GAFilk Days 2-3 (And After)
Saturday had a very good lineup of concerts, and a showing of some of Brian Richardson's DragonConTV videos. After the batch of 2x10 (two songs/ten minutes), there was a break for people to get ready for the banquet. As usual, the banquet entertainment was excellent; I only joined in one dance myself, but there was generally as large a crowd as the portable floor (that had to be moved back into place a couple times as it drifted too close to the control board) could accomodate.
I don't recall the exact amount raised by the Interfilk auction (but it was fairly substantial); the item that particularly impressed me was the calligraphic rendering of "Rich Fantasy Lives" (autographed by the authors, filkertom and partiallyclips ) went for (IIRC) $300.
The Saturday night open filk went fairly strong until about 4 AM, with occasional pauses into chatting mode toward the end. A guitar and bag was left in the room; the folks in the other room weren't completely sure but thought it belonged to
filkerdave;
starmalachite and I took it to our room and she left messages with every known contact route for him.
I got up around 11:00 Sunday, and just after I got dressed
filkerdave called and confirmed that it was his guitar and bag. He dropped by to pick it up; then I finished getting myself together and headed down to programming (after going back to the room to get my checkbook to prereg for next year, and then back again because I'd forgotten something else -- I forget what).
People hung around chatting for a while between closing ceremonies and dinnertime. During a conversation in the hall, a bit of techno-neepery broke out, and
partiallyclips let us take a look at his Wing (one of the possible phone/PDA combination devices we've been considering now that our current T-Mobile phone contract is up). The features look good; on the other hand, he mentioned that the batteries tend to run out fast; on the gripping hand, I doubt that I'd be using it nearly as intensively as Rob does (e.g. "...adding a couple more CD sales to the FuMP records... go over the next section of Jillian's backstory... etcetcetc...").
We joined a dinner party to a local barbeque place (I'll just refer you to
thatcrazycajun 's description, since he sums it up so well). Afterwards, we settled down for the dead dog, which ran well past midnight before the last remnants (including me and
starmalachite ) broke up.
Monday morning,
starmalachite and I checked out and hung around the lobby with a few of the folks who were still around (including the Bohnhoffs and Peter Beagle) until we caught the airport shuttle and left the hotel to the upcoming convention of card shuffling experts. There was still plenty of time before Peter Beagle (and his companion whose name I'm blanking on) and the two of us had to catch our respective flights, so we had lunch at the Chinese place in the Councourse A food court. Afterwards, we made the long march down to our gate and caught our flight and got home without incident (except that
starmalachite 's filk-gear bag lost a wheel -- not a major loss, as it was starting to fall apart anyway).
starmalachite went to Monday night dance group; I stayed home partially to soothe the cats' wounded psyches and partly because I was starting to crash out (I ended up going to bed before she got back).