Kevin Standlee: Fandom Is My Way of Life

Cheryl has posted her Denvention 3 review.

There wasn't much down time for me today.

( Mark Protection Committee )

( Last chance to buy SJ2011 memberships )

( Closing Ceremony )

And then the convention was officially over. I came outside and there was Lisa in her WSFS yeoman's uniform (along with her aide, Ensign Kuma). She hadn't come in to watch Closing Ceremonies because applause sets off her tinnitus. We hung around and chatted with people in the Fan Tables area as the convention was being torn down around us. D3 had to get out quickly. The Fire Chiefs convention is moving in, and they need to get fire trucks moved into the exhibit hall today.

I wanted to go help with tear-down, but my WSFS uniform is not built for it if I want to keep it clean, and besides, all I'd had to eat since breakfast was a food bar, and I was fading out. Lisa and I went back to the room, where we changed into ordinary clothes and walked down to the 16th Street Mall and took the free bus down to Noodles & Company again. I needed comfort food and ate a bowl of macaroni and cheese.

( Here's a strange coincidence )

We walked back to the hotel via the convention center, but there was now no way to get in to see if there was anything left for us to do to help. The security guards said, "You have to go around through security now," so we instead returned to the hotel, where we got in to the elevator just as a large group of people who had arrived by bus were checking in. With only two of the four elevators in service, we decided to stay put for a little while and do some packing before doing anything else. Then I got side-tracked writing this instead.

I've taken pictures, but I'm not going to spend any more time working on uploading them. It's a pity I hadn't noticed on the first day that there were "Welcome Denvention 3" signs on posts around the downtown, because if I had done so, I would have taken a picture and used it as the icon for these Worldcon-related posts. Now it's too late. I will post a picture of the signs later.

Denvention Three turned out to be a pretty fun convention, despite prophesies of gloom from all and sundry coming in. There were probably between 3500 and 4000 bodies on site (the total membership count will be more than 4000 due to there being lots of supporting members and no-shows). I had a great time, and I heard a lot of other people saying the same. Congratulations to everyone for pulling it off.

Now I need to finalize this and we need to move stuff to the van this evening before we go over for the Old Pharts Former Worldcon Chairs' Party in the Sheraton. I do hope that someone has managed to stir up a Past Worldcon Chair ribbon for Kent Bloom by then.

Hiroaki Inoue, who chaired Nippon 2007, and his wife Tamie came by the SJ2011 Westercon Bid table Saturday afternoon and invited Lisa and me to come visit with them in their room down the hall from where the Post-Hugo Party was being held Saturday evening. I had an invitation to that party by dint of being a director of Anticipation's parent non-profit, but I had decided to give it to kproche and bovil on account of I've been to these things before and I am not hugely fussed over being there at the very start of the scrum. So after the ceremony, they and I joined Cheryl and gigica, who were heading back to the Crowne Plaza as well (their room is actually shares a wall with mine) to change to shoes more amenable to standing for a while. I popped in to my room to get my invitation and give it to Kevin and Andy, who went on to the party.

Lisa had actually gone to bed when I went to the Hugo Ceremony (something rare for her in these circumstances, but she was exhausted), but got back up and got dressed while I changed out of my suit and into a much more casual Hawaiian-style shirt. We then went over to the Sheraton, and after several mis-turns, figured out where we were supposed to be. We shared part of the walk with the Foglios, with whom I commiserated with over Phil's fourth-place finish in Best Professional Artist and explained that in 2009, there will be a Best Graphic Story Hugo Award, for which Girl Genius will be eligible, provided that one story ends during 2008. Since the GG books are first published in serialized form on the web, that means the end of a story there, not the publication of the paper books. I reckon I'll write to them and explain this further later.

We were happy to sit and join the Inoues and the other Japanese fans, who made us feel quite welcome. Hiroaki had some Japanese rail and train-modeling magazines which he gave Lisa as a present. I was happy to just sit and relax and talk with people whom I don't get to see very often.

( Crashing the Hugo Party anyway? )

I headed back down the hall where Lisa continued to talk trains and other stuff. It was nearing midnight, however, so we thanked the Inoues and the others for their hospitality and said goodnight, then made our way back to our hotel, where unfortunately it has taken us nearly two hours to get finished with my report writing.

There's a lot more I could say, but I'm way too tired to do so. And I have to be up again in about five or six hours because there's an MPC meeting at 10 AM Sunday.