Casting Off

[kevin_standlee]

In about three hours, Lisa will take me to Reno airport to start the trip to China. From Reno, I fly to SFO where I meet up with my area head (Business Meeting Chair Donald Eastlake III) and we board a flight to Hong Kong that leaves at 01:15 Sunday morning and arrives at 06:15 Monday morning in China (thanks to the International Date Line). We spend a few hours in Hong Kong airport before continuing on to Chengdu, where we are scheduled to arrive at 12:40. The convention has apparently arranged to meet us and take us to the Sheraton across the lake from the convention site, so I guess I won't have to have us make our way there via the Chengdu Metro (although I had worked out the route).

I'm not expecting to be able to see much else other than the convention site. There are too many things that will use up my time while at Worldcon. I have the video recorder packed. If all goes well, I will try to record the Opening Ceremony, WSFS Business Meetings, Hugo Awards Ceremony, and Closing Ceremony. With Lisa's help, I have enough recording media to cover all of that. However, unless I should happen to get to some place there where I can log in to the Worldcon Events YouTube channel, I will not be able to upload these recordings until I get home.

The return trip has us leaving Chengdu early on Monday morning. (The convention runs from Wednesday through Sunday.) Because of the early departure, I've booked a room at a Holiday Inn Express near TFU airport that includes a shuttle to the airport, and we plan to head out to that hotel right after Closing Ceremonies. It's unfortunate that we have to leave so early, because I always prefer to stay for the final-night parties, including the (likely small this year) Former Worldcon Chairs party. October 23 will be a very long day because of the time change going back to LAX with a connection to RNO, where Lisa should be able to collect me around 21:30 Pacific Time.

I think this might be one of the longest stretches in years that I will be totally offline: no phone, no computers. If all goes as planned, I'll be back online October 24, Pacific Time. I've booked two days off after I get back late on the 23rd, to give me time to sleep a lot and get back on time before going back to work on the following Thursday.

I've packed an honest-to-goodness paper notebook. (Which turned out to be surprisingly difficult to find.) I plan to take notes as long as my hand holds out writing. I may post back-dated journal entries here. Much of it is apt to be WSFS neepery and to be old news by the time I get home.

Now I need to go finish packing. There is a lot that I have to fit into my luggage.

Comments

[madfilkentist]

Safe return.

[frith]

I am very curious to hear how this event turns out.

[arlesstra]

Safe travels there and back again.

Hoping some real time updates from attendees at con get shared, sanitized or not.

Ruth S

[celestialweasel]

Bon voyage

[billroper]

Good luck!

[scott_sanford]

I'm surprised Lisa didn't just show you her stash of paper notebooks. (I expect she has one; I have one.) I also didn't think that they'd be hard to find; around here it's possible to pick up paper notebooks at supermarkets, depending on how low one's standards go.