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ckdYeah, it's been a few days. Last night? Power outage. Monday? Still fried. Hey, at least it's getting written.
So, onward....
Friday. Took the day off work, had a nice leisurely trip out to the airport by Red and Silver Lines. As always, if you have plenty of time you will not wait for more than a few minutes for transit; I made it to the airport in plenty of time.
Was there a line for checkin? Some. Was there a line for security? No. Was I airside way the heck before my flight? Yup.
At BOS, Terminal E[1] is still "undergoing renovation", by which I mean "hey, shouldn't there be a ceiling?" Food choices? Lame. McD's won by default, as they had something that claimed to be a "spicy" chicken sandwich. Was it spicy? What do you think? It was crap. Which I expected. Kept me from falling over, though.
[1] Which is to be renamed D; the old D has already been declared part of C, which is vaguely reasonable if you are landside. Of course, the airside of the old D is connected to E. Does this make sense? Massport? Sense? Ha.
To gate, to plane, to exit row seat which isn't an exit row. Um. NW has their new "sell you an exit row for $15" deal, which I figured was $5/hr for some extra legroom...except when they change the 757 on the flight from the 6 door/4 overwing to the 8 door/no overwing layout. Swim upstream to the gate agent, and get moved to 33A. The slide cuts into my legroom a bit, but not much...the #3 doors are smaller, and have smaller slide packs.
This is going to be the Achilles heel of NW's exit row deal. It's bad enough just having to shuffle the family-with-kids out of 33 when the config changes, but with unhappy people who paid for exit rows? Config changes are going to be very bad days.
Flight was fine, arrived, got bag, got to the curb. Call hotel, ask when the shuttle arrives. "On the hour." Yay, it's 1620! So I wait. And wait. And wait. Get on shuttle, which makes a stop at the other terminal, then off to the hotel. Check in, dump bags in room, head to registration to get badge from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cakmpls at Reg. Do so, get pocket program. To dealers' room, to say hi to elisem and meet jenett and see books which I miraculously do not buy! This is mostly due to little details like not hauling them back home, but still.
To the Con Suite for some munchies and seeing more people including but not limited toluned, minnehaha B, mrissa, and dd_b who was snapping away as usual with the camera.
Back to the dealers' room to meet up withelisem, jenett, and sstaten, all of whom were in the mood for Fuddrucker's, which also sounded good to me. Off we went, speaking of Making Light and other stuff (including a certain Namedropper who recently appeared there in comments); we ate, and returned in time for Ask Dr. Mike.
Ask Dr. Mike was as fun as always, helped byiraunink bringing along a spherical cow to throw at supply to Dr. Mike. This was followed by miscellaneous con-wandering (including snorching a bit of alicebentley's WiFi) and some Scorched Earth in the gaming room, then to sleep.
Saturday: up, con suite breakfast, and some more Scorch to start the day. Because nothing starts a day like a Funky Bomb.
Later, I made a lunch run to Burger King (which, unlike the hotel, had free WiFi!) to bring back food formjlayman while she worked the T-shirt sales table, ate my lunch, then headed off to the "Fandom on $1 a day" panel.
Perhaps "get your WiFi at Burger King" should have been one of the tips given. It was fun to hear the panelists tell their stories and make their suggestions (like, y'know, prereg, or volunteer, or so on to reduce reg costs). Nothing really new, and less relevant now that I'm not a starving student, but still fun.
More general constuff including a chat withminnehaha K, followed by the "Zines or Blogs?" panel which wound up being more of a small group discussion than a panel. The two panelists that wound up being there were both zine folks, so the audience became the blog side by default. This led to discussions of, among other things, some infamous net.kooks...one of the other attendees had also encountered a certain Boston-area one online, though thankfully not in person (as I, er, have).
The evening included dinner at TGI Friday's (just across the parking lot) withelisem and posse, followed by the LJ party. (That required a gratuitous voice post, of course.) I stayed there for a while, meeting many folks as they wandered in and out; eventually, I too joined the "out" brigade and headed to bed.
