Travel to a Magical Far-away Place
Aug. 26th, 2003 10:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mishalakAlbuquerque - Weird Al
Friday
I did get up early, not that it helped me much. I take far too long getting ready to go in the morning. Blazing speed for me is to be showered in just half an hour and frequently I'll take an hour getting ready in the morning. I managed to keep it down to 45 minutes and packing up my bags took 35. So I was out the door at 7:25, only about 25 minutes later than I wanted.
Once at Rose's house, about 8am, it only took about 30 more minutes to get on the Road headed south. We listened to her music and talked because I had managed to forget my music. I would not realize it until the next day but I managed to leave my box of peaches in her house too, just brilliant. I talked about my plans for my dead tree edition of Miffed. Rose said it would be good if I had it ready for Worldcon to promote my TAFF bid, but that's something I would have had to thought up a month or two ago. We talked about the clouds, buffalo (we passed a large herd), and family.
We stopped in Trinidad, bought a side salad at McDonalds and used its contents to doctor up some nifty sandwiches. I enjoyed my turkey, gouda, lettuce, and ranch dressing on Italian bread, it was a really nifty idea on Rose's part to use a salad in that way. On the road again I took over driving for the rest of the way to Albuquerque. Rose napped from Sandia to past where I took the left turn onto I-40 and we arrived at about 4:30pm. It seems to be about a seven and a half hour trip with a thirty-minute break for lunch, 450 miles from door to door.
We thought checking into the hotel would be a cinch since we had a reservation, ha! We had requested a deluxe (extra large) non-smoking room on the first floor. We had been told that was no trouble a month before the convention, but when we got there we were given a regular SMOKING room on the second floor. I was really annoyed, why do hotels almost always leave me feeling like the stapler guy (Milton) from Office Space? We wanted a larger one because we were going to host the Dead Dog Party on Sunday night. I was really, really annoyed by this screw up.
Getting our badges was much less trouble, Wendy saw us waiting in line and so grabbed our badges out of the pile so we wouldn't have to wait while the people ahead of us filled out forms. Personal service is one of the advantages of pre registration at a small convention. I did not see anything on the schedule that immediately grabbed my attention, so instead I wandered about saying hello to everyone I had not seen in two years. And a few familiar faces as well, Ron and Nina Else were set up in the Dealers Room.
Among others I rant into Yvonne Coats, Meg Lambert, Kristin Dorland, Daniel Abraham, Michael Georges, and Kathy Kelly-Kubica. (I hope I didn't leave anyone out there.) Most of them recognized me still, though Kristin needed some reminding when I ran into her in the consuite. After spending a bit of time in the art show where I briefly saws Harry O. Morris setting up his art.
Opening ceremonies reminded me why Bubonicon is such a great convention. So many authors hanging out and yet a small time family feel. This years con had Charles De Lint and Charles Vess as guests of honor and Melinda Snodgrass as toastmaster. Big names, small crowds. Craig W. Chrissinger wore a rat hat and I took many pictures. There was a brief cloud as we remembered "horrible old" Roy Tackett with the mentioning of the Green Slime awards. Karthy, our mistress of the slime, got up to explain that indeed the tortured English on the walls were from a published book and a primary target of the slimes this year. The Fifth Sorceress by Robert Newcomb is a truly horrendous work, it seems to be nearly as bad as The Eye of Argon, but not nearly so hilarious.
After opening ceremonies I caught much of the nanotech presentation by Dr. Neal Shinn. He had a really interesting short video of an actual experiment he shared with us involving lead on copper. It was probably rather basic stuff, but very interesting to watch nonetheless. I made a run to Blake's Lottaburger with Rosie Hurt, a local transported to Texas. The burger with cheese and green chilies was interesting and not too bad a buy, though nothing fabulous either. I bid, but didn't win anything in the charity auction, that whole not enough money thing. I didn't think I would be interested in the SF Connections game so I hung out in the consuite until about 1am.
