Westercon 71 Day 2: Table That
Jul. 6th, 2018 09:20 pmI had no specific commitments this morning and did not set the alarm, planning to sleep in. But at 6 AM I woke up hard with the though that my ATM card was missing from my wallet. I got up and checked, and in fact, it was. (I knew there was an empty slot, but thought it was a card I though I'd pulled out before leaving home.) Thinking about it, I reckoned that I must have dropped that ATM card (and my XPO company credit card) after using the ATM card at 7-Eleven yesterday. Then I couldn't go back to sleep.
After breakfast, I walked down to the 7-Eleven (just as well after all of that food. They had a bunch of other people's cards, but not mine. Darn. I then walked back to the Hyatt and asked at the front desk, and they had nothing, but they took my contact details and said that if the cards turned up that they would contact me. However, at this point I decided to report the cards lost and be done with it. Bank of America is sending me a new card. XPO Corporate noted the cancellation and I should have a new card from them in a week or two. Not a crisis, just an annoyance. I should be able to get by on credit cards and money loaned from (actually, checks cashed by) friends here at the convention. Like when the ATM ate my card at Eurocon, having this happen at a convention with many friends around makes it far less of an issue to deal with. Even Connie Willis offered to help if needed, which was very kind of her. OTOH, if I were to ever bounce a check on her, I'm sure I'd never hear the end of it.
( Worldcon Table Sitting )
It's hard to tell how many people are here. Attendance seems light; however, all of the programming rooms are on the ground level, while the fan tables, gaming, art show, and dealers room are on the second level, and I'm told that programming is heavily attended here.
This evening,![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lindadee arranged for a group of five to go to a sushi place that had been recommended to her, and for the hotel to take us there (and retrieve us) using their free shuttle. The place was packed and noisy, but the food was good, as was the company. We took stock and found that the five of us were from five different states. I only get to spend this much time with my friends at conventions like this.
This evening there are, as far as I can tell, only two parties: Worldcon 76 and Utah in 2019 NASFiC. It's unclear just how much night life this convention has otherwise.
I haven't heard the unofficial word from Site Selection, but I also haven't received an "Oh no!" telephone call like back in 2011, so presumably the results of the election were predictable and we won't spend a lot of tomorrow morning's 11 AM Business Meeting on them. That's good because there are the four items of new business, one of which in particular (to expand Westercon to over all of North America as defined the same way as NASFiC does), which may either be disposed of relatively quickly or may instead end up going into "overtime" for a second session planned for 2 PM. People have asked me how many people I expect to attend the Business Meeting. I honestly say that I have no idea. If it were only pro forma results, we'd be hard pressed to get the ten-person quorum. Under the present circumstances, I don't think quorum will be a problem, but I also don't know who wants to participate. I'm not worried, though. We have enough time between the two sessions to deal with this business. The only real question is can we do it all within the first scheduled hour.
So far (despite the lost card) I've been having a very good time, and working far less intensely that I expect to be doing next month in San Jos&emdash;.
After breakfast, I walked down to the 7-Eleven (just as well after all of that food. They had a bunch of other people's cards, but not mine. Darn. I then walked back to the Hyatt and asked at the front desk, and they had nothing, but they took my contact details and said that if the cards turned up that they would contact me. However, at this point I decided to report the cards lost and be done with it. Bank of America is sending me a new card. XPO Corporate noted the cancellation and I should have a new card from them in a week or two. Not a crisis, just an annoyance. I should be able to get by on credit cards and money loaned from (actually, checks cashed by) friends here at the convention. Like when the ATM ate my card at Eurocon, having this happen at a convention with many friends around makes it far less of an issue to deal with. Even Connie Willis offered to help if needed, which was very kind of her. OTOH, if I were to ever bounce a check on her, I'm sure I'd never hear the end of it.
( Worldcon Table Sitting )
It's hard to tell how many people are here. Attendance seems light; however, all of the programming rooms are on the ground level, while the fan tables, gaming, art show, and dealers room are on the second level, and I'm told that programming is heavily attended here.
This evening,
lindadee arranged for a group of five to go to a sushi place that had been recommended to her, and for the hotel to take us there (and retrieve us) using their free shuttle. The place was packed and noisy, but the food was good, as was the company. We took stock and found that the five of us were from five different states. I only get to spend this much time with my friends at conventions like this.This evening there are, as far as I can tell, only two parties: Worldcon 76 and Utah in 2019 NASFiC. It's unclear just how much night life this convention has otherwise.
I haven't heard the unofficial word from Site Selection, but I also haven't received an "Oh no!" telephone call like back in 2011, so presumably the results of the election were predictable and we won't spend a lot of tomorrow morning's 11 AM Business Meeting on them. That's good because there are the four items of new business, one of which in particular (to expand Westercon to over all of North America as defined the same way as NASFiC does), which may either be disposed of relatively quickly or may instead end up going into "overtime" for a second session planned for 2 PM. People have asked me how many people I expect to attend the Business Meeting. I honestly say that I have no idea. If it were only pro forma results, we'd be hard pressed to get the ten-person quorum. Under the present circumstances, I don't think quorum will be a problem, but I also don't know who wants to participate. I'm not worried, though. We have enough time between the two sessions to deal with this business. The only real question is can we do it all within the first scheduled hour.
So far (despite the lost card) I've been having a very good time, and working far less intensely that I expect to be doing next month in San Jos&emdash;.