Sunday: up; pack and call for 1400 late checkout; breakfast; Publishing 101A (fun, even though I'm so not a writer);mrissa's reading (absolutely loads of fun, and I definitely want to acquire a copy of the issue of On Spec it'll be in); lunch with mrissa, dd_b, and eileenlufkin; one last still-didn't-buy-any-books run through the dealers' room; get bags; check out; hang out in the atrium as part of a blob o'folks that pameladean and mrissa had managed to accrete; then off to the airport.
Ah, travel planning. Last year, the shuttles were every other hour, and the 1530 was dodgy in terms of timing, so I had to take the 1330. This year, they were every hour, but I'd planned to take the 1530 anyway; the 1630 was just a shade too late for me to feel like I'd have time, since I planned to eat before getting on the plane (see also: no meals on flights, avoidance of falling over). I said my goodbyes and headed for the lobby around 1520, having nearly missed the shuttle last year. I check the schedule with the bell captain, and wait for the shuttle. And wait. And wait. Shuttle arrived about 1600. Apparently the shuttle guy had been told to just "run as called"...but nobody told the bell staff. Oops! So, had I known that, I would have asked for a 1600 (or even 1615) run in the first place and had another half hour or so to enjoy the winding-down of the con. Sigh.
Naturally, at this point it took nearly no time to get to MSP, very little time to check in, and security was running quickly, which put me through security before 1630...when I'd been aiming for "before 1730". As with the trip out, when you have time everything's running smoothly. At that point, I really wished I'd arranged a later shuttle...like 1630. Maybe next year I'll just say sod it and rent a car; the time savings, headache savings, and not incidental ability to go to Fuddrucker's may be worth it. Weekends are usually cheap, holiday weekends even more so.
So, I meandered around the airside, checked where my gate was (far end of F), got food, went to the gate, waited, boarded, flew to BOS, got on the Silver Line, changed to the Red Line, and walked home.
Thud. Also, I still need a congoing userpic.
Overall? Good con; many folks I wish could have been there weren't, which made it less than I wish it could have been. Next year, I hope.
So, onward....
Friday. Took the day off work, had a nice leisurely trip out to the airport by Red and Silver Lines. As always, if you have plenty of time you will not wait for more than a few minutes for transit; I made it to the airport in plenty of time.
Was there a line for checkin? Some. Was there a line for security? No. Was I airside way the heck before my flight? Yup.
At BOS, Terminal E[1] is still "undergoing renovation", by which I mean "hey, shouldn't there be a ceiling?" Food choices? Lame. McD's won by default, as they had something that claimed to be a "spicy" chicken sandwich. Was it spicy? What do you think? It was crap. Which I expected. Kept me from falling over, though.
[1] Which is to be renamed D; the old D has already been declared part of C, which is vaguely reasonable if you are landside. Of course, the airside of the old D is connected to E. Does this make sense? Massport? Sense? Ha.
To gate, to plane, to exit row seat which isn't an exit row. Um. NW has their new "sell you an exit row for $15" deal, which I figured was $5/hr for some extra legroom...except when they change the 757 on the flight from the 6 door/4 overwing to the 8 door/no overwing layout. Swim upstream to the gate agent, and get moved to 33A. The slide cuts into my legroom a bit, but not much...the #3 doors are smaller, and have smaller slide packs.
This is going to be the Achilles heel of NW's exit row deal. It's bad enough just having to shuffle the family-with-kids out of 33 when the config changes, but with unhappy people who paid for exit rows? Config changes are going to be very bad days.
Flight was fine, arrived, got bag, got to the curb. Call hotel, ask when the shuttle arrives. "On the hour." Yay, it's 1620! So I wait. And wait. And wait. Get on shuttle, which makes a stop at the other terminal, then off to the hotel. Check in, dump bags in room, head to registration to get badge from
cakmpls at Reg. Do so, get pocket program. To dealers' room, to say hi to elisem and meet jenett and see books which I miraculously do not buy! This is mostly due to little details like not hauling them back home, but still.To the Con Suite for some munchies and seeing more people including but not limited to
luned, minnehaha B, mrissa, and dd_b who was snapping away as usual with the camera.Back to the dealers' room to meet up with
elisem, jenett, and sstaten, all of whom were in the mood for Fuddrucker's, which also sounded good to me. Off we went, speaking of Making Light and other stuff (including a certain Namedropper who recently appeared there in comments); we ate, and returned in time for Ask Dr. Mike.Ask Dr. Mike was as fun as always, helped by
iraunink bringing along a spherical cow to alicebentley's WiFi) and some Scorched Earth in the gaming room, then to sleep.Saturday: up, con suite breakfast, and some more Scorch to start the day. Because nothing starts a day like a Funky Bomb.
