Okay, so it wasn’t anywhere near spring if you wanna be all technical and stuff about it. It was still winter – it is still winter in the US and will be for another few days, right until Purim. Were you ready? You got your purim baskets all filled with hamentash, hamentasch… homentash…yummy triangular goodies? You got your costume, your big Purim hat for the Purim parade, your veils, your noisemakers, the Purim carols have been memorized by the woodwind quartet and the marching string band?

Oh, you noticed. Easter was WAY early this year, Purim catches us non-observant types by surprise, March caused some forms of early spring meltdown because some of us didn’t realize (I sure in hell didn’t) that the Daylight Saving Time thing which was early last fall was indeed early again this spring. I mean I read a newspaper daily and still can’t remember when they changed DST. Those of us with computers that automatically reset the time were taken by surprise too since the programming is set to change in a few weeks. Again. Pain in the ASS. Especially since a) it happened during a convention (something we con runners try hard to avoid, but as I say, who the hell knew, especially back during contract negotiations that that weekend was IT) and b) worse, it happened on my damn birthday and I think that’s just RUDE of them.

LCC was mostly a pleasure but holy jesus on a stick, what a horrible layout. One reason I have this huge thing about not sharing hotels is that you end up with what we got and it sucks royal. The Adams Mark is in two buildings and the trip from my room in one “tower” to where program was took at LEAST 10 minutes, no joke. Maybe not for a walking person, but we were in the farthest lowest floor of the other damn tower. So I’m on the 2nd floor. There is indeed a goddam skyway on the second floor of my hotel, off the elevator bank where I have to stop to get an elevator, yeah. The skyway had stairs at both ends, so it is completely inaccessible. Dunno how old it is but at some time during renovation, you would #$^*($%^ fucking THINK that the hotel could provide a ramp for people. So that was out. So I go down to the lobby, get the other elevator down to the concourse. Get out. Go across to another bank of elevators – through two rooms which confusing ly have a) elevators in them as well0 and b) pillars with mirrors on them (it was at this point I decided I might be in a D&D game. “You enter the hall of mirrored pillars….”). There are six elevators. Two of them are not big enough for me to get the scooter in, even backing and pulling had shoving but who the hell wants to do that anyway, but it means that every time one of THOSE elevators comes, I can’t get on it, nor will it go away so I can use one of the useful ones. I then take that one back UP to the other lobby’s level. Then take the ramp and over to where registration is and where, apparently hospitality was. A big empty space with tables. No visible hosts, no visible food, and used for other things, apparently. I dunno, I never really caught on to that. Oh but we’re not done. Then down the elevator 2 floors since I can’t take the escalators) to where program and the dealer’s room is.

It was hell and I feel really sorry for anyone with lung problems, foot problems, bad knees since I would have dropped by late Saturday if I’d had to walk it several times a day. There were, meanwhile off other corridors, in other ballrooms, between here and there, several different events ranging from dinners and private gatherings to the influx of several gazillion young female volleyball players who cluttered up the lobby for hours in little clumps of healthy athletic girls and coaches and parents, and volleyballs (you had to bring your own???? Probably for practice). The scariest moment for me was Saturday heading out when I heard someone in a ballroom either doing a sound check or just happy to have a working mike and belting out “God Bless America”.(I can't help it, I always hear Stan Freburg doing "God Bless Vespucciland", ever since 9/11 brought the song back. I bad.)

Denvention, aka Worldcon, is using the same hotel, along with others and the convention center nearby. As often happens, Worldcon will be renting scooters for people. Should you read this and be in the AM hotel, DO get a scooter if you have difficulty walking. Keep in mind too that you are a mile up and that affects things as well.

I tended to forget that part; it wasn’t unil a day or so into the convention that I recalled the old ice bucket full of water trick, for when you don’t have a humidifier with you. Many of you know I get “hotel voice” – laryngitis from the dryness in a hotel and I hadn’t gotten over my previous weekend’s squeak from Potlatch. Squeak, squonk, ribbit. I remembered to fill the ice bucket (and for once, the housekeeping folks didn’t empty it that next morning) but there’s no tub in the room so it was just that bit of water.

Oh yeah, and the housekeeping staff didn’t make up my room Saturday although I swear I looked at least threeL times at the door hanger to ensure it said “service please” and not “privacy please”. When I called the extension on the tag on the door that explained why, at 4 pm my room was not made up, I said all this and then said “I don’t know why the room wasn’t made up” and the woman said “neither do I’. And the rest is silence. I had to actually say “so can I have the room made up?”. She did not offer, I had to ask for it. Um. She finally agreed to send someone up. Ooookay.

The dealer’s room was half empty and had little to offer me. I mean I wanted one book but they didn’t have it since the anthologist wasn’t attending, even if some of the authors in the anthology were. Oh well. I was on a budget, so to speak but still, woulda bought that book. I don’t tend to go to mystery conventions for the dealers’ rooms; although sf conventions are the source of all sorts of silly and cool. At Potlatch, for example I left with a pendant made by Elise and one of Bryan Barrett’s very silly “gyoza fish” and a couple of little birdies. Little bitty birdies.

