As the Keeper of the Keys (of the Tonopah Convention Center), on account of being the person who locked the doors late last night after we finished set-up, I also had to be there shortly after 7 AM to let the people who needed to run the online/hybrid programming in the Gold Room. Consequently, I got maybe three hours' sleep last night.

The first online panels (with the Gold Room being the place people could watch the panels at the convention) were at 8 AM. The Main Hall, however, was not scheduled to open until 10 AM. I unlocked the doors so Program Operations could get started in the Gold Room, posted signs about the 10 AM doors-open, and returned to the Belvada. Back in my room, I prepared breakfast for Lisa and me and watched the first online panel of the convention on my computer. I commented that it might be the only program item I see except those on which I'm a participant.

After the program was over, I once again moved the printer and paper and program books down to Registration in the lobby of the Belvada Hotel. Lisa headed for the TCC to work on Hospitality preparations. I joined her and others working on their parts of the convention later. I also directed people who had not yet registered (and had neither read the website or the signs on the doors of the TCC) down to the Belvada for Registration today.

Shortly after 10 AM, I personally opened the doors of the Main Hall, and the biggest single portion of Westercon 74 was under way.

( Welcome )

Between 10 AM and 2 PM, I did make numerous trips between the Belvada and TCC, moving things from one place to another and occasionally being called in to make some Chair-level decisions, some of which I didn't want to do, but That's Why I Get Paid the Big Bucks, isn't it? *eyeroll* But things had settled down from the frenzy of setup, and I remembered to sit down as often as I could.

( Opening Ceremony )

I don't have pictures of the Opening Ceremony, but Lisa did record it. However, it's part of a much longer recording, and I do not have time to edit out the OC itself. It started with a video based on the opening of the television show The Wild, Wild West with a montage of pictures of Tonopah ending with a picture of me standing in front of the SMOF-mobile (my minivan). The screen then raised, I walked out, and welcomed people to The Wild, Wild Westercon.

After a few introductory remarks, I introduced our guests of honor, Kevin Andrew Murphy and Myrna Donato, each who talked briefly about their experience of being named a Westercon Guest of Honor.

It was then time for the formal opening of the convention: the use of the Gavel of Westercon to ceremonially call the convention to order. This would ordinarily be my job, but because I'm only the driver of the convention and the real reason we're here is because Lisa Hayes fell in love with Tonopah and worked tirelessly on bringing the convention here, I asked her to join me.

( Bang the Gavel )

I felt much better after Opening Ceremonies were over, but there was still an afternoon ahead and some serious programming. Continuing immediately onward after the Opening, we invited the head of the very late-submitted bid for Utah in 2024 Westercon, James Galway, to give a presentation and take questions. That led to people who hadn't read the announcements about how Anaheim was awarded Westercon 75 in 2023 to ask questions as well. I carefully explained the process whereby Anaheim was selected, and made it clear that, based on multiple precedents, no further action by the Westercon Business Meeting was required. In addition, I explained that if no eligible bid (including Utah's write-in bid) does not win the site selection election, the Business Meeting on Sunday could select a site by a 3/4 vote, or alternatively could decide not to decide, in which case the decision on the future site would be up to the board of Director of LASFS.

Lisa, who is at least as worn out from short sleep during setup as I am, went back to the hotel and got a few hours of sleep because she's on the night shift. (Westercon is open All Night Long.) Just before she retired for the afternoon, Lisa and I (and Kuma Bear) cast our 2024 Westercon site selection ballots. By rule, Site Selection administrator Sharon Sbarsky marked Kuma's ballot "No Preference," so everything was on the up-and-up.

After Lisa retired, I stayed up and dealt with some things like getting a new version of the convention program grid online. For a short time, I thought it possible that there were going to be so many changes that we'd need to print a new grid, but it was not as bad as I thought. The convention newsletter, the Tonopah Telegraph could handle communicating changes to the members, and the signs on each programming room are apparently up to date.

Speaking of the newsletter, as Registration shut down at 7 PM, Sharon came over to the Belvada where Registration had been to use the big printer to print that late edition of the Tonopah Telegraph. We printed more issues than yesterday because the first issue ran out and we had to print more.

Registration will move from the Belvada to the lobby of the TCC on Saturday, so we did some equipment shuffling. Rick Kovalcik and Fred Moulton helped me move the big printer, boxes of program books, and spare paper to the TCC, where most of it went to Operations where it will reside for the duration of the convention.

