Serendipity, WorldCon and Toronto/Hamilton
Sep. 2nd, 2003 12:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
danaerisSerendipity
Went to the wrong airport, and didn't find out until we tracked down the reservation in their computer and they told us, with 1.5 hours before take-off. Oakland is like, 45 minutes in no traffic from SFO. The nice man, in spite of that, put us on a different plane out of SFO for no extra charge that enabled us to make our connection in Chicago with an identical layover! How cool is that?
So then we're waiting to get on the plane and, I look over and say, "Jackie?" It's Jackie, Student House/Course 8 alum, class of '02 (like me)! She was one of my more common study partners in college! We chat. Turns out she lives in Berkeley now, and works... at the Exploratorium! What a coincidence...
They leave to get on the plane, and some folks who have been eyeing us approach. Turns out they heard I was heading to WorldCon and they are too! Too funny. So WE stop talking, and I hear, "Hi![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
questioner!" It's j_a_lord, who it turns out is going to college in Humboldt nowadays! We chat and I guilt trip her for not visiting me.
But... it was SO cool to run into all these people!
Wait, it gets better. We go through the WorldCon schedules and conclude that we want to sleep over Sunday night. Stress about hotels... the morning we're heading into the city, we call them up and they say, "No problem, we can add another night onto your stay at the same rate."
Then, when we get there, our room isn't ready. Would we be willing to take a larger smoking room? Sure...
So we got a HUGE smoking (which didn't smell like smoking) room with a love seat, comfy chair, two normal wood padded chairs, a desk, a tv etc., a cal king bed, a marble bathroom... for $100 CAD/night, in the Crowne Plaza (one of the main Con hotels). d00d!
That's most of the serendipity I guess. Hail Eris!
WorldCon
WorldCon was great. My WorldCon experience was not AS great as it, though, because I didn't really figure it out until the end. Next year if I can make it, I will go and have an even better time!
Went to some nifty panels, readings, etc. Not nearly enough though. More next year.
Got at least one story idea for Wired (unexpectedly) and did some other background while there, enough to log maybe a half day of work for the weekend.
The dealer's room sucked. The parties sucked. We threw up our hands on the first night and got ourselves some alcohol and food and threw our own party. It was VERY small and private, but we had more fun sitting around chatting with nifty folk than party crawling from crowded party to crowded party while sketchy men leered at me and annoying geeks who WEREN'T socialized tried (and failed) to hold worthwhile conversations.
I'm told the dealer's room varies widely from WorldCon to WorldCon. Dunno about the parties.
Toronto/Hamilton
My parents are still crazy, yet noticeably more mellow every time I visit. I still have obvious difficulty coping with them when tired, hungry, or otherwise suffering from other discomforts.
My brother stayed home from a cottage outing to have dinner with me! awww! His girlfriend was cute and sweet and he and I for the first time got along with no conflict! It was really nice. I am still kind of in shock about it.
My parents' new house is huge. 3 bathroom with outlets for the fourth in the basement, for two people. When they are old and have no money or energy, how will they clean it? How will they cope with the stairs? Although the Master bedroom is on the ground floor, so that helps. Still. Fuckin' huge.
Drove through Toronto withunseelie. My memories are fairly accurate... far fewer homeless than SF or Boston... WAY WAY WAY cleaner. Wider streets, newer buildings, better maintained storefronts... It's just NICER. Still, I realized a while back that at least some of my perceptions of SF have been colored by depression. I've been finding its level of dirtiness much more tolerable lately... although I wonder how I'll feel about it after being in Toronto for a week.
Went to the wrong airport, and didn't find out until we tracked down the reservation in their computer and they told us, with 1.5 hours before take-off. Oakland is like, 45 minutes in no traffic from SFO. The nice man, in spite of that, put us on a different plane out of SFO for no extra charge that enabled us to make our connection in Chicago with an identical layover! How cool is that?
So then we're waiting to get on the plane and, I look over and say, "Jackie?" It's Jackie, Student House/Course 8 alum, class of '02 (like me)! She was one of my more common study partners in college! We chat. Turns out she lives in Berkeley now, and works... at the Exploratorium! What a coincidence...
