Kevin Standlee: Fandom Is My Way of Life

Lisa is skipping Worldcon this year, because she wants to try the European rail trip that she did last year, this time without all of the drama and disruption that ruined at least a third of it until we could get her settled in. We've booked the same extended-stay hotel that we eventually found in Munich, bought another two-month first-class Eurail pass (a bargain at $800), and her airline ticket (the part she hates).

With Lisa being away during Worldcon, it doesn't make sense for me to drive to Seattle. I can get back some of the PTO days (and I was already tight for time, especially after having to take several days for the hernia surgery) and then fly up and back. Today I sat down to book the flight. After booking the flight initially, it asked if I wanted to upgrade to first class for about $270 round trip. I got to thinking about this. For various reasons (mostly things I'm doing for Kayla's sake; I'm not complaining), there is a very good chance that I'm going to need two checked bags, which would cost $160 in baggage charges. There even is apparently a meal for first-class passengers (coach gets pretzels for the relatively short flight RNO-SEA). Along with the bigger seat, I decided that the net $110 (after accounting for the bag charges) was worth it and paid for the upgrade.

Stockholm was the only bid presented to host SMOFCon 42 in Stockholm, and the bid was selected by the unanimous consent of the members of SMOFCon attending the bid presentation session. The convention will be December 5-7, 2025. Membership is 450 SEK. (Free to under-26 if registered in advance.)

I recorded the SMOFCon bid, Worldcon and Worldcon bid Q&A sessions, but I am too overloaded right now to try and upload them. to YouTube. The Worldcon/bid Q&As will be on the Worldcon Events YouTube channel. I think that the SMOFCon presentations will be on the SMOFCon 41 YouTube channel once they are able to arrange for me to access it. It may not happen right away, and possibly won't be posted until I get home, due to my having an overload for Saturday at SMOFCon.

I ended up napping for a couple of hours, and when I woke up I needed to put in some work helping the Montréal 2027 Worldcon bid, which hosted the SMOFCon 41 Con Suite this evening.

( Montreal in Seattle )

SMOFCon is always a time to make connections and talk with other people about plans for future events, such as in my case Westercon and Worldcon. I did participate in a number of such conversations this evening. I am not going to talk about them now because the plans need to develop and reach a point where we can deliver on them. However, I will say that in general, and subject to change, if Montréal wins their bid, I expect to be chairing their WSFS Business Meeting, and I have been working on having a team selected to operate it. We haven't won yet, and we aren't the only known bid, so it is premature to say much more. There are, after all, two Worldcons to come before 2027.

I then hung out in the Con Suite until about 11 PM, and as much as I like this part of the convention, I did pull myself away to go back to my room, unwind, take care of some bid business, and get ready for tomorrow, which as usual will be the busiest day of the convention. I'm going to be recording the Worldcon and Bid presentations (for posting to the Worldcon Events YouTube channel) and also the evening "keynote address" by featured speaker Jim Wright of Stonekettle Station. As the SMOFCon 41 website says, "He’s going to speak to us about his experience in analysis and commentary, with a special focus on the Sad Puppies’ attempt to hijack the Hugos, and how he helped turn that into a positive experience for fandom." I do not yet know where his presentation video will be posted, but I'll write about it when it happens.

I expect to have several announcements to post tomorrow, or possibly in the wee hours of Sunday morning, maybe backdated. That's because I will be busy a lot all tomorrow evening, with the Probability & Statistics Seminar (not on the published schedule; it's a private item open to all attendees of the convention, which has given us Cascade 7 for that purpose) happening after the keynote.

If Lisa and I were driving to Seattle for SMOFCon 41, we would have left already — probably yesterday. However, as Lisa is staying home and I'm flying (9 AM flight from Reno on Alaska Airlines Thursday morning, returning mid-day Monday), I put of some prep until this evening, and the rest won't happen until tomorrow morning, as I'm just going to get up at my normal 4:30 AM alarm time.