This is in no way a review of the LCC. For one thing, I had a blast and most people I know were enjoying themselves completely, and that is what matters. I tend to overanalyze and look at details because I know more than the average bear and I can’t let it go. Finding the right size hotel for a convention is very complicated because you have to deal with dates, and prices and conflicting events. I’m hugely in favor of being the only convention in the hotel; that’s not easy to do. In Seattle’s downtown core, where we’ve had three mystery conventions, there are two really big hotels about three medium sized and the rest are small, weirdly shaped, have far too little exhibit space, ask ridiculous rates or are simply too small for a convention. The “boutique” hotel thing has infested the city and I imagine most other cities and we keep getting more. Of course, the economic downturn stopped some development in its tracks so the newest hotel/condo combo project has been hugely overhauled.

Getting bids for LCC 2007 was at the very least interesting, since several hotels didn’t even bother to make an offer. The hotel we used is something the third largest hotel in downtown Seattle, no joke. Seemed awfully small, don’t it? After the Sheraton and Westin, I think that was it. The Hilton is in there somewhere as well. And given the room rate we got in Denver, I think we did very well. I just fucking hate hotels that are technically ADA compliant and wheelchair accessible but in reality aren’t. It’s tedious. It’s tiresome. It’s a drag and it happens a lot.

The thing with the elevation and air quality affects a lot of us as well. I still remember back during the LCC in Boulder when I plaintively asked Stephen White, native guide guy, to confirm the old hoary “you get used it” bit and said as much to him. “You adjust after a while, right?” that being the line I’d hear for years. He just looked at me flat out and said “nope”. DANG! I still tell that story and giggle. I was just so flattened. Another myth busted big time.

My favorite convention moments tend to be the chance to talk with someone. I also have found great pleasure in being there when a friend has won an award (there was a running joke for a while that SJ couldn’t be at an award ceremony unless I was around, just in case. I still treasure the memory of being there when Sara Paretsky presented her with the Shamus. And when Marcia Muller, at the convention where she was our Guest of Honor, won her first ever Anthony award.

So catching up with and meeting people was the standout in Denver for me. I didn’t even go shopping, which I had sort of planned for the Pearl Street Mall, with memories of being there before and finding placed to poke into. I could have excused it as birthday shopping, but the only times I ever made it out there were food excursions, which was fine. The hotel main coffee shop type place was very reasonably priced (a surprise for both a hotel dining room and for a downtown location) but I wanted to eat out as often as possible. In a major city, how can you not want to try stuff?

Best times were had going out with Kate Derie during which dinner we actually discussed such things as the state of the genre, and what we were having problems with, as well as food, headaches, major gossip and all that jazz. Meeting the wonderful, truly charming and interesting Jim Calder – boy you bay area folks have some nice people in your part of the world (says the former bay area person). I pontificated in his direction about conventions and programming and he still came back and sat next to me the next day. Dinner with Lee and Denny.

Missed Shira and Harley like mad but both had very reasonable explanations for not being there. Was hoping to catch up with Chris Aldrich to finally remember to tell her “hey! I saw you in Wordplay!” Managed to avoid one person who was in attendance with whom I was once very close until she apparently decided I wasn’t worth the effort. Had about an hour with Stephen White, a man I simply adore (yeah, Stu knows.) Stephen was the guest of honor so I was aware of his time limits but we managed to head off to the Peet’s on the mall and talk about health, books, protagonists, major gossip and all that jazz. And then went on to the panel he was doing with Margaret Coel, John Maddox Roberts and Stephanie Barron which, despite being a pretty standard topic, brought a bunch of insights and offered a good range of experience in its authors as they discussed the pitfalls and advantages of writing a series. I did my usual “see Lauren Haney” 73 times – we have a pattern of constantly bumping into each other at conventions, always in the same hallway, or at the same door, elevator, room entrance.

Glad I went. I had a lot of issues about the way the convention was run but that’s ME and I will always and forever be that way. It’s difficult not to be – anyone who’s ever run anything knows that. Look, last night, talking with other friend Kate about plans for next weekend (which will result in us being able to say “I’ve seen the Gates of Paradise”, thank you very much) we discussed how unready the caucus folks seem. Meeting in 2 weeks and no one’s mentioned bus routes, address of meeting place. The other day in talking with me, the guy in charge suddenly said “oh, I bet I should suggest a carpool.” Oh. Why, yes since several of us from this particular precinct are going. Course, I then pointed out it was a fine idea (and indeed it was0 but I can’t carpool unless someone has the proper van. He was embarrassed. I didn’t intend that but can you see how easy it would have been for me to do three minutes on how to organize transport to the meeting, with phone numbers, at least three ways to get there and more plus? My friend Jane used to run all the ushers for ACT, the major theater here. Can she see bad organization without wincing? Of course she can’t. Can programmers ignore bad code? Unlikely. So I will always see where things shoulda been done better.

Two things. If you were there hope you tipped the bar staff really well – they were (sigh) understaffed and hugely friendly and accommodating, in my experience. Less so the coffee shop folks who didn’t quite have it together but still dealt with me (and the scooter) well, and served fast and inexpensive food (mostly fast). I managed to get out Sunday am with a latte and biscuits – my idea of heaven for like $5.

And we’ll end this blog post completely ignoring recent award nominations because I so do not want to get into the “too many men nominated” discussion which goes nowhere and gets me labeled as a cranki.

You all have a lovely Monday, won’t you?