When I wake up, yeah I know I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be the man who wakes up next to you...

Part 1 of 3

Corrections: Lynn wanted to try the tea on the train because she's always heard English tea is so very good.
Cadbury was a Quaker, not a Papist. (I knew Papist didn't sound right...)

Thursday night: When I went to The Goat, as soon as I walked in the door someone recognized me from being on the TV. He hadn't heard anything I'd said, the sound was turned off, but I was still wearing the ears of course, and also still had my long red "Pan-Galactic Publishing" coat on. I also talked to another gent who'd gone down to the convention for the day, and I urged him to make time to return on Saturday or Sunday night for the Masquerade or Hugos.

People I saw and photographed Thursday night included: Evelyn Baker, Covert Beach, Anders Bergheden, Sonya Bleakley, Kent Bloom, Scott Bobo, Elaine Brennan, David Cake, Sandra Childress (galtine1), David W. Clark, David Evans, Darrel L. Exline, jan howard finder (the wombat), Paul Hamilton, Colin Harvey, Martin Heitlager, Martin Hoare, John-Henri Holmberg, Karen Jordan, Pete Jordan, Nicola Kirk, Karin Lundwall, Michael McConnell ("Mr. Shirt"), Christian McGuire, Craig Miller, Timothy Miller, Mary Morman, Paul Nicholson, Erik V. Olson, Kathi Overton, Carole Parker, Kevin Roche, Diane Rosenburg, Linda Ross-Mansfield, Ann Marie Rudolph, Dave Sorgen, Marah Searle-Kovacevic (marahsk), Amy Sisson, Frances Sorgen, Ben Squirrell, Sally Turcato, Lennart Uhlin, Michael J. Walsh, Lynn Whitaker, Ben Yalow, Kaisa Ykspetäjä, Tero Ykspetäjä, flickgc, and Si.

I'd met Sonya Bleakley at Balticon, she's a young fan who's declared an intention to chair Balticon in four years. She's worked a number of positions already, including much staffing of Registration. I advised her to run Registration one year, and to work in Program Ops to get a feel for how that runs, and wished her the best of luck.

galtine1 was wearing a blue can-can saloon girl outfit, so I got a picture of her on Kent Bloom's lap at the Colorado in 2008 party. They have a theme of gnomes riding flying buffalos. I guess that gives them the excuse of serving buffalo wings at their parties? And they can pick up garden gnomes here as well as back in the states.

Karin Lundwall, Anders Bergheden, and Lennart Uhlin invited me to the Swedish party in the Oban room on Saturday night. I gave Karin a stack of "Silly Ribbon" ribbons to hand out, to join the fun.

flickgc was smoking up a storm, and looked tired. (That is, she was tipsy.) She insisted on posing with her seamed fishnet stockings for a "Cheesecake" ribbon; I gave her a "Ribbon Slut" ribbon too.

Sally Turcato agreed to play with ribbons, and has the "It's not a fetish, it's an interest" ribbons.

I met up with Tal Hilevitz, who told me she's being very selective in handing out "Pretty Boy" ribbons. She's mostly using them as an opening gambit in chatting up the cute guys.

David Cake from Australia is handing out "Evil Smof." Martin Hoare (UK) is handing out the "Good Smof" ribbons.

Lynn Whitaker insists that she's a "real Glaswegian." I'm not entirely sure what she was driving at. She wanted me to promise to come to the Tolkien convention next weekend in Birmingham. I begged off, telling her I'd be in Cheshire...

Diane Rosenburg invited me to join her Saturday or Sunday night in her non-smoking room for a non-smoking party -- she said she'd just round people up and take them upstairs, she'd already bought party supplies. She's not on the party floor, so it would be an unofficial closed party. The Hilton's 3rd level is a bunch of big and small meeting rooms and ballrooms, and it's been designated the party floor -- there are about ten rooms, so there's space for 10 parties a night. Most parties are just one night, so you've got to catch them while you can. And you should get there early, because the smoke fills up. (More about that re: the Saturday night parties.)

