Kevin Standlee: Fandom Is My Way of Life

It still wasn't a very good day today, but my appetite came back mid-afternoon. I hope to be more mobile tomorrow; at least well enough to go to the office rather than working from home.

Checking Amtrak's web site, I see that had I been willing to toss out my return ticket on Horizon and shell out $313 for a roomette (had one been available), I could have caught a train from Portland at 2:25 PM (about twenty minutes before my Horizon flight actually left) that would have arrived in Oakland at 8:40 AM this morning. (I actually got home a bit after 7 PM Monday after a painful but not excruciating flight. I probably slept better than I would have done on the train.) Still, it was quite tempting.

The Doubletree Hotel sent me a standard "thank you, any comments?" e-mail, and I replied with a complaint about the food poisoning, including our guess that it had to do with the sausages (or possibly the bacon). I don't know if anyone else got zapped or not. The symptoms wouldn't have turned up until many people had already gone home, probably. And there's always the chance that we've mis-identified the source.

We were lucky that the main ballroom was actually open around 8 AM (we were promised 9). Right after breakfast, we moved all of the Match Game SF gear into the ballroom and began setting up.

( Then Drama Happened )

( But we came through all right )

( Saying I'd do 3 panels in a row was perhaps a bad idea )

( Menlo Calling )

After returning from dinner, we made a very brief ceremonial appearance at the Dead Dog Party, but mainly I just waved, said, "Hello. Goodbye. I'm going to go be ded now." Then we limped back up to the room where I got ready for bed and after recovering some energy, wrote the above LJ entry.

There's so much more I'd like to write and more people I'd like to mention with whom I talked, not just about Match Game, but I'm wrung out. Although my flight tomorrow isn't until 2:30 (and thus I don't plan to leave the hotel until around Noon or so), so we have no pressure on check-out, we do need to be in the restaurant by 9:30 or thereabouts to use our included breakfast coupons.

I'd say I had a good time at OryCon, although there was drama and stress at times. We're also happy that Renovation chair Patty Wells got to see what our show looks like in light of our hope that we'll be invited to do it at Worldcon this year.

I cut things a little bit fine getting to Oakland Airport this morning. My train out of Centerville was on time, but was held up waiting for a freight train to cross in front of it, and consequently I got to Oakland later than I would have liked. Fortunately there weren't too many people flying this morning, I breezed through Terrorization, and got to the gate about ten minutes before boarding. Unfortunately, this didn't give me enough time for breakfast at the airport, so I had to settle for a food bar on the flight up.

( Travel Thoughts )

After getting registered with the convention, I tried to get Lisa's badge, but they couldn't find it. They got another one printed, only to find the original, which had indeed been printed and should have been filed with my programming guest-of-guest material, but had instead been filed with that of program participant Frank Hayes. Oh, well, we got it worked out eventually.

I popped over to Lloyd Center Mall's food court for some take-out food and brought it back to the table. While I was eating, Lisa arrived with the posters for Westercon (and Match Game). There was a bit of drama that doesn't bear repeating here, but eventually we got it sorted out and we got the Westercon posters and the Match Game SF fliers posted where they belonged.

We had no commitments this evening and went out to dinner after the Westercon table closed and I dealt with some business with the Hugo Awards web site. (Fortunately, there's also free wi-fi in the lobby areas.) After dinner we moved the heaviest piece of the Match Game kit up to our room and Lisa took stock of what she'd brought. She was a bit annoyed to find that one of the computers she brought was the wrong one. (To load the heavy box into the van, Lisa has to partially unpack it, move the box to the van, then move stuff back to the box. Some of what she'd unloaded were the Panasonic Toughbooks that drive the sound effects. While doing the packing two-step, she picked up the wrong computer, and thus has only one working Toughbook, not two.) She spent some time improvising how to make one machine do the work of two. She also set that machine to recharging.

Then we went out to the parties, where we spent most of our time in the Texas in 2013 bid party. (We also helped them post their banner on the wall, which was easy enough since we'd been posting banners and fliers much of the day anyway. travelswithkuma got to show off his DangerMouse costume.

As I've been up since 5 AM and Lisa isn't much better off, we called it a relatively early night; however, we wanted some snacks other than what was on offer at the parties. (Among other things, I found no diet sodas at any of the parties.) So we walked over to Safeway and got some supplies. Alas, this is a high-end hotel, not something nice like a Holiday Inn Express, so we have no refrigerator in the room and thus can't get any perishables.