Lisa is loaning me the small camera for recording the Worldcon/Bid Q&A sessions. That will fit in my computer backpack, while the tripod will fit in my large piece of luggage. I will also pack my empty Montreal WFC bag, and thanks to flying first class and getting a free second luggage allowance, I'll be able to carry the poker chips (which traveled by land from last year's SMOFCon in Providence RI) back in my luggage by rearranging the packing on the way back. Those two cases of chips will take a substantial portion of the 23 kg limit per bag.

I should get to bed, especially as I did not get much sleep last night after Lisa and I made a grocery shopping trip to Reno so she would be stocked up while I'm away, but for some reason I find myself restless. It's probably pre-con jitters, even with me having relatively few things on the docket this year. Nonetheless, I do expect there to be some, shall we say, interesting discussions this year over the coming Worldcon, about which I'll probably write more late.

And in the meantime, thank you all for the nice comments about my essay yesterday, which I also cross-posted to Facebook. That was my contribution to #LGBTQNotGoingBack, an action proposed by Julia Serano. If you want to know more, follow the link. I got to meet and talk to Julia at a book event in San Francisco many years ago, and I was inspired by her to add my contribution to the pile. I did, as I said, write to my member of the US House and both of my Senators. I hope that they are listening.

juliaserano

I was able to combine the eight separate segments of the Monday 2024 WSFS Business Meeting (aggregate size 21.7 GB) into a single video (4.5 GB) and upload it to my YouTube channel last night. I then removed the eight individual files. So there are now only four files in the playlist:



Once again, this is not the official video. The 2024 WSFS Business Meeting (of which neither Lisa nor I were staff members) is responsible for publishing the official video. The official video (what was broadcast as the live-stream, to the best of my knowledge) is apparently available to members of Glasgow 2024, and it appears to be the intent of the Business Meeting team to publish those videos to the YouTube Worldcon Events Channel, but as of right now, that has not happened yet. When it does happen, I expect to write about it here.

Incidentally, there is a slight audio glitch in part 4 (Monday) around 1h47m. Unlike the glitch in part 2 (Saturday), which was caused by something YouTube did to the original upload, this one is a production error. While trying to zoom in on the speaker, Lisa accidentally hit the stop/start button on the recorder. (The buttons on the control panel are very close to each other). She did immediately start again, but it means a couple of seconds of audio (the speaker introducing himself) dropped out. By coincidence, the same person (Kent Bloom) was involved in both the Friday and Monday glitches.

Today was a recovery day. I slept a whole lot, including a 2 1/2-hour nap in the afternoon. We went out and got some groceries, and after putting those away and having lunch, we went for a pleasant drive around the Welsh countryside. That's about all of the adventure that I can manage right now.

I have my temporary "office" set up and will return to work at the Day Jobbe on Monday, working hours that more or less coincide with most of my co-workers. As my time permits, I intend to do some back-dated entries about Worldcon itself and my travels, including the trains I've ridden. However, I promise nothing because I have not looked that closely at what's pending from Day Jobbe, and three weeks away from work usually results in a flood of stuff.

Meanwhile, Lisa and Chris have made it to Paris after taking the ferry from Portsmouth to Caen, spending the night there, then taking the train to Paris, where they are scheduled to spend two nights before continuing to Munich, which will be their base of operations for most of the next two months.

You can now see videos of all four WSFS Business Meeting made by Lisa Hayes (not official video shot by the convention) on our 2024 Worldcon Business Meeting Playlist.

As you will see, the final (Day 4, Monday) meeting consists of eight files while the other days are one long file each. For the first three days, I was able to combine the raw video out of the camera and compile it into a single file. This shrinks the file size and makes it easier to upload. However, my personal laptop has gone from having a complaining fan to refusing to boot at all, so it looks like it is hors de combat until I get home. That's the computer with Premiere Pro on it, so unless I happen to get to a machine with Premiere on it, I won't be able to do anything about this until next month.