With the equipment moved, our hotel room has a lot more space.

Lisa returned to the TCC after her extended nap. I was fading. She and I took a dinner break: she took a short bath while I went to the Sweet Dixie food truck for another dinner. Alas, they are sold out of the excellent catfish, but they still have lots of good stuff, and I could call ahead and they had it ready for me when I arrived.

After dinner, Lisa headed back to the TCC and got ready for bed. I'd love to spend more time hanging around with people in Hospitality, but I'm on the point of collapse now and need a bunch of sleep to recharge. Tomorrow should be better.

About half of our pre-registered attending members have collected their badges as of the close of registration this evening. (We do have a process for dealing with people arriving after Registration closed, issuing them temporary badges for the night after checking their vaccination credentials; they will turn in the temporary badges for actual ones the next day.) I still do not know how many people will attend the convention, but I'm pleased that we have six past Worldcon chairs in attendance (including me). While there are many familiar faces, there are others I don't recognize, and that's great!

Today's pedometer count: a mere 13,315 steps. I'm slacking off. I shudder to think what it would have been if I had not arranged to have a room in the Belvada on the lowest possible floor to minimize the trip times between facilities that I knew would be coming.

Now, it's time for some sleep.

Two years ago, when we drove from Fernley to Bishop on our trip to Loscon (part of a multi-leg tour that took us on to SMOFCon in Albuquerque), things did not go that great. We were running late, crossed the mountains after dark and as snow started falling. The Vagabond Inn where we stayed was fine, though. This year, everything was reversed. We got away from Fernley at Noon. Weather was perfect. Traffic was not a problem (aside from idiot drivers on US-95). But the Vagabond Inn disappointed us and has lost our business for the return trip.

( Today's Journey )

Halfway to halfway, at Hawthorne, Lisa asked us to stop briefly at the Hawthorne Ordnance Museum, as she'd seen information in a local newspaper about a new and large item in their museum.

( Not a Tank: Sergeant York AA Gun )

So after the brief photo stop in Hawthorne, we scooted on south on US-95 at the 70 MPH speed limit, which was not fast enough for some people, which was frustrating. What was frightening was people coming north on the two-lane highway trying to pass with not enough room. In one case, I had to slow way down to give the idiot enough room to get back over onto his side of the road, and I was only about a second away from trying to take to the soft shoulder, which would have been not fun. Once we reached the cutoff (NV-360) to Bishop, things got very quiet. We made really good time, arriving at the Vagabond Inn in Bishop when it was still daylight at about 4:30 PM.

Check-in to the hotel was so annoying that we very nearly balked completely and found another hotel, but I would have forfeited the room payment. When I produced my passport to prove my identity, the newly-trained front-desk clerk insisted that the only acceptable form of ID was a US driver's license, which they scan into their system. I pointed out that a passport is a better form of ID that a driver's license, but she wasn't having any of it, and I could take it or leave it. I gritted my teeth and handed over my driver's license. On the positive side, she was able to meet my original room request of a ground-floor room. The hotel is only two floors, but there's no elevator, and I did not want to have to lump the camera case up the stairs.

Despite the prominent signs insisting that masks must be worn, neither of the hotel staff we saw including the clerk were wearing masks.

The section of the hotel in which our room is located was under a complete rebuild (forced by a fire) in 2019. It's okay. We've had worse. Lisa was able to use the bathtub (we don't have a full-size bathtub at home) after we did our shopping. But the working space isn't very good, and that's a consideration to me because on Tuesday morning (we'll be here in Bishop again on Monday night), I need to work for several hours in order to use my PTO more effectively. Day Jobbe requires that I use two separate computers for reasons I need not discuss here, and there isn't enough room to work two machines here comfortably.

After confirming that the room was acceptable, we headed to Schat's Bakkery, a Bishop institution and "Home of the Original Sheepherder Bread." We bought some nice bread and cookies here, but there are too many people not wearing masks and crowding too close together for our comfort. I keep reminding myself: "We're triple-vaccinated and wearing N95 face masks."