Saturday, things get a bit more serious, as I have panels at 1 and 3 PM and we do want to bring the rest of our kit up to the room for "staging," so to speak. We were a little reluctant to bring it all in tonight because the room is so small. I said to Lisa when we arrived, "Unlike many of the rooms in which we've stayed, this room is smaller than the trailer in Mehama; unfortunately, it's not as efficiently arranged." Still, aside from the fact that our free-breakfast coupons are only good until 10 AM, we're not rushed tomorrow morning. Sunday will be less fun. I may have to try to get to bed early on Saturday night at a convention, which is an odd thing for me to do.

The "small stuff" — show intro, credits, commercials, contestant placards, fliers for posting and promoting the show, and the questions themselves — for the show at OryCon are now done and loaded. Because we've never done a show here and all of the panelists are new, I can re-use all sorts of older material, which makes the prep go faster, although not instantaneously. I reckon I spent about two hours this evening assembling everything.

Lisa has the hard part, which is assembling and moving all of the tech gear. In some cases, we've reached the point where it's not really a one-person job anymore. The rolling case, for instance, can get so full of stuff that Lisa can't lift it into the truck by herself. Part of this is because we tend to keep picking up stuff that looks like it might be useful, most of which is used and some of which is rather old and heavy (although working). We got a sound board, for instance, at the ham-fest last month when I was up there. It works, but Lisa is going to need to remove all of the foam insulation in the carrying case and completely replace it, because the foam is old, worn out, and crumbly.

One thing we don't have for the show in Portland that is really worrying me is an announcer. None of our usual suspects are going to be at OryCon, and it takes a certain kind of voice and attitude to announce the show. I could do it myself if I wasn't hosting it, but I can't do both at the same time. Anyone going to OryCon who fancies himself as a game show announcer?

I'll only be here in Fremont for a week, and then after a week in Chicago, I'll be back for four weekdays before flying up to Oregon for OryCon, where we're doing Match Game SF on Sunday morning. Yes, I'm getting a little disoriented and rushed.

I just got approval to spend the four weeks around the Christmas/New Year holiday in Oregon. I haven't worked out exactly what dates yet, though.

For the first time in several years, I've accepted a program participant invitation to OryCon, November 12-14 in Portland. I've also sent their Programming suggestions address an offer to host Match Game SF if they can find a space/time that works for them and they think it's a fit for them. There's no guarantee yet that we'll do it, but it may happen.

As usual, I'm always on the lookout for new questions for the show. As I say during most of our shows, if you think you can do better, please send me your questions. We credit the writers during the closing of each show, and lately I've started putting the names of the people who wrote the questions on the questions cards themselves to make it easier for me to give credit as we go along.

Lisa and I decided eventually to just move out of the room in several trips, moving a load at at time down and across to the van, rather than deal with the hassle of carts and re-parking the van. It wasn't raining, and we had plenty of time, and the exercise wouldn't hurt. I noticed that we exited the Marriott on the 3rd floor and walked across a level skywalk to the parking structure, which told us we were on the 2nd floor. I pointed this out to Lisa, saying, "Look! The Escher Skywalk!"

As we were putting the fifth and final load of stuff into the van, I got a call from David Gallaher, who was at World Fantasy Con in Madison representing the Bay Area WFC bid from SFSFC. He informed me that the bid from IFWA of Calgary (not the same organization that ran Westercon, CWSFA) was accepted, and Calgary will host the 2008 World Fantasy Convention.

Heading back to the hotel, Lisa and I made a last pass through the dealers' room, game room, and fan tables to say goodbye to people and pass along the Calgary site selection news to those people who I thought might be interested. Although it was a little early -- or rather we had ate breakfast pretty late -- we decided to go ahead and get some lunch. We walked to the Macaroni Grill and I had the Pasta Rustica, which was very good, but I felt very guilty eating it, what with the cream and cheese sauce on top of the pasta. I did order it with the higher-fiber wheat pasta, however. The walk back to the van was about ten blocks and four flights of stairs, but after a big meal like that, a lot more exercise should be in order. (Footnote: an hour later, my blood sugar was a respectable 115, which made me feel less bad. I reckon I still gained weight on this trip, however.)

We decided to dump me onto the light rail so I could get to the airport and try and catch an earlier flight to Oakland.

If you ignore the fact that I did have to pay $5 to buy in, my winnings from the poker tournament nearly covered the cost of parking: $37.