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Friday
I did get up early, not that it helped me much. I take far too long getting ready to go in the morning. Blazing speed for me is to be showered in just half an hour and frequently I'll take an hour getting ready in the morning. I managed to keep it down to 45 minutes and packing up my bags took 35. So I was out the door at 7:25, only about 25 minutes later than I wanted.
Once at Rose's house, about 8am, it only took about 30 more minutes to get on the Road headed south. We listened to her music and talked because I had managed to forget my music. I would not realize it until the next day but I managed to leave my box of peaches in her house too, just brilliant. I talked about my plans for my dead tree edition of Miffed. Rose said it would be good if I had it ready for Worldcon to promote my TAFF bid, but that's something I would have had to thought up a month or two ago. We talked about the clouds, buffalo (we passed a large herd), and family.
We stopped in Trinidad, bought a side salad at McDonalds and used its contents to doctor up some nifty sandwiches. I enjoyed my turkey, gouda, lettuce, and ranch dressing on Italian bread, it was a really nifty idea on Rose's part to use a salad in that way. On the road again I took over driving for the rest of the way to Albuquerque. Rose napped from Sandia to past where I took the left turn onto I-40 and we arrived at about 4:30pm. It seems to be about a seven and a half hour trip with a thirty-minute break for lunch, 450 miles from door to door.
We thought checking into the hotel would be a cinch since we had a reservation, ha! We had requested a deluxe (extra large) non-smoking room on the first floor. We had been told that was no trouble a month before the convention, but when we got there we were given a regular SMOKING room on the second floor. I was really annoyed, why do hotels almost always leave me feeling like the stapler guy (Milton) from Office Space? We wanted a larger one because we were going to host the Dead Dog Party on Sunday night. I was really, really annoyed by this screw up.
Getting our badges was much less trouble, Wendy saw us waiting in line and so grabbed our badges out of the pile so we wouldn't have to wait while the people ahead of us filled out forms. Personal service is one of the advantages of pre registration at a small convention. I did not see anything on the schedule that immediately grabbed my attention, so instead I wandered about saying hello to everyone I had not seen in two years. And a few familiar faces as well, Ron and Nina Else were set up in the Dealers Room.
Among others I rant into Yvonne Coats, Meg Lambert, Kristin Dorland, Daniel Abraham, Michael Georges, and Kathy Kelly-Kubica. (I hope I didn't leave anyone out there.) Most of them recognized me still, though Kristin needed some reminding when I ran into her in the consuite. After spending a bit of time in the art show where I briefly saws Harry O. Morris setting up his art.
Opening ceremonies reminded me why Bubonicon is such a great convention. So many authors hanging out and yet a small time family feel. This years con had Charles De Lint and Charles Vess as guests of honor and Melinda Snodgrass as toastmaster. Big names, small crowds. Craig W. Chrissinger wore a rat hat and I took many pictures. There was a brief cloud as we remembered "horrible old" Roy Tackett with the mentioning of the Green Slime awards. Karthy, our mistress of the slime, got up to explain that indeed the tortured English on the walls were from a published book and a primary target of the slimes this year. The Fifth Sorceress by Robert Newcomb is a truly horrendous work, it seems to be nearly as bad as The Eye of Argon, but not nearly so hilarious.
After opening ceremonies I caught much of the nanotech presentation by Dr. Neal Shinn. He had a really interesting short video of an actual experiment he shared with us involving lead on copper. It was probably rather basic stuff, but very interesting to watch nonetheless. I made a run to Blake's Lottaburger with Rosie Hurt, a local transported to Texas. The burger with cheese and green chilies was interesting and not too bad a buy, though nothing fabulous either. I bid, but didn't win anything in the charity auction, that whole not enough money thing. I didn't think I would be interested in the SF Connections game so I hung out in the consuite until about 1am.
Previous Convention Entry - More Conreports - Next Convention Entry