The internet connectivity in the Crowne Plaza went from bad to worse, to the point where I could barely get any connection at all. Cheryl Morgan helped me out by letting me take the Monday files over to her hotel (which had fairly fast connections) and upload them. It took about five or six hours.

I'm sitting in the Crowne Plaza lobby where the connections are faster, albeit still not very good, to compose this entry. I'm sorry I wasn't able to write further reports about Glasgow 2024 due to the twin issues of connectivity and available computer equipment.

On Wednesday, Lisa heads off on her two-month Eurail pass trip (basing herself out of Munich), while I'll be in Wales for a few weeks riding trains, but mostly working remotely during the week as I'm nearly out of time off. Updates may be sporadic.

Backdated entry: While most people who are really interested will have seen the results elsewhere, I'm going to try and go through the results of the Sunday (Worldcon Day 4) Business Meeting for my own satisfaction. I'd also like to thank File 770 and Gray Anderson for their work, which allowed me to figure out where my notes sprung a leak.

I note that the Business Meeting Day 2 Video off of Lisa's camera that I posted appears to have gotten the audio and video out of sync. This is probably a mistake I made while combining the segments together in Adobe Premiere. Unfortunately, with my personal computer (with Premiere) dead and unlikely to be repaired until some time after I get back to Nevada and am able to ship it off to Dell for warranty repair, I'm not going to be able to fix it for a while. If you are a member of 2024 Glasgow, you should be able to watch the replay of the live stream on their site along with other recorded programming. I've been told that eventually we'll be able to upload the official recordings to the YouTube Worldcon Events channel, but I don't know when that will happen.

If you want to know what the text of any of the matters mentioned here are, you need to download the 2024 WSFS Business Meeting Agenda. This post will not restate the text of anything that is already in the Agenda. If no vote tally is shown, it means the vote was by uncounted show of hands. Counted votes were taken by "serpentine" voting, and yes, there were provisions to count people who could not stand for a serpentine vote.

( Summary of Action Taken )

The Sunday meeting adjourned leaving parts of F.10 (which was divided into multiple sub-proposals) and F.14-F.20 to consider.

Once again, we did not overflow the room, and indeed, the attendance started to drop off as people whose hot-button issues were resolved in one way or another. Some folks would not be back because they would be leaving Sunday night or Monday morning, or because they were exhausted.

And speaking of exhausted, Lisa was very tired after recording a third very long day of Business Meetings, and she's not fond of award ceremonies, so she took the afternoon off and rested. I, however, had went to the effort of bringing my suit with me, so I escorted Cheryl Morgan to the Hugo Awards ceremony. We forgot to get a picture together, though.

( 19 Years Later )

After the ceremony, I went back up to my room and got my computer and then went with Cheryl to her hotel, the Hilton Garden Inn, because she had generously allowed me to come down to her hotel where the internet actually worked so that I could get the Hugo Awards website updated. I accidentally left my tie behind in her room when I took off my jacket and tie before getting to work, but she recovered them for me and got the back to me the next day.

It was at this point in the Worldcon when my lack of internet connectivity in my own hotel room overwhelmed me and I was unable to post Business Meeting summaries on the same day. It was very frustrating.

Bandwidth continues to be an issue. While I can get faster connections from the public areas of the hotel, I don't think I should be obliged to sit all night in the lobby rather than from my hotel room. Thus I have temporary discontinued cross-posting (which has to be done manually) to LiveJournal.

We started today's First Main Business Meeting on time at 10:00. Because we didn't get through the entire agenda at the Preliminary Business Meeting, we continued to grind through it, picking up where we left off.

A significant and unwanted development was that at least three Business Meeting attendees, including one member of the BM tech team and the BM Secretary, are down with COVID. Linda Deneroff is the Emergency Holographic Secretary after Alex Acks tested positive at lunchtime. More masks have appeared. Lisa and I took COVID tests after the meeting and are clear for now, but we'll test again after tomorrow's meeting.