Later, I made a lunch run to Burger King (which, unlike the hotel, had free WiFi!) to bring back food for
mjlayman while she worked the T-shirt sales table, ate my lunch, then headed off to the "Fandom on $1 a day" panel.Perhaps "get your WiFi at Burger King" should have been one of the tips given. It was fun to hear the panelists tell their stories and make their suggestions (like, y'know, prereg, or volunteer, or so on to reduce reg costs). Nothing really new, and less relevant now that I'm not a starving student, but still fun.
More general constuff including a chat with
minnehaha K, followed by the "Zines or Blogs?" panel which wound up being more of a small group discussion than a panel. The two panelists that wound up being there were both zine folks, so the audience became the blog side by default. This led to discussions of, among other things, some infamous net.kooks...one of the other attendees had also encountered a certain Boston-area one online, though thankfully not in person (as I, er, have).The evening included dinner at TGI Friday's (just across the parking lot) with
elisem and posse, followed by the LJ party. (That required a gratuitous voice post, of course.) I stayed there for a while, meeting many folks as they wandered in and out; eventually, I too joined the "out" brigade and headed to bed.Sunday: up; pack and call for 1400 late checkout; breakfast; Publishing 101A (fun, even though I'm so not a writer);
mrissa's reading (absolutely loads of fun, and I definitely want to acquire a copy of the issue of On Spec it'll be in); lunch with mrissa, dd_b, and eileenlufkin; one last still-didn't-buy-any-books run through the dealers' room; get bags; check out; hang out in the atrium as part of a blob o'folks that pameladean and mrissa had managed to accrete; then off to the airport.Ah, travel planning. Last year, the shuttles were every other hour, and the 1530 was dodgy in terms of timing, so I had to take the 1330. This year, they were every hour, but I'd planned to take the 1530 anyway; the 1630 was just a shade too late for me to feel like I'd have time, since I planned to eat before getting on the plane (see also: no meals on flights, avoidance of falling over). I said my goodbyes and headed for the lobby around 1520, having nearly missed the shuttle last year. I check the schedule with the bell captain, and wait for the shuttle. And wait. And wait. Shuttle arrived about 1600. Apparently the shuttle guy had been told to just "run as called"...but nobody told the bell staff. Oops! So, had I known that, I would have asked for a 1600 (or even 1615) run in the first place and had another half hour or so to enjoy the winding-down of the con. Sigh.
Naturally, at this point it took nearly no time to get to MSP, very little time to check in, and security was running quickly, which put me through security before 1630...when I'd been aiming for "before 1730". As with the trip out, when you have time everything's running smoothly. At that point, I really wished I'd arranged a later shuttle...like 1630. Maybe next year I'll just say sod it and rent a car; the time savings, headache savings, and not incidental ability to go to Fuddrucker's may be worth it. Weekends are usually cheap, holiday weekends even more so.
So, I meandered around the airside, checked where my gate was (far end of F), got food, went to the gate, waited, boarded, flew to BOS, got on the Silver Line, changed to the Red Line, and walked home.
Thud. Also, I still need a congoing userpic.
Overall? Good con; many folks I wish could have been there weren't, which made it less than I wish it could have been. Next year, I hope.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-04-20 05:09 (UTC)K. [maybe you could photoshop your shark into a pic of the hotel...?]
no subject
Date: 2006-04-20 05:46 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-20 06:35 (UTC)K. [which is why it came to mind when you brought up icons]
no subject
Date: 2006-04-20 14:54 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-20 19:36 (UTC)