Arisia Report
Jan. 20th, 2004 10:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
The trip began on Thursday night, when we finally got into the rented LeSabre, filled it with suitcases and filkbooks and empty coolers and began to drive to Boston, first stopping at a take out place to pick up a couple of Chinese meals and storing them in one of the coolers.
It only took us about a half hour to leave NYC, which is amazing. I guess most people don't really want to travel on bitterly cold Thursday nights. Unless they're insane or SF fans. If there's a difference.
The initial trip was uneventful. We stopped at the first rest stop in Connecticut to eat some crackers and cheese and use the facilities and say the Prayer for the Road, and fill the gas tank (the LeSabre ate gasoline) and we passed by the place where we'd survived unscratched from an auto accident four years ago, and said the blessing for a place where a miracle happened. Getting the gas was fun - we'd decided to pay for full serve because, well. COLD. But the attendents thought the same thing, so we ended up doing self-serve anyway. Rather, jonbaker did. I sat in the nice warm car. Hey, I was doing all the driving.
We stopped in Wethersfield. Last year, we'd found a Ramada which had a fridge and microwave in every room, and a nice and mostly edible breakfast, but there was no Ramada to be found. This is because, as I'd insisted, and as it turned out, it had been sold to Best Western. A month after we'd used it the first time. :)
The next morning, which was really, really cold, I got in the LeSabre and it started right away. Thank goodness. We got to Boston by noon, had pizza (met the Felds and my mother-in-law's rabbi there), picked up the meat and salads for Shabbat dinner and our own needs for the weekend at the Butcherie and went to the hotel.
We had to straighten up a few things when we registered, but that actually took fairly little time. Unsure of the procedure, I'd paid the registration fee even though I was doing panels, and we needed a refund. This happened very quickly. We found our way to the Shabbat block, got the room set up, and took our showers, and tigerbright joined me in lighting candles.
Thank you for that, Rachel. :)
Dinner went amazingly smoothly, thanks to the efforts of gnomi and
mabfan and their brother-in-law. It began on time and ended on time and we left the room in good shape. This was important because three of the people had a panel (the same panel) at seven.
At eight, I had a panel. The first panel I have ever moderated (unless you count the two person one on writing I did at Senticon.) This was about The Fanfic Explosion caused by the Net and the Web. I prepared. I wrote down a list of keywords as prompts for questions, and I also took mabfan's advice and suspended questions from the audience until the halfway point. I did my best to allow everyone a chance to talk and to not take up an inordinate amount of time myself.
And I had fun doing it.
The other panels were also fun. One panel there was a bit of a panel hog w ho took up more than enough time. On another, the hog was *me*. I met good people and I learned a lot, and I will definitely do this again.
Otherwise. We went to filking both nights, but turned in early on Friday; we hit the Dealer's Room Saturday night because they closed at seven, which gave us time to shop after Shabbat. We went to Nomi's open house birthday party (email me, Nomi.), where we watched the Masquerade on the hotel television. This was amusing - the camera work and sound left something to be desired, so we commented constantly. The funniest part was during halftime,when they showed trailers of upcoming movies. Except that we didn't see the first few previews, as the camera was focused on the guy presenting them. We were hysterical. Finally, Michael called the presenter and the situation was corrected.
We did some more parties that night. I had to leave the Orange Orgy room immediately - too many people, and the con suite was holding a Rave, which meant most people were chatting over the loud music. And then we found the Boskone party, which was quiet and nice and relaxing. We got to the filking late, unfortunately, but we stayed for a couple of hours.
I had back to back panels Sunday morning, so I had to be up and caffienated. Had a really nice chat in the green room. :)
After the final panels and a nap, we met Michael and Nomi for Chinese on Sunday night (hot food! Yay!) and then went shopping for books. They had had so many panels that they never had a chance to buy any at the con. We spent the rest of the evening at the Dead Dog, which is the best part of any con, and one of the many reasons we stay over Sunday night. We played Fluxx for a lot of that.
And we spent yesterday driving from rest stop to rest stop done the Eastern Seaboard to New York City. There was a bit of a crisis when Jonathan lost his wallet.
See, by the time we got to Brooklyn, I was getting desperate. We'd left the last rest stop behind in Connecticut (used it, though.) So we got off the Belt at Kings Plaza and then went to the first gas station we found. I used their facilities and felt guilty about not buying anything, so I got Jonathan to give me some cash. To do this, he had to take out his wallet and then he had a hard time putting it back.
When we got home, then, it fell out when he left the car. And we didn't notice until we got the luggage in the house (with the help of a neighbor's son.) We searched both parking spots (after I'd parked, we'd found one closer to the house) and the car thoroughly. Rather, he did while I unpacked and stowed away food. I was searching the car myself, at his request, when he shouted out the window.
A passerby had found his wallet and called his bank and then him. He'd had a thick accent, so Jonathan got the wrong address, but that was soon solved. He got everything back! He wasn't worried about the cards or even the cash, but he has sentimental things there, such as a collection of subway tokens. So, he said the evening service with a minyan, came home and we had dinner. So endeth our report.
We enjoyed the convention - the programming was fun, and everything ran very smoothly in all aspects.