Denvention Thursday

[howeird]

SJC was a royal pain in the butt to get to terminal C from the park-and-ride (I use De La Cruz) but once there, there was no line at security, breezed right through with an hour to spare. Plane was 30 minutes late coming in from DEN, so 45 minutes late getting out. Got to Denver around 3, SuperShuttle for $21 to the hotel took half an hour - drove through some ugly industrial areas to avoid gridlock on the freeway. Hotel check-in was quick, they said the package I shipped had not arrived. The room was a double twin on the 7th floor. I called down to ask if they could find me a King, and in 5 minutes a bellman was up at the room with a key to a king on the 14th floor. Nice view of the parking garage next door. Very nice big room, having only one bed makes the desk area more accessible.

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It's a block and a half to the CCC but Denvention is on the other side of the building, another 2 blocks to walk. No line at registration at 4 pm, got the packet, the water bottle was a nice touch, but it's a rather large one and is a little awkward in my backpack's holder. Picky picky. Nice perk, Denver peeps!

Checked out the Fanzine Lounge since it is right next to reg, and why was I surprised that it has a full bar? Drink Tank editor johnnyeponymous is in charge... Said hit to him and the Lovely Linda, also ran into Fred Moulton. Wandered around and found the Korbel rooms downstairs where the Kathy Mar concert was going to be held. Found food (a muffin - had not eaten since 8 am except for half a coke and a bag of micropretzels on the plane). Kathy's concert was all WIN, will have photos one of these days. Lots of audience participation, which she encouraged. Must find her CD with When I Was a Boy which is the best Old Fart Computer Geek Remembers song evah. Standing ovation, but no encore.

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Back to the hotel to change shirts, drop off the camera, check email. Got figmo's music and midi files for her concert (many of us are singing backup, partly because she munged up her mouth in an industrial accident last week, and partly because there really are not many things that can be more fun. Two numbers, very easy bass part on one, not so easy but still fun on the other. Plus a bonus song. Also got email that my package was deivered, at noon-thirty by UPS to the front desk. So I went downstairs and told them it's here, but they had no record of it. So the nice man went into the storage room, and there it was on the top shelf. He looked at the label and said "Oh, you mailed it to yourself here". Duh. It contained all my costumes and T-shirts.

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Walked to 16th St "mall" which was not so impressive, mostly chain stores, and the free bus was packed to the gills and running in random spurts. Sometimes nothing for 5 minutes, sometimes two at a time. While searching for a pace to have dinner, ran into Mark Blatel, an old friend from Gilbert & Sullivan groups. He doesn't go to the local cons, just Worldcon - every year. Also saw Glenn and Allison, they gave me the rundown on steak places, and reminded me about the bufallo steaks at Appaloosa, which is where I went. Very pricey $38 for a filet about 1/3 larger than a mignon, but amazingly tasty and cooked to perfection. The veggies and mashed potatoes were excellent, and for dessert they were out of apple cobbler so I had the "chocolate martini" which was way too rich even for me. Yum.  After dinner it was time to get to the Sheraton for Kathy Marred filk, which my phone calendar said was at 11. I got there at 10, something was going on but it was too packed to go in, so I went to the 22nd floor and hit, briefly, all the parties. Seattle and Reno were across from each other, which was really bad planning but also funny. I think both cities would make a great Worldcon venue, I'm going to support them both. Already have the Seattle T-shirt. At about 10:45 I went into the filk room, and was surprised that Kathy Marred was wrapping up. Turns out when my phone got to Mountain Time, it shifted all my calendar items an hour later.  Same thing happened in Outlook on my laptop when I made the time zone change. Yahoo calendar did not make the change, so I re-synced the laptop with that, and in a minute I'll re-sync the phone, I'm just waiting for it to connect.

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Back at the hotel, hung up costumes and put away clothes and stocked the bathroom. I have way too many costumes and T-shirts for this con. I am still in "same hotel" mode. With the hotel room three blocks away, it's not going to be easy to wear more than two things a day.

Plans for tomorrow:
TBA-Audience picks the topic 11:30 with all-stars jaylake, johnnyeponymous, Greg Bear.
7 pm Masquerade photo gallery - they will have a shoot set up outside the theater for us shutterbugs. They also offered non-flash photo section in the theater, but I don't think my camera is up to that considering all the motion, even at 3200 ASA.
10 pm Match Game SF, help out if they need me. Otherwise just enjoy & photograph.