At the end of Thursday night, I was downstairs looking for some less-smoky air to meet people in. I ended up talking to a pack of Scots: Pete Jordan, Nicola Kirk, Paul Hamilton, Si (no last name provided), Ben Squirrell, Paul Nicholson. They were non-members who happened to be staying in the hotel, and some of them were sporting a number of party stickers on their shirts. Either Si or Paul Hamilton said he'd seen me on television that night too, and we talked about what you would and wouldn't expect to find at the convention. And I was told Ewan MacGregor, the actor, was in town. Not sure whether to believe that, though.

On the taxi ride home, the cab driver and I talked about the weather. He suggested I try Fraser's in Argyle Street (in central Glasgow) to find a new umbrella -- I want another ten-spoke umbrella, the one my mother bought me in Germany twenty years ago is about due to be retired. It hasn't broken entirely, but one of the spokes is slightly bent and it doesn't close right anymore.

And my red canvas field coat had so much smoke caught up in it that when I got in, I stuffed it in the laundry bag and resolved that it was going to the cleaners, and that I wouldn't party hop in it. You can check coats at the SECC and at the Hilton for a pound, and I think it's probably worth having the coat for going to and from!

...When I go out, yeah I know I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be the man who goes along with you...

Part 2 of 3

Three doors down from the Number 36 Guest House is The Flower House, at 33 St. Vincent Crescent. (On the same side of the street as Number 36.) They have an amazing amount of flowers all over their entry -- it's like they took a normal flower garden, and folded it over doubled or tripled up to surround the entry. Very pretty, very striking.

Our room comes with two twin beds, and they've been made up with fitted bottom sheets and duvets on top. Very simple for making the bed, with no flat sheet to worry about tucking in! You just have to wash the duvet covers from time to time.

On Friday I took a taxi down Argyle Street to go to the Vodafone place. The lady there took out the battery from my phone, took out the SIM card, re-seated everything, and it worked -- it didn't come up saying "Emergency Only" anymore. Grrrr. I called Earthlink and took care of Lynn's account, I think; I'll have to try later and see if we can pick up her e-mail. But later that day, on site at the SECC, it went back to saying "Emergency Only." Double grrrr. That means my Saturday afternoon's shot now too.

While I was downtown, I saw a Woolworths. I didn't realize they still had any left anywhere! It was across the street from a place that sold duplicate kes. They had a board showing different types of key-packaging, like the tie-dyed keys and other colors to help you pick the right key from your keychain. I guess the key from my room is typical, not an old carry-over from victorian times or something.

Our friend Giulia de Cesare turns out to be the no-last-name Giulia who's been posting to the Masquerade mailing list -- she's the only one in the Masquerade crew who has one of our "Chicago Moon-Times" bags from Chicon 2000. At the Masquerade check-in desk I told Sandy Manning to go ahead and take care of signing people up for the Masquerade post-presentation photography, and handing out the brown "Event Photographer" ribbons. Vlatko was trying to find me, because he'd volunteered to help. Honestly I don't expect there to be that much real work -- mostly we're doing crowd control. Allan McBain is helping with these things too. The photography session is supposed to be in a big room, so taking sign-ups is a formality to weed out those people who don't plan ahead, and to get an idea for how many people we'll get. Giulia and Sandy told me that if the weather is bad Saturday evening, they'll make a go/no-go decision at 6:00 pm as to whether to cancel the photography entirely. In which case a section of seats will be set aside for them to do available-light photography if they wish.

I talked to David Stewart in the press office, to explain that press photographers needed to go the Masquerade check-in desk to sign up for the photography sessions, in addition to checking in at the press office. We're not going to have sign-ups for the post-Hugos photography -- all you have to do is follow the Hugo winners after the end of the ceremony to take those pictures. There won't be quite the large number of people clamoring for those shots, so it doesn't need to be as regulated.