Once again, consult the WSFS Agenda on the Glasgow 2024 website for the agenda items in the list below, where I'll list what happened to what we did consider. That link points at a PDF of the agenda. That means if you want to read the motions and the makers' statements, etc., you have to download the PDF.

Items with numbers earlier in this list were dealt with yesterday. See that post for details.

( Summary of Action Taken )

Having finally gotten through all of the resolutions, we could move on to constitutional amendments. For this, we proceeded through a special process called "First Pass" that allowed the meeting to do only a limited number things: Object to Consideration, Postpone Indefinitely, or refer to committee. This doesn't apply to constitutional amendments up for ratification passed on from last year. After First Pass, we'll go back through everything and set debate times, and then we can actually start full-blown debate including amendment. This may sound confusing, but it does look like it's having the desired result of clearing a lot of stuff off of the agenda.

Everything in Section E was skipped and we did not have enough time to set debate time limits. That should happen on Sunday.

In the following list, "no action taken" means that when we complete First Pass, we'll go back and set debate time limits, and then once Section E is done, we'll consider these Section F new constitutional amendments.

( First Pass )

We ran out of time and adjourned at 15:00 after working on F.11. That leaves F.12 through F.20 pending First Pass.

Sunday's meeting will start with Site Selection business, which we expect to be expedited so we can get back to deliberating on business. Also, I received a notice that the Worldcon Chairs Photo Session will happen at 09:30 before the 10:00 Site Selection Business Meeting. We obviously still have to grind out nine more new Constitutional amendments and then set debate time limits before we can actually debate ratifications and then initial votes. That' why we're still scheduled to run from 10:00 to 15:00.

I am fairly confident that we can complete Site Selection and the twelve ratification items. Having booted a lot of motions to committees to report next year means we have a chance to consider at least some of the new Constitutional amendments. I'm not sure if we'll get through everything. However, once we get through Site Selection and Ratifications, we can adjourn sine die anytime thereafter. If we do so, or if we run completely out of time on Monday, anything not finally resolved "falls to the floor," i.e. it dies. Anything that dies the dead of end-of-session can be reintroduced as a new item next year.

I spend most of the rest of the day and most of the evening (except when I went to dinner) trying to figure out some way to get Lisa's Business Meeting videos uploaded. I gave it a shot in the SEC, where I was allowed to use the office in the "Boneyard" (where boxes and such are stored, and also where the Sign Shop is located. However, it took more than an hour to upload just the first of seven segments of the Friday meeting. I'm taking a shot and combining all of the files for each of the first two days into a single file per day in Adobe Premier and trying to compile it down to a size small enough to have a chance to actually upload in a reasonable amount of time. I know that people who weren't watching the meeting live are probably interested in seeing this, given that (as far as I can tell) the convention has not posted their own copies. If I can get the video uploaded, it will be on my personal YouTube channel as neither Lisa nor I are part of the official Business Meeting recording/tech team.

No photos today. Not because I took none, but because as of this evening they haven't all downloaded from my phone and because it takes too long to catalog them.

Today was the first day of Glasgow 2024, the 82nd Worldcon. While there was no Business Meeting, in terms of total number of program items that I wanted to attend or that I was obliged to attend ex officio, it was the busiest.

I slept in a little bit but didn't want to miss the included breakfast. Lisa skipped breakfast. When I came back up after breakfast, I put away my USD cash to make my wallet more manageable, and Lisa and I walked to Exhibition Centre Station. Lisa then went to ride trains in Glasgow using the five-day transit pass we bought for both of us. The convention arranged with the city for a £5 for five days unlimited travel pass to convention members. I continued on to Lidl to buy more groceries. The idea was that I had enough time to buy groceries, take them back and put them away in our room, then go to the first program item at 13:00

At Lidl, I picked out the groceries and headed for check out. As I was putting the goods on the cart, I realized that I had left my wallet on the desk in our hotel room! I took the groceries back and went back to the hotel. My wallet was indeed there. Unfortunately, but then there was no time to go back to Lidl, and instead, I had only a few minutes to get to the first panel.