After Schat's, we went to the Von's grocery store, refueled the Astro at the gas station there (paying about 75 cents/gallon more than when we topped off the van in Fernley yesterday), and bought a small amount of groceries including some sliced ham to eat with the good bread. (You have to eat it pretty quickly, as with no preservatives it simply goes stale and that's a waste.) Then it was back to the hotel room, where I got logged in, dealt with email, and made a hotel change.

After our experience with the Vagabond Inn here, I cancelled my reservation for our return stay on Monday night and instead cashed some of my IHG points to stay at the Holiday Inn Express down the street. I hope they will be easier to deal with and will have a better room configuration. Also, as I'm still a Spire member of IHG's program for now, I might get a room upgrade to a room large enough that Lisa isn't obliged to squeeze around me when I'm working in order to get around the room.

The Vagabond Inn had been our go-to hotel when coming through here in the past, but by establishing a nonsensical policy (I wonder what they do if someone shows up who has government-issued ID that isn't a driver's license and they have no driver's license), they've lost my future business. But for now, I'm trying to take it relatively easy. We are not in a huge hurry tomorrow, and hope that traveling on Thanksgiving Day proper might not be so bad as Thanksgiving Eve in the LA area.

I'm at (Virtual) Norwescon 43 this weekend, staffing a Club Booth (as their online platform, Airmeet, styles it) for Westercon 74 Tonopah along with lindadee.

( Behind the Scenes at Studio Tonopah )

The Airmeet platform that Norwescon is using appears to me to be reasonably good for programming on what Airmeet styles as "stages." The booths -- used by fan groups and dealers alike -- are less good. As far as I could tell, hardly anyone comes into them, and as more than one person has said, you can't even talk to your neighbors.

( Airmeet and Norwescon )

We've been asked repeatedly if we'll do Westercon 74 online. The answer has been on our website since before the pandemic: we're going to equip one room with the necessary hardware to do a "hybrid" program with both in-person and remote attendees (including program participants), but we are not going to try and reproduce every aspect of the in-person convention online, and we never intended to do so. We said we'd use the significant A/V and internet connectivity built in to the Tonopah Convention Center so that non-attending members (even supporting members) could participate in a part of it, and that was part of our campaign in 2019, before anyone had ever heard of COVID.

I guess it's just as well that I'm doing this from home, because with the timing of that spider bite, I would have been already on the road when the infection hit and things would have probably become much more unpleasant.

Today was a meeting of CanSMOF, parent non-profit corporation of the 2009 Montreal Worldcon and a number of other conventions including next year's World Fantasy Convention. We do have to periodically meet and review the conventions with reports from the committees under our umbrella. Yes, that means another Zoom meeting, but I'm sort of used to it, since I meet by video conference multiple times a week in the Day Jobbe.

There's not a lot I can talk around right now, but I expect that we'll have some news in the moderately near future if all goes as I hope it will.

I was feeling alert enough this afternoon so that after I finished with Day Jobbe, Lisa and I went into Reno for a few errands. First we collected a part we'd ordered from Summit Racing (they have a large warehouse/retail store in Sparks), then went to Lowe's to buy some things the Fernley store did not have. We were going to go get groceries next, but Lisa was hungry so we went to the Peppermill buffet for dinner, getting there just after they opened. Things were pretty quiet. Lisa asked the manager about how traffic had been, and she said, "You probably want to finish up by 6:30, because that's when the gamers will arrive." We didn't understand what she meant until we went for our usual post-dinner walk around the upstairs function space.

( GAMA in Reno )

We talked with a few people, and it quickly became clear that the people we met knew "our" fandom. I could talk about "Worldcon" without having to explain what it was, for example. We could have hung around longer, but I have to work tomorrow, and we still had grocery shopping to do, so we had to move on to WinCo Foods. We saw a few signs of panic buying, particularly in the toilet paper aisle. (We bought one package ourselves, but that was on our regularly scheduled shopping list.) They were limiting purchases of bottled water, hand sanitizer, and other things. We weren't panic buying; this was just our normal grocery shopping, which we completed without incident. As my day was drawing to a close, Lisa drove us home.

Today was nominally the "first full day" of Westercon 71, on account of there being light programming yesterday and a full schedule from 10 AM today, and therefore by Westercon rules, the programming items that was once called "The Fannish Inquisition" was today; however, apparently some people consider that bit of in-jokey reference offensive for various reasons, so it was just the Westercon and Worldcon (and NASFiC) Bid Presentations, and I was the moderator.