People I saw and photographed on Friday included: Margene Bahm, Trevor Barker, Zara Baxter (zarabee), Alan Bellingham, Egil Brautaset, Antje Brand, Jim Briggs, Ruth Brown, Ewan Chrystal, Noel Collyer, James Daugherty, Kathryn Daugherty, Steve Davies, Karen Dawson, Linda Deneroff, Miki Dennis, Zoe Deterding-Barker, Robin Donlan, Vence Donlan, Will Dunston, Lynn Edwards, Herman Ellingsen, Jan van 't Ent, Allison Ewing, Wendy Graham, Ed Green, Kjetill Gunnarson, Alasdair Hepburn, Yvonne Hewett, Chip Hitchcock, Robin Hobb, Ed Hooper (with a badge that said "Grasshooper"), Joyce Hooper, Shouichi Hachiya, Irene Harrison, Cathy Holroyd, Andres Holmström, James Hudson, Masaharu Imaoka, Mutsumi Imaoka, Hiroaki Inoue, Tamie Inoue, Alice Irving, Peter Irving, Edward Jones, Frank Kalisz, Jerry Kaufman (jerrykaufman), Grant Kruger, Petra Kufner,Lisa Lagergen, Stef Lancaster, Matt Lawrence, Tony Lewis, Heidi Lyshol, Robert J. MacIntosh, Sandy Manning, Laurie Mann, Diane M. Martin, Holly Morgan, Feòrag NicBhrìde, Karl Johan Norén, Chris O'Halloran (chriso), John O'Halloran (johno), Ron Ontell, Val Ontell, Dave Peterson, John Pomeranz, Ted Poovey, Kat Rennie, Sparks Rennie, Gary Robe, John Sapienza, Peggy Rae Sapienza, Fred Smith, Mr. Smith, Robert Sneddon ("Nojay"), Vlad Stockman, Charles Stross, Linda Subias, Suzanne "Suzle" Tompkins (svtompkins), Sally Turcato, Alex von Thorn (avt_tor), Ran Van Tilburg, Maho Watanabe, Eileen Weston, Peter Weston, Laurie Williams, Sally Woehrle, Bazooka!, Carmental, and Melchior.

Vlad had a t-shirt that said "Stitch's Disobedience School -- Learn from the Best."

Karen Dawson was dressed as a wolf -- she had some costume bits she threw together. She'd never heard of Florence Ambrose, the spaceship engineer wolf.

Lots of people are looking for "No, I don't know where Chaz is" ribbons. library_lynn ran out quickly, and people keep asking me where to find them. I guess I should have packed more. At least we have plenty back home for getting through NASFiC!

Margene told me that the K.C. in 2009 bid had signed up for the pre-show advertising slides option, and they were using the phrase I'd come up with at ConQuesT -- "Hot and cold running redheads."

...If I get drunk, yes I know I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be the man who gets drunk next to you.

Part 3 of 3

On Friday, library_lynn browsed a bit of the Dealer's Room together, and admired the silks that Ruth Brown did. We also were impressed with the fancy polyhedra dice at another table, and looked at wooden jigsaw puzzles from "Fantanimals."

The "YAFA" (Young adults fan activities) section was a loud place full of controlled chaos, more or less. They had inflatable poofs that looked like bean bag chairs (but because they were air-filled, they behaved more like mini waterbed mattresses), about half a dozen or so video game stations, and all of the people working the area had bleached their hair. The kids had their hair colored one day. I heard a great ruckus and commotion coming from the area when we were in the dealers room, and went to check it out.

The YAFA kids had all signed up to be on one of two teams -- the "Brainwrong" or "Notright" teams. One of the responsible adults was acting as umpire for one game, where two more adults were playing the parts of prisoners to be punished. The two teams were lined up behind a prisoner each, and every kid was carrying some kind of poof. Giant inflatable hammers, inflatable baseball bats, and so forth. As near as I can tell, the idea was to see which team could file by and have each member take a whack at their victim. A number of the kids couldn't stop at just one swing, and whaled away on the hapless adult three or four times -- which slows down their team, of course, because everyone has to file by. Noisy, violent, and it looked like the kids were having a helluvalotta fun.

Antje Brand and Petra Kufner, both from Poing, Germany, were dressed as humans from an alternate earth. They were in purple robes with silver sigils painted on the robes and their faces, and their hair was oddly tied up and spiky.

Heidi Lyshol and Herman Ellingsen invited me to the Friendly Norwegians' Party, in the Oban room Friday night. Same room as the Swedes on Saturday and the Finns on Sunday.

There's a snack bar -- or at least a seating area -- on the west end of the SECC that's called "Quay West." I explained the pun to library_lynn, who didn't know that in north america, Quay is pronounced the same as Key. Grant Kruger and about four other people were having a little writers' group meeting there, so I left them alone.