And so ends the OryCon experience for me, but not the trip, as I still have to get home.

Tonight's poker tournament had only seven entries @$5 each, so we decided that second place would get his buy-in back, and the winner would get the rest. Play went a little faster tonight. On the very first hand, I had a very large pot with Dave Howell. I had A-x as my cards and the flop came A-A-5. I started betting, and Dave stuck with it. Turn was a 5. Dave and I both bet at it. River came a 5 -- a full house on the board, but I had a better full house. I looked at Dave and said "All In."

Dave thought about it for quite a while, then called and revealed his own A-x: a split pot, because both of us had the same full house (A-A-A-5-5). He figured I must have either had an ace or a 5. Of course if I'd had A-5 or 5-x, he's screwed, but he decided it was more likely I had the ace, and he was right, so in the end, neither of us made much because nearly all of the money in the pot was ours.

I had a decent run of luck and was able to avoid a lot of dangerous hands, and I think I was the chip leader for a while. I know I ended up with a lot of the smaller chips, because I had to start making change for everyone. The table began to shrink, and at about 90 minutes, we were down to four, one of whom was Zoe Wells, who I'd eliminated last night. This is where I made my mistake. I some medium-decent hands, and I thought she was trying to bluff me out, and decided to pay for the information (what did she have), and twice she beat me, taking chunks of my stack with her. I managed to survive to be one of the final two by ducking the next few times around (a series of 7-2, 7-3, 8-4, and similar junk hands helped me make up my mind -- this lot do not bluff easily). But by the time we reached heads-up, I was dominated by Zoe's massive pile of chips. However, I think that three double-throughs (not at all unheard-of) would have reversed our positions, and I was dealt K-Q of spades, which is pretty good hand heads-up. I went all-in and Zoe called with 8-9 off-suit. I ended up with four cards of the flush, but Zoe paired one of her cards, and I was eliminated.

"I've been beaten," I said.

She said, "You've been beaten by a fourteen year old girl."

I laughed and said, "No, I was beaten by a smart girl. The better fan won tonight," and I shook her hand.

That was still a lot of fun, and hey, I got two hours of entertainment for free.

Now it's off to the parties, and as it happens, Denver's Worldcon bid party is across the hall from me and Chicago's is next door. (I volunteered to be party-buffer space since they know I won't complain.)

As I've mentioned, it's a strange feeling to not be run off my feet at a convention. I had two back-to-back panels from 11 to 1, after which Lisa and I walked the five (short, but in the rain) blocks to Chipotle for burritos for lunch. Lisa is very sensitive to spices -- she is almost childlike in her dislike of hot spices. The steak burrito was too spicy, and when she grabbed her soda to try and douse the fire, she literally choked on it. After her coughing spell subsided, the manager came over, and asked if she could do anything for us. Lisa explained that there was too much black pepper in the steak, and how Lisa can't stand spicy food at all. The manager suggested the barbacoa (pork), which is very mild, and offered to replace Lisa's burrito for free. Shortly thereafter Lisa had a burrito carnitas, pinto beans, and nothing else (no rice, no salsa, no cheese), and that suited Lisa just fine. I am seriously impressed to see that level of customer service and concern from what is admittedly and fast-food franchise. Good job, folks.

Now I must run for my last panel, about organizing a fan group.

After a somewhat slow start (not at all helped by the Intel people not releasing their function rooms until 3), OryCon got humming along this evening. Lisa and I attended the Opening Ceremonies, a "Wizard of Oz" storyline where Dorothy had travel to find the Wizards of SMOFS in the Rose City because she'd lost her hotel. Many oddball encounters ensued, but in the end, Patty the Good Witch magicked up the Portland Marriott and all was well.

( Kevin Plays Texas Hold-Em and... )

There may be another tournament Saturday night. I encouraged the organizer to try and get a notice in the newsletter. We could easily run a 20-player tournament for the same buy-in (and probably proportionate winnings). The aggressive twenty-minute doubling will force the action and the tournament will probably last not more than about three hours -- at 2:40, you're betting 500 and 1000 blinds. Also, with twenty players you probably only give each player 500 chips instead of 1000 -- in effect, you're buying 500 pennies -- and the game will end sooner accordingly. And of course with two tables, every second elimination, you have to rebalance the tables, but I'm sure we can manage that.

Now the problem is that I have an 11 AM panel but am still too bouncy to sleep. I shouldn't have drank that diet cola at dinner.