kevin_standlee: (Pointless Arrow)
With our train to Chicago not scheduled to depart Detroit until 3 PM, we had a late check-out, and didn't have to rush. In fact, we even had a chance to collect the only station on the People Mover that we'd missed in our use of it throughout the week.

Twice Around )

After packing out of the room, we took a taxi to the Amtrak station. The cabbie must have been angling for a bigger fare and wanted to take us to Dearborn, but we didn't see any need to do that. Detroit's station is a single track, and the delayed train to Pontiac came through when our train to Chicago should have come in, causing the Chicago train (Wolverine #359, running on a special schedule due to track work) to run ten minutes late.

Despite high-speed running, it never got any better )

We have this routine down now in Chicago and walked down to the Holiday Inn. They upgraded us again, but not to that crazy conference room; we have a nice two-room suite, which Lisa suggested would have been ideal for exploring Chicago if we had several days instead of less than eighteen hours. They also gave us a 1 PM checkout, which is convenient for our 2 PM departure on Tuesday.

After dumping our bags, we walked over to Chicago's Greektown (there appears to be a pattern developing in our food tastes) and had a quick dinner there before returning to the hotel. There's no included breakfast here, so we'll need to get up early enough to go get breakfast; however, with the train station only two blocks from the hotel, we're pretty confident that we can make things work.
kevin_standlee: (WSFS Crew)
Up front: I took at lot of photos today and will not try to post all of them here. They are all in my 2014 NASFIC Trip album on Flickr, and they are all captioned, so feel free to go look if you want to see more than what I posted here. Also, the photos are all CC-licensed, so you're welcome to take copies for yourself if you want them.

Winding It Down )

All too soon, it was time for the last program item, the Closing Ceremonies.

And Now, the End is Here... )

After the Closing Ceremony, Lisa and I headed out to lunch, returning for a third time to the New Parthenon restaurant.

Beware of Flaming Cheese )

By the time we waddled back from lunch, tear-down was nearly done, it apparently having gone pretty smoothly. However, a job turned up that we could do: there were six mobies and a wheelchair than needed to be shuttled down to the "motor lobby" from the third floor so that the vendor could come collect them. Lisa, I, and a young woman whose badge read "Trouble" but was not at all like that drove the mobies carefully and got them to our destination without running down anyone or crashing into anything.

Hanging the Dog )

Just before midnight, we bade farewell to everyone (with cries of "see you in London" to some) and hustled down to the People Mover, which closes at midnight on Sunday. There was a guard starting to lock it up, but he said we could still make it, so I dropped quarters into the slots and we trotted up to the platform where there was a train waiting for us. We rode to Joe Louis Arena, where the train stopped and did not appear to want to move. A guard boarded, asked us where we were planning on getting off, and when we told him Cobo Hall (the next stop), he radioed the dispatcher to release our train for one more stop. The train continued, announced that it was going out of service, the guard let us out a side door, and we returned to our hotel.

Our train to Chicago on Monday is at 3 PM. The hotel has allowed me a 2 PM checkout, which is wonderful because it means we don't have to pack up until after breakfast tomorrow instead of rushing around tonight.



I admit that I was was somewhat skeptical of coming to NASFIC and to a great extent originally considered it an excuse around which we could wrap a cross-country train trip. However, it was something much more in the end: a very good and fun convention at which I enjoyed myself a great deal. Tammy and the crew that she recruited deserve all the kudos they can get for having done a fine job with Detcon 1.
kevin_standlee: (WSFS Crew)
The first two mornings we were in Detroit, when we went down to the restaurant for breakfast, we waltzed in and sat right down, with most of the others there being other fans. Saturday was different. There were large family reunions booked into the hotel, and the restaurant was packed. We had a twenty minute wait to be seated, but we did get fed. However, by the time we had eaten, it was already time to put on our baseball gear and walk to Comerica Park for today's NASFiC Baseball Fan Outing to the Detroit Tigers-Cleveland Indians game.

Take Us Out to the Ball Game )

After the ball game, we bade farewell to our fellow SF fans, most of whom had to get back to the convention sooner than us, and went to Greektown where we had a late lunch at the same place we ate yesterday, the New Parthenon restaurant.

A Bit of Food Talk )

We went back to the hotel, set our baseball caps aside to dry, and I returned to the Marriott, leaving Lisa to wash her hair and get cleaned up a bit.