( Meeting Expectations )

I went up to the hotel room after the bidder presentations and set the four videos to uploading. Fortunately, the hotel wi-fi is fast enough to where that was not going to take all weekend. I worked out that there was a 7-Eleven store about 1 km away (for me by myself, that's around a 15 minute walk or less), so I headed over there to buy a bit for lunch and also some things for the hotel room refrigerator. By he time I came back and ate my lunch, the videos were finished, aside from me fixing typos on the descriptions.

There is a playlist of Westercon 71 Westercon, NASFiC, and Worldcon Bid presentations up on YouTube now if you'd like to see how the four groups represented themselves.

This was a bit of a warm-up for Saturday's Westercon Business Meeting, the first session of which is scheduled for 11 AM in the same room as where the bidding presentations were held. Ron has helpfully agreed to run the camera here again as well. Had this year's meeting been like the last several, with only the pro forma presentation of the site selection results, I probably would have just started the camera myself, done the meeting, then shut if off myself. However, this year, we have four pieces of new bylaws business, and possibly a fifth proposal that was hinted to me a couple of days ago. If the debate goes long enough, it's possible that we'll need to go to the "overflow" session scheduled in a much larger room later in the day. We will, however, start the Business Meeting on Saturday with the Site Selection results before going into the new proposals, and we'll see how much people actually want to debate them.

I spent some time this afternoon sitting behind the Worldcon 76 San Jose table, after earlier having helped set up the table. (I'm useful setting up the tall display sign because I can reach it at full extension.) I did a run through the dealers' room — I must restrain myself from buying anything due to lack of luggage space. And I cast my and Lisa's Westercon site selection ballots. Because we forgot to have Lisa fill out a ballot to bring with me, her vote was cast for No Preference so it can't affect the results.

At 6 PM, it was time for the formal Opening Ceremonies.

( Official Opening )

After the Opening Ceremonies, I asked where the ceremonial Gavel of Westercon was, and she admitted that she hadn't brought to the Opening, so there was no opportunity to do a ceremonial gavel drop. She did promise to get the Gavel to me in time for Saturday's Business Meeting, however, and I will then return it in time to hand it over to next year's Westercon committee at the Closing Ceremonies.

Dinner was very nice and unhurried at McCormick & Schmick's, where I got to have dinner with friends and with someone I don't think a much younger me would ever have expected to share a meal with. My thanks to lindadee for inviting him to join us. It was a good meal with good company. And much to my surprise, the mac & cheese and the key lime pie didn't send my blood sugar skyrocketing. This may be related to having logged something like 13K steps today.

There are parties this evening, including the memorial for the late Harold Harrigan and for Westercon 71. I won't be out much later though, even though I don't have any commitments on Friday and therefore need not get up that early. I can let my two roommates rise before me and for a wonder, sleep in tomorrow if I want to do so.

The slight cold I picked up somewhere along the line is moving into my chest, and Lisa is showing signs of coming down with it as well. So we have done a public service by not coming up to Portland for OryCon. I only hope this things clears up before I fly to SMOFCon on the first weekend of December. Unfortunately, chest colds with me have a tendency to want to stick around for a while.

Lisa and I went to Reno this morning. Before we left, I took a photo of the poor pathetic jack-o-lantern who is still sitting by our front door because neither Lisa nor I have taken the time to put him out of his misery.

( Help! I'm melting! )

First stop was brunch at the Atlantis (which serves in this case for lunch and dinner as well, and surprisingly didn't send my blood sugar into the stratosphere). We walked over the skybridge to the convention center, where Wizard World Comic Con Reno was going on. We did not buy a ticket. We just walked to the pre-function area and back. Some nice costumes about, though. Having walked some of that big meal off, we set off for the actual grocery and gift shopping.

( Doing Our Part for the Economy )

We did manage to get home and get the van unloaded before Lisa ran completely out of fuel, even though I stopped to gas up the minivan because gas at Fernley has come down to $3.05/gallon, which is forty cents/gallon cheaper than Reno/Sparks and even ten cents lower than USA Parkway.

This first day of Worldcon was my WSFS day, with a panel about Introduction to the WSFS Business Meeting and the WSFS Mark Protection Committee. Because of that and in honor of the convention's opening ceremonies, I squeezed into my WSFS captain's uniform from Interaction. There were even people who recognized me from the 2005 Worldcon for wearing it.

