Date: Sat, 1 Nov 2003 09:59:05 -0500 (EST) From: "Keith F. Lynch" <kfl at KeithLynch.net> To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net> Subject: [WSFA] WFC Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net> I'm pleased to see how many WSFAns managed to show up to the Gilliland event, which is now over. I hope nobody tried to find it and failed. I'm heading back to WFC momentarily. Here are the two messages I tried to send Thursday night: Date: Fri, 31 Oct 2003 02:32:01 -0500 (EST) From: "Keith F. Lynch" <kfl at KeithLynch.net> To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net> Subject: [WSFA] WFC The first day of WFC went well. I arrived at about noon. After getting a quick bite to eat in the con suite, I started out bagging books in the Yosemite room on the second floor. I had thought I was good at packing books tightly into bags, but some people were better -- and had to be, since with one item from each pile, the bags were full to near-overflowing. So instead I steered flatbed carts of them down to the registration area in the basement. I'm quite good at that, since that's how I get furniture and other large items home from stores. As soon as I unloaded one cart in the registration area, and brought it back to Yosemite, the other cart was full, so I took that one down. I spent a couple hours doing this, non-stop. This involved going through the "employee-only" area to get to the freight elevators (with the hotel's permission). Several hotel employees were at first intrigued, and later amazed by the sheer number of bags of books. I think some of them suspected I was just going in circles with the same bags for some inscrutable reason. At one point I thought I was lost, since the setup for the American Society of Addiction Medicine, which I had to wheel the cart through, had suddenly been replaced by a completely different setup for a conference on workplace diversity. After a while, I switched to working on the art show. On Wednesday everything from the truck for the art show (pipes, pipe fittings, pegboards, wire ties, lights, extension cords, tools, etc.) had been moved into a small room. Some preliminary assembly had been done there. On Thursday afternoon, everything was moved into a larger room, and we did more assembly, of larger chunks. At about 7 pm, we finally had the art show room, and we quickly moved the pre-assembled chunks into place and bolted them together, and had the art show done in record time. Well, ok, it's not *quite* done. It still needs the *art*. Also, more electric power to run all the lights, which last I heard we were still waiting on. Too bad there isn't room in the BSFS clubhouse to store the chunks. To fit into the clubhouse, or even the truck, everything has to come completely apart. Which I'll help with on Sunday. Fortunately, I was able to stash my bag full of books under a table in the green room. I didn't want to carry them around with me all day. Or risk not getting the best books by not registering until late. (The later bags are only half full, as free books started running short.) I took all the books home tonight, and they'll stay home. The person at registration asked me for photo id. Of course I wasn't carrying one. I could have asked any of several nearby people to vouch for me, but instead I handed her the "United Individualist" embossed mag-stripe plastic card I made a few years ago. It has no photo on it. She accepted that. My badge has a blue dot on it. I knew that red dots meant art show people, yellow meant dealers, and green meant committee. She said she had no idea what blue dots meant. So I let her in on the secret: Blue dots mean I was the one who put colored dots on the badges the previous night. By evening, I spotted several other people sporting blue dots. Some sad news: It was announced that Hal Clement (Harry Stubbs) had died in his sleep Wednesday. He had attended a con just last weekend. (He was not expected at WFC.) People are wearing black ribbons, available in the con suite, in his memory. There was only one party Thursday night. In the con suite. So it was extremely crowded and loud. We shouldn't have that problem Friday and Saturday nights. I had to leave at 11:30 pm to catch the last Metro. The previous night, walking to Union Station at that same hour with Walter Miles, I had been accosted by several beggars. This time, walking alone, only by two. One was right at the door to the hotel, the other was right at the top of the Metro escalator. Friday and Saturday nights, Metro closes at 3 am instead of midnight, so I'll be able to stay later. This means I'll probably go straight to bed when I get home, instead of posting to this list, or even checking my email. I never did make it to any program items. Maybe tomorrow. I never did eat anything either, except some quick snacks in the con suite, green room, and art show. (There were chocolates and pistachios for the art show setup crew.) I wasn't able to learn when and where the Gillilands' Fifth Friday / Tenth Anniversary party will be. I'll assume 9 pm, somewhere on the third floor. If not, I'll at least make sure there's a sign visible from the elevators on that floor that says where it is. When you enter the hotel, there's no place to go except down an escalator to the main lobby. There are two elevator banks. Ignore the one that's almost directly ahead. Instead, seek out the one that's almost directly behind the escalator, hidden in a corner, right against the front wall of the hotel. Otherwise you'll be on the *wrong* third floor. The hotel's main entrance is on New Jersey Avenue, between D and E streets NW. As I mentioned, all WSFAns are invited to that party, even if they aren't WFC members. I look forward to seeing you there. -- Keith F. Lynch - kfl at keithlynch.net - http://keithlynch.net/ I always welcome replies to my e-mail, postings, and web pages, but unsolicited bulk e-mail (spam) is not acceptable. Please do not send me HTML, "rich text," or attachments, as all such email is discarded unread. Date: Fri, 31 Oct 2003 02:55:31 -0500 (EST) From: "Keith F. Lynch" <kfl at KeithLynch.net> To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net> Subject: [WSFA] Email down I don't know if anyone emailed me, or posted to this list, since KeithLynch.net is down at the moment. I'll check it when I get up tomorrow. Judging by when my spam volume dropped, I think it went down at about 5:30 pm Thursday. No email should be lost, merely delayed. -- Keith F. Lynch - kfl at keithlynch.net - http://keithlynch.net/ I always welcome replies to my e-mail, postings, and web pages, but unsolicited bulk e-mail (spam) is not acceptable. Please do not send me HTML, "rich text," or attachments, as all such email is discarded unread.