Worth The Drive

[howeird]

Last night's BASFA meeting was at the San Mateo "Escher" Marriott to coincide with Westercon. I drove up there a little after 7, arrived at 7:30, I guess the meeting had been under way for half an hour or so. It was a smaller than usual crowd, but some new faces, which is great, and with johnnyeponymous presiding and kevin_standlee riding shotgun, there was much hilarity. For the first time in ages I used all 4 of my pre-paid pun taxes.

I had promised the esteemed Veep I would bring some swag for the auction which would be of interest to CHM, but had forgotten it. Well, not exactly forgotten... I was going out the door with the bag of swag in my hand when i nearly tripped over the bag of used kitty litter which I'd neglected to haul the 2 blocks to the dumpster after changing the litterbox last night. So I put the swag down, threw out the kitty litter, and instead of going back for the swag I hopped into the car and headed to San Mateo. I realized the error just before getting onto the freeway, but by that time I was already late, so...

Westercon did not appear to be doing so well. Looking at the newsletters and the large number of available parking spaces, it wasn't very well attended. I was especially sorry to see in the newsletter the masquerade only attracted a handful of contestants. I know how hard bovil and kproche work to make masq Something Special, which is tough to do when there are more staff than contestants. And I am kicking myself because another thing I forgot to bring to BASFA was a pair of white dress gloves which were left at my Baycon chocolate fountain party, which I am pretty sure belong to Phil Gust, who was one of the masq contestants.

I didn't buy a membership because of several factors - their web site did not instill confidence; the choice of what, for most of us, is a 2-day weekend followed by 2 work days; the horrible hotel choice; the lack of announced big name guests**; the proximity to Baycon.

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jaylake being the notable exception. I did not hear about Larry Niven being on hand until the opening day of the con.