Between the panels, I ran down to the Montreal in 2027 Worldcon Bid table. While I have no time to help at the table, I did have just enough time to go pay the first installment of my bid committee dues, and to pay it in GBP to provide funds for some of the expenses the bid will have here in Glasgow.

The 13:00 panel was Introduction to the WSFS Business Meeting. Here, Jesi Lipp and other officers of this year's Business Meeting discussed the process and answered questions about how the WSFS Business Meeting works. Unlike most of these panels, there appeared to be more people attending who had never attended a Business Meeting. I asked a few questions myself. Jesi has a difficult job ahead of them.

At 14:30, there wasn't exactly a panel, but the first WSFS Mark Protection Committee Meeting, chaired by Donald Eastlake III. (Despite what some people might think, when I resigned as MPC Chair, I did not resign as a member of the MPC.) This meeting is always open to the membership, but unlike most years, we had a lot more "guests" attending the meeting. We also had a Zoom call running so that MPC members who couldn't attend Glasgow 2024 could participate. The business was routine, and there were no fireworks. After the meeting, Don explained the history and development of the entity currently called the Mark Protection Committee: it was initially developed as the Board of Directors of WSFS, Inc. in a 1980 plan to incorporate WSFS that never proceeded past the initial stage. Despite the process having stalled, a subsequent attempt to repeal the resolution calling for the incorporation of WSFS also failed, so the incorporation lies in limbo.

At 16:00 was the Opening Ceremonies. Unlike the 2005 Worldcon in Glasgow, where I ran Events, this year's Opening Ceremony was in the SEC Armadillo auditorium, which was a much better venue than using one of the exhibit halls like we did back then. Just before the ceremony, Randall Shephard gave me my Past Worldcon Chair ribbon. I consider that to be the highest "ranking" ribbon I'm likely to ever have, so I always wait until I have it before adding more ribbons.

Esther MacCallum-Stewart formally opened the convention using the Gavel of WSFS. Then she introduced and interviewed the Guests of Honor and the Special Guests, and invited the Hugo Award base designer to unveil the design. I hope that Glasgow gives me the photos and video presentation and the text of the designer's speech so that I and put it online on TheHugoAwards.org. There were also Special Committee Awards and other Awards (presided over by Events Division Head Vincent Docherty), and the ceremony ended with the sad scroll of those people who we lost in the last year.

The Opening Ceremony ended just before the Dealer's Room closed at 18:00. I arrived at the Wizard's Tower Press table just as the hall was closing. Cheryl closed the table and gave my my Dealer ribbon. We then walked next door to Hall 4 and got dinner from one of the "food trucks" in the hall. After that, we went next door to the Civic Reception sponsored by the City of Glasgow and circulated in the hall chatting withg various people. Now this is one of my favorite parts of the convention, but I still hadn't done the grocery shopping, so I made my farewells for the night and went back to the Crowne Plaza.

Lisa had come back from her travels and was asleep. I got my tote back and extra Lidl bag we had bought on our first trip and returned to the grocery store. Unfortunately, some of the things Lisa and I wanted were sold out. They were sold out of Coke and Diet Coke, for example. I got what I could, started to leave, and then dropped the tote bag. The milk I'd bought shattered, spilling more than two liters of milk over everything. The staff told me not to fret as it happens all the time. I fished the rest of my groceries out, set them aside, then went back and got another jug of milk.

I took the groceries back to the hotel, rinsed them out and put them away, then got everything out of my well-work World Fantasy Convention 2009 San Jose tote back, rinsed the spilled mil, and hung it up to dry.

Because of the Business Meeting, which I plan to attend, I have my alarm set for 6:30 AM to give Lisa and me enough time to get our morning clean-up finished, have breakfast, and walk over to the Village Hotel. I hope to be there shortly after 9 AM for the 10 AM meeting. And if I want to have enough sleep, I need to turn in pretty soon.

14,400 steps today, which is less than the 21,000 yesterday.