Westercon, Day 1: Living in the Party Zone

There were a good selection of parties here on the first night of Westercon. Across the hall from my room was the Hollister in 2008/Casa de Worldcon bid. Down the hall was the Loscon party and the launch party for Kevin J. Anderson's new book. From there, we planned on going one floor down -- the stairs do work between floors -- to the other party floor, but a con staff member offered to show us how to use the stairs to get to ground level without using the elevators. She led us through hotel back corridors and we found ourselves outside the dealers' room. However, the door we'd come through read "Staff Only," and we decided we'd eventually incur the hotel's wrath if we used it again, so we cycled back to the elevators and up to the third floor.

Once up on three, we made the rounds of the parties there. Stopping at the Burning Fan/Las Vegas in '08 Westercon party, we were treated to an impressive display of photographs of the inside of the proposed facility. The rooms are not cheap, but they are very nice looking.

Then it was Gnomeward Bound/Westercon 60, next year's Westercon. Their web site has not been updated, but they were announcing here that they've changed hotels (to the San Mateo Marriott) and dates (to the weekend before Independence Day instead of after as originally announced.

Next we sampled the Arizona in '08 Westercon bid, and I was asked to tell the story of the I-95 in '95 NASFiC bid as part of a discussion of how site selection rules work. I always enjoy telling this story, so that held us up for a while.

By then we were wearing out, and even though it was before midnight, we decided to turn in, because we need to be up early tomorrow, since my first panel is at 10, followed by the Business Meeting at noon and another panel at 2. We did briefly stop and say "hi" to the Columbus Worldcon Bid, but then it up the stairs and home.

I'm pretty sure I've left off several parties from this list, but I wasn't taking notes, and apologize for anyone I've neglected. No offense is intended. I made no relative grading of parties here. Most of the rooms here are a little small, so those groups who could took a connecting pair, or in the case of Westercon 60, rented the one available large suite, and that helped. Much of what parties serve I shouldn't be eating, so it's mostly a few small munchies and a Diet Coke for me, but I'm not complaining. I know how much work these parties are to organize, and my hat's off to everyone for the work they did.

And my apologies to the Hollister party for not being available when you needed boon work.

Update, 5 July: Fixed dates in bids.

Westercon, Day 2: Up and At 'Em

This morning I was having a particularly vivid dream where I was arguing with someone about BART versus other forms of rail-based transportation in the Bay Area. I recall saying to them, "Does it have to be BART itself, or would it be okay to be some other form of railroad transportation that runs on electricity, is shiny aluminum-and-blue, has a pointy nose, runs every 15 minutes, and takes you from San Jose to downtown San Francisco running at speeds of 80 miles per hour?" I was intending to answer, if they said the latter was okay, "Good, because we can deliver that with the existing rail system on the peninsula [Caltrain] for a less than what it cost to extend BART to SFO. But then, before I heard the answer, I woke up. And a good thing this was, too, as it was 8:02, and for some reason the alarm that I thought I'd set last night for 8:00 was turned off.

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Last night, I paid hazelchaz for the ribbons I've purchased to give away at L.A.con IV. He also gave me a package of "WSFS MEMBER" ribbons. Of course, any member of Worldcon is a WSFS member, but I don't have that many ribbons!

Westercon, Day 2: Electoral Systems

I had a spirited panel on Alternative Electoral Systems at 10 this morning. I explained the Instant Run-Off system we use for WSFS and Westercon elections, and others talked about some of the other ways to run elections there are. The audience had some of their own pet peeves, some of which I don't think are easily addressed. Ranting about "the wrong candidate" winning because of court interference or fraud is a little outside the scope of discussing ways of voting and counting votes, because I tend to assume that whatever system you have has to be administered in an open and fair manner. If that assumption is compromised, it really doesn't matter what your balloting system is.

While I was in that panel, I realized that the Fannish Inquisition immediately followed the panel, and that the Business Meeting immediately followed that, in the same room. I wanted to be at both, but I'd brought none of my stuff with me for the first panel, so I had to run upstairs, grab the stuff, dash off this entry, and head back downstairs. Fortunately, I am not involved officially in the Inquisition, so I'm not letting anyone down.

Westercon, Day 2: Business Meeting

I was Secretary of the Westercon Business Meeting, with Ed Green presiding. Lisa took a bunch of photos of the meeting that I just don't have time to deal with now and I hope I'll try to get posted eventually.

( Those of you who don't care about Business Meetings can skip this part )

Anyway, Ed Green will announce the makeup of the "Oink Oink Committee" (silly names seem to be a traditional requirement of Westercon wording committees) at the Monday Business Meeting where the results of Site Selection will be formally announced.

Westercon, Day 2: Tourism

After the Business Meeting and my 3 PM panel about Convention Traditions We Don't Need Anymore, Lisa and I and David Gallaher got together for half an hour to go over the Match Game titles and promotional pieces, and the two of them got used to working with each other on the announcements. As we expected, this wasn't a difficult thing, and I had the rest of the day free.

Lisa wanted to see some of San Diego, so we walked to the light rail station and too the trolley back downtown to the Santa Fe Depot, so we could look at a fine example of train station architecture. Then we walked to the waterfront and after having lunch at the Elephant & Castle franchise pub there, we bought an admission to the San Diego Maritime Museum displays of the historic ships there, including the sailing ship Star of India, Southern Pacific passenger ferry Berkeley, and former Soviet submarine B-39. Turns out Lisa and I had been on board the B-39 once before, when it spent a short spell in Vancouver during a time we spent a weekend there.

The ships were very interesting, and I'm glad I went and saw them, but I was developing a blister on my toe and was getting very tired, so we walked back to the light rail station and caught a trolley back to the hotel.