( QueueCon )

I attended the Opening Ceremonies, which were entertaining; alas, I had a terrible time understanding what most of the people were saying, and I don't think it was just the accents. The amplification distorted things a lot, and most people don't know how to use microphones.

( More Scenes of Loncon )

After grabbing lunch with Lisa, I went off to the Introduction to WSFS panel, which actually had a decent turnout. Mark Olson, Linda Deneroff, and I went through the basics of WSFS procedures and tried our best to de-mystify the meeting. I hope it helps.

Loncon 3 very generously printed an entire WSFS Special Issue of the convention newsletter, The Pigeon Post with all of the early WSFS Business News. My thanks to flickgc to volunteering to do this when the amount of WSFS news I submitted ran to being able to fill six columns.

( WSFS MPC )

In between the Intro To WSFS and WSFS MPC Meetings I attended a CanSMOF board meeting — Worldcons being one of the few times we can muster a quorum of the CanSMOF directors.

I did not go to the Retro-Hugo Awards ceremony, instead having an unrushed dinner. After dinner, we returned to the Fan Village, where the evening parties were in full swing.

( Tiki Dalek Invades Loncon )

Lisa and I spent several hours individually mingling and talking at the Fan Village. It was fun, and I was glad I did so; however, it means it was after Midnight by the time we got back to the hotel, and I still hadn't posted the 1939 Retro-Hugo Award Results or updated the 1939 Retro-Hugo web page, not to mention posting the photos I took today and writing up the first day's activities.

As always, there was far more than this to write about (such as my successful deliveries of difficult-to-get-in-UK things to Cheryl and to Flick that I'd been carrying with me from the USA), but this is all I can manage, because it's very late and we have to be up early in order to be in place for the 10 AM WSFS Business Meeting, where Lisa is recording and I am "performing" as the reporting member of two WSFS/Business Meeting committees and the lead proponent of a large proposed amendment to the WSFS Constitution. Despite sleeping 14 hours last night, I need some sleep tonight.

I continue to marvel at how different it is to attend a convention without a vast number of stress-inducing commitments about which to worry. It's a good thing, too, because I continue to suffer the ravages of hay fever, just less bad than a week ago. Being able to sleep in, look around when we feel like it, and sit down and watch the convention go by is a wonderful thing.

Anyway: on Saturday we had a lunch appointment with Doug and Kirsten Berry, which have Kirsten the ability to give travelswithkuma his long-delayed birthday present.

( Doctor Bear? )

Speaking of costumes, later in the convention we spent quite a while sitting near the Fan Tables area, which was one of the good places to see people in costume, and sometimes I was able to take pictures of them. This is how I learned also that (unlike what I wrote yesterday), Helsinki in 2017 has a presence here at BayCon, just not a fan table.

( Moose and Costume )

Portland in 2016 Westercon continued to do a land-office business selling pre-supporting memberships as Lea Rush explained why Portland will be a great place to hold the 2016 Westercon.

( Bear helps )

We had a look through the Dealer's Room, and I added books to the pile I will be purchasing later this weekend from Cargo Cult Books. I Tweeted the following picture of the Cargo Cult table.

( Airship Shape & Bristol Fashion )

FanimeCon is also going on this weekend, and some people are attending both of them, along with the Fanime affiliate Clockwork Alchemy. This makes for an interesting combination of costumes on view.

( Kawaii in the Corridors )

I'm not a huge shutterbug, really, but I've been snapping photos with my phone when I see things I like, posting them to my BayCon folder on Flickr, and Tweeting them from my @KevinStandlee account.

Later in the afternoon, I ran into Sally Woerhle, BayCon's Fan Guest of Honor, who was looking for a dinner party. She agreed to go with Lisa and me, later joined by Lea Rush, as we have the Astro and could transport people off-site for a little variety, there being only the hotel restaurant and some fast food places within easy walking distance of the Hyatt. We had a nice early dinner before returning Sally to BayCon to take care of her evening FGoH responsibilities.

Lisa and I briefly went to Saturday's parties, but we both were feeling pretty tired and once again turned in early. We find we really can use the extra time for winding down before getting some much-needed sleep. However, we did enjoy ourselves socializing with people, as we expect to do again on Sunday.