Sally Woehrle wants us to use a different picture of her for the Fan Gallery, as the one in there now is ten years old, and she'd lost weight and cut her hair since. She volunteered to take some of the Fan Gallery photos from here to Seattle. The Fan Gallery exhibit in Seattle will be an odd hodgepodge. Some poeple we have two photos of (like Alison Freebairn), so the alternate one will go to Seattle. Most married couples in the exhibit are being shown here as a couple shot, and the individuals will be shipped to Seattle. And there are more photos here than will fit in the shipping cases (which will go by sea home to California), so I'll be packing a few dozen in my luggage. Finally, the enlargements that we made and mounted at Noreascon 4 will be sent to the NASFiC.

Speaking of enlargements, Sharon Sbarsky is here on site, and told me that they used about $100 worth of materials to make the Fan Gallery blow-ups. I'll see if Ewan Chrystal can reimburse that, otherwise I'll hit up SCIFI for it -- we still have money left in our last allocation to expand and maintain the exhibit.

I spotted Fred Smith browsing the S's in the Fan Gallery. From the back, he looked a bit like Lars-Olav. He said that he was looking at all the people that he already knew in print. Well, that's what the exhibit's for...

TAFF winner svtompkins and her husband jerrykaufman ran into me at the Fan Gallery. I took a couple shot of them in the exhibit. Suzle doesn't care for the photo we've got, and snagged a better one from my web page to use in the Program Book. I asked her to send it back to me, so we can rebuild, and so that we can replace her photo with the one she liked better from my site.

Will Dunston had hand-make books in the dealers room. He takes thin brass sheets, etch art on the cover, and sells them wraped around blank books. It's a beautiful line of work. He has a website.

zarabee is on one of the newszine teams, it's her first time. I've asked if she'd be interested in joining the laconiv team. She was wearing an "Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine" t-shirt.

Finally caught up to Cathy Holroyd to hand off the "Browncoat" ribbons.

Matt Lawrence (technoronin.com) volunteered to give me backup or mirror space for my web site.

Gary Robe said he caught me on tv, and videotaped it with his camera. He'll send me a copy.

Alasdair Hepburn and Allison Ewing suggested I try "John Lewis" in Buchanan Galleries, near Queen Street Station, as a place to find a good umbrella.

I gave chriso and johno the pack of "Friend of JohnO" ribbons I'd found at home. I also dropped off the "Timebinders" ribbons at the laconiv table because Joyce Scrivner had been spotted, and would probably be reporting back there later.

I sat on one of the blue sectional couches in Hall 2, working on processing my photos so far. (Remember I said I take about a hundred photos a day? As of the end of day 6 -- counting Sunday through Friday -- I have about 600 photos.) I was really tired and dozed off at one point. When I woke up I found a slip of paper next to me telling me the press had taken my picture whilst I was asleep.

While awake, Megan Totusek came by and looked at some of my photos, until she had to dash off to another appointment.

Jim Briggs was sporting several "Interthingie II" ribbons, including a "Clan Thyngye" ribbon. If I'd known there were official hoax "Clan Thyngye" ribbons, I wouldn't have spent my money on mine... He said that Sharon Sbarsky had them. I later ran into Seth Breidbart and he gave me that one, "Hoax", "Site Selection", and "This Ribbon No Verb." I kept "Clan Thyngye" and "Site Selection" and left the other two (which were shades of pink or light red) on library_lynn's bed.

I had run out of battery power on my laptop, so I'd left the SECC and headed back up to the room. I didn't make it back to the laconiv table at 6 o'clock like I was supposed to -- but at about 7, I got a call from Lynn and the gang on Ed Hooper's phone. They'd gone to dinner, and told me to go up Corunna and turn left at the laundrette (i.e. at Argyle), look for the Adriatic, you can't miss it. It turns out I should have gone as far as Argyle and looked around for the Adriatic before crossing the street and turning left, because it was actually in the other direction. By the time I caught up with them, after going all the way up to The Goat at Argyle and Haugh, in the chilly shade of the buildings (you'll recall that my coat's at the cleaners), it was almost 8 o'clock, so I had to turn around and head back to the SECC to see "Lucas Back in Anger." I took a taxi.