Even ( Read more... )

I was feeling alert enough this afternoon so that after I finished with Day Jobbe, Lisa and I went into Reno for a few errands. First we collected a part we'd ordered from Summit Racing (they have a large warehouse/retail store in Sparks), then went to Lowe's to buy some things the Fernley store did not have. We were going to go get groceries next ( Read more... )