Evening at NASFIC )

As I was heading back up to the 69th floor after the Masquerade, I realized that I didn't have my membership badge. Thinking that I'd dropped it somewhere in the ballroom, I retraced my steps back to the 3rd level, but couldn't find it. Then it hit me: I returned to the Minneapolis party, found Lisa, and she handed me my badge that I'd left in care of Kuma Bear while we were having our pictures taken. This was a case of so many people knowing me on sight that I'd simply walked past most security without realizing I didn't have my badge.

With the badge situation squared away, Lisa and I made a round of the parties.

NASFiC Chair and Party Host )

It was too late for the Food Court tonight, so we headed for Greektown again, where we ate at the open-all-night place next to the New Parthenon. It was okay, and I'm glad we went, but it's nothing special.

We could have jumped on the People Mover (and completed the set because the section between Greektown and Millennium Center is the only section we haven't yet traveled), but with full stomachs, we elected to walk back to the Crowne Plaza. It was pretty late, and yes, we were still in our costumes from the convention, but as long as we kept to well-lit streets we felt pretty safe. It did not take long before we were back in our hotel room being very grateful we could take off our shoes and socks. I think that we have logged more than 15,000 steps every day we've been here.

It was a good day at Detcon 1, albeit one where much of our convention day was spent off site. I apologize to my fellow SJ in 2018 bid committee members for not pulling my full weight with our activities at the convention. I've been taking it relatively easy and enjoying myself instead of working. and trying to not feel guilty about doing so.
kevin_standlee: (WSFS Crew)
Lisa and I took the first half of today off from the convention for a mundane task: laundry. We're about halfway through our trip and we were starting to run out of clean clothes. I previously had tracked down a coin laundry only about 1 km from the Greektown People Mover station, which is not impossibly far away. After breakfast we packed our laundry into a couple of bags and rode the People Mover from Cobo Hall (across the street from where we are) to Greektown, then walked down Lafayette to a decently equipped laundromat. As a bonus, they had a pinball machine, so we were kept occupied for the time it took us to do a couple of loads of laundry. On the way back, we stopped and had lunch in Greektown. Instead of taking the People Mover back to the hotel, we walked, as we needed it after the nice lunch.

The convention day was more than half over, but we finally headed over there after changing into our WSFS jumpsuits from Chicon 7.

Here Comes the WSFS Wrecking Crew )

After seeing programming, Lisa and I actually had enough time to look through the Dealers Room and associated Exhibits except the Art Show because Lisa would have had to stow her backpack, which contains her tinnitus-masking sound generator as well as [livejournal.com profile] travelswithkuma. Near the back of the room was the list of all past NASFiCs and an invitation to sign in and to collect stickers from [livejournal.com profile] gerisullivan indicating how many NASFiCs you have attended — in my case, four five, including both Detcon 1 and CascadiaCon where I was Fan Guest of Honor.

We found our way up to the Con Suite on the 69th floor for a while, then later went down to the food court (the big lunch meant we weren't that hungry) with [livejournal.com profile] pcornelius. After dinner, the Parties awaited. We made the rounds of the parties, except for those too loud or too drunken (or both) to appeal to us. Among those we visited were the Finland in 2017, DC in 2017, and New Orleans in 2018 parties. We ended the night at the Slan Shack: a suite used for programming during the day and being hosted by Geri Sullivan as a faanish party that night; It was open and airy and comfortable, and I was was glad to be there. I'm afraid that I sort of took over one bay of the suite for about an hour of a heavy duty SMOF session; on the other hand, what started as a relatively small discussion with Dave McCarty dealing with mechanical issues with WSFS committees on which we serve morphed in to much longer and more complex conversations as more and more people arrived, seemingly drawn to our discussion of Business Meeting arcana such as my contention that we seriously overuse Objection To Consideration when there are other, kinder mechanisms for trimming our agenda of obvious non-starters without dropping parliamentary 16-ton weights on well-meaning would-be participants in the process.

Just before Midnight, Lisa pointed out that we really needed to head out and the conversation broke up. The People Mover runs until 2 AM on Friday/Saturday morning, so we rode it back to the hotel. Some of the other people on the car knew that there was an SF convention in town and asked if we were supposed to be the Ghostbusters. "Not quite," I said. They were very friendly about it, I might add.

Tomorrow is Baseball Day, as we have tickets for the Detroit Tigers-Cleveland Indians game. Kuma Bear is sad that it isn't the Seattle Mariners playing.
kevin_standlee: (Kevin and Lisa)
With few specific commitments to Detcon 1, we didn't have to get up super early, other than we had an included breakfast that ended at 11 AM. After breakfast, we set out for an easy walk around downtown Detroit to see where things were at rather than heading straight down to the Marriott where the NASFIC is at.