They leave to get on the plane, and some folks who have been eyeing us approach. Turns out they heard I was heading to WorldCon and they are too! Too funny. So WE stop talking, and I hear, "Hi
questioner!" It's j_a_lord, who it turns out is going to college in Humboldt nowadays! We chat and I guilt trip her for not visiting me. But... it was SO cool to run into all these people!
Wait, it gets better. We go through the WorldCon schedules and conclude that we want to sleep over Sunday night. Stress about hotels... the morning we're heading into the city, we call them up and they say, "No problem, we can add another night onto your stay at the same rate."
Then, when we get there, our room isn't ready. Would we be willing to take a larger smoking room? Sure...
So we got a HUGE smoking (which didn't smell like smoking) room with a love seat, comfy chair, two normal wood padded chairs, a desk, a tv etc., a cal king bed, a marble bathroom... for $100 CAD/night, in the Crowne Plaza (one of the main Con hotels). d00d!
That's most of the serendipity I guess. Hail Eris!
WorldCon
WorldCon was great. My WorldCon experience was not AS great as it, though, because I didn't really figure it out until the end. Next year if I can make it, I will go and have an even better time!
Went to some nifty panels, readings, etc. Not nearly enough though. More next year.
Got at least one story idea for Wired (unexpectedly) and did some other background while there, enough to log maybe a half day of work for the weekend.
The dealer's room sucked. The parties sucked. We threw up our hands on the first night and got ourselves some alcohol and food and threw our own party. It was VERY small and private, but we had more fun sitting around chatting with nifty folk than party crawling from crowded party to crowded party while sketchy men leered at me and annoying geeks who WEREN'T socialized tried (and failed) to hold worthwhile conversations.
I'm told the dealer's room varies widely from WorldCon to WorldCon. Dunno about the parties.
Toronto/Hamilton
My parents are still crazy, yet noticeably more mellow every time I visit. I still have obvious difficulty coping with them when tired, hungry, or otherwise suffering from other discomforts.
My brother stayed home from a cottage outing to have dinner with me! awww! His girlfriend was cute and sweet and he and I for the first time got along with no conflict! It was really nice. I am still kind of in shock about it.
My parents' new house is huge. 3 bathroom with outlets for the fourth in the basement, for two people. When they are old and have no money or energy, how will they clean it? How will they cope with the stairs? Although the Master bedroom is on the ground floor, so that helps. Still. Fuckin' huge.
Drove through Toronto with
unseelie. My memories are fairly accurate... far fewer homeless than SF or Boston... WAY WAY WAY cleaner. Wider streets, newer buildings, better maintained storefronts... It's just NICER. Still, I realized a while back that at least some of my perceptions of SF have been colored by depression. I've been finding its level of dirtiness much more tolerable lately... although I wonder how I'll feel about it after being in Toronto for a week.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2003-09-02 10:48 am (UTC)Think she'll put in a good word for you? :-)
Sweet deal on the hotel room... How come I never get that? (Though I did once get upgraded to first class for a cross-country flight, because of clerical errors...)
There're almost always at least a couple of good parties at a WorldCon -- if nothing else, among the bid and publisher parties, somebody has to get it right. And the Klingon Bar is usually pretty amusing. (And you missed the SH tea party? For shame! That's the best party to hit if you want to catch all the cool kids in the same place at the same time. :-)
And yeah, the dealer room varies a fair bit. Though honestly, it's never all that great -- always kinda kitschy, always a bit overpriced for most stuff. (Though you often can find some amazing stuff at used book stands.)
Incidentally, I'm sure part of the reason SF has so many homeless people is that they do not tend to freeze to death so much, during the winter. If you were a homeless person in Boston, you'd probably try to save up enough for a bus ticket to travel someplace further south. And of course, Canada has a rather better social safety net than the US, and probably better civil engineering all-'round. (Though you might like Phoenix -- it didn't start growing fast until the past decade, and they've done a pretty good job of clamping down on unplanned sprawl.)
Next year?
Date: 2003-09-02 12:58 pm (UTC)It *IS* in Boston!
Z
P.S.: Yes, we *are* going. ;-D
Re: Next year?
Date: 2003-09-02 01:07 pm (UTC)leering creepy geeks
Date: 2003-09-02 11:44 pm (UTC)-S~