Detroit Photos )

After our mini-sightseeing walk, where we also scoped out restaurants at which we might want to eat (and tried to confirm that they would be open nights and weekends), we went into the Ren Center and eventually found our way to Registration. The Ren Center is a maze of circular passages and ramps, and it's a bit disorienting to find your way there.

I picked up my materials quickly, but photo ID was required and Lisa had left hers in the hotel and none of the people at Registration personally knew her. There was nothing we immediately needed, so we stuck around in the free areas until I connected with Detcon 1 chair Tammy Coxen, who went by Reg and told them that Lisa was who she said she was and that this should be enough to give Lisa her badge. We're grateful to Tammy for her help.

My rant about photo ID and convention memberships )

After a little while longer, it was time for lunch, and we headed back to a place we spotted earlier near our hotel.

People Movers and Old Trains )

After lunch it was back over to Detcon for the first tranche of panels, which included an Old Time Radio demonstration, with old episodes of X Minus One and other SF/F related shows played over restored old tube-type radios. I enjoyed sitting for a short time in the dark with my eyes closed and listening to the shows. After that, we were on call to help decorate the Montreal in 2017 Worldcon bid party for tonight. Lisa and I had the one characteristic needed: we're both tall, which makes it much easier for us to hang the Canadian flag and the flags of the ten provinces and three territories around the room.

What Beautiful Suites You Have Here )

After helping decorate the room, we left the rest of the set-up to the remainder of the Montreal bid committee present and instead went down to the Opening Ceremony.

It's Officially a NASFIC )

After Opening Ceremonies, we needed to eat. A couple of restaurants in the Ren Center food court (which mostly cater to the lunch trade) agreed to keep longer hours for NASFIC, so we did our part to show that we appreciated this by getting sandwiches from Subway. Then it was back up to the Ambassador Ballroom for SF Jeopardy!. This had one of the J! game systems with remote controls, clickers, and score boards, but Lisa and I thought it could have used better production values like those we bring to Match Game SF. Also, the host of the show allowed himself to be taken out to dinner and kept out so long that the 10 PM start was substantially delayed, which didn't help attendance. Lisa and I left around 11 after the first round and went upstairs to check out the parties. I stopped by the Boston in Christmas 2020 Worldcon bid party, the New Orleans in 2018 Worldcon bid party, and the DC in 2017 Worldcon bid party before returning to the Montreal in 2017 Worldcon bid party I'd helped decorate four hours earlier. I never did get up to the 69th floor, even through the inter-floor stairs do work.

The next thing I knew, it was 1 AM and I'd been merrily discussing Worldcon, WSFS, the Hugo Awards, and sundry other matters for two hours. We called it a night and walked back to the Crowne Plaza. While not an actively dangerous walk, there was one homeless encampment, and I would recommend not traveling alone; however, Lisa and I walking together did not feel threatened on the well-lit streets of downtown Detroit.

Tomorrow we have few commitments again, although I probably need to spend time behind the San Jose in 2018 Worldcon bid table. (We're only doing a bid table, not a bid party.) Lisa may spend time helping with the Luna Society table as well. But we need to allow time to see the Art Show and Dealers Room, which from our initial glances at them look very attractive.
kevin_standlee: (Pointless Arrow)
Our train to Detroit left Chicago right on the advertised, but unfortunately a combination of conflicting freight train movements, ship movements (open drawbridges), and track work caused extensive delays, and we didn't get to Detroit until around 11 PM. It also took a while for a taxi to arrive because we were the last people off the train and everyone ahead of us scarfed up all of the available taxis. A friendly cabbie showed us what he thinks is the best way to get between the Crowne Plaza (where we are staying) and the Marriott (where NASFiC is happening).

The unexpected thing about a high-end hotel like the Crowne Plaza is that apparently most of the hotel rooms here have only showers, without bathtubs. Lisa really wants a bathtub. The first room we had didn't have a bathtub. We went downstairs and they tried again. The room they gave us was nicer, being a small suite with a separate living room, but still has only a tiny shower-only bathroom. After discussing our options with the hotel, Lisa said that she'd tough it out in exchange for having the otherwise nicer room.

On the bright side, my Platinum status gives us free breakfast. There is also what is described as a 24/7 Refreshment Lounge, but it was locked up and dark when we had a look after checking in close to midnight. We also don't know downtown Detroit, and unlike downtown Chicago, it doesn't look like there are convenient 24-hour places where we could go get something tonight. We'll do some exploring tomorrow, inasmuch as the convention doesn't get going until later in the afternoon. And that is good because we're tired from travel and need to get some sleep, albeit that we need to be up early enough to get the included breakfast.

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