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Baycon: Friday report
May. 28th, 2016 09:34 amI have decided that this weekend will also serve as being a relaxing holiday as well as a convention. My programming is nicely spread out across all four days, and none of it particularly early in the morning.
The one minor annoyance about the hotel layout for my intended plans is that there's really no good "casual hanging out space". The bar is a small space off the coffee shop with high-perch chairs. There's an open seating area with tables out in front of the coffee shop that is sometimes used for table service spill-over but other times is available for casual sitting, but it's very much tables-and-chairs, not lounge space. There's a cozy little lounge area with a fireplace on the other side of the lobby, but it's included in the space being used for registration and so isn't available for general use. The middle of the lobby has a central fixture with upholstered benches on four sides, which I suppose could serve the purpose, but it's right in the middle of the coming-and-going for hotel check-in. And there's also a minor annoyance in that all these lobby-adjacent spaces (the cafe spill-over, the lobby benches, etc.) seem to me to be getting a lot of air-drift from the smoking areas outside the front of the building. The hotel itself is smoke-free, but the designated smoking areas are in locations that seem to cause bleed-over into all the natural hanging out spaces. (I may be noticing it more than usual because my lungs are still recovering from the bug I brought back from Chicago.)
But enough about annoyances. My first panel, "Connections from the past and how we deal with them" was sparsely attended, partly from being the first time-slot of the event, partly because there were evidently some snafus at con reg that were backing people up. We started with just us four panelists talking to each other and ended with three audience members (one, a husband of a panelist). But we explored the stated topic and had a good time.
After that I explored the dealers room and art show and spend a fair amount of time wandering around figuring out where things were. But eventually what I wanted was to sit in some comfortable public space where I could watch people go by and spot people I wanted to talk to or meet. And I simply couldn't find any space that worked for it. In late afternoon, right after I'd tweeted something to that effect, I bumped into Kitt Kerr and Theresa Edgerton and joined them for another wander through the dealers room. And then they were similarly looking for a place to sit and chat so we found something reasonable in the corridor leading to the cafe, where there were comfy chairs but it wasn't quite so much in the smoke-drift patterns. Being in a traffic flow area did what it was supposed to, and we picked up Deborah J. Ross and Juliette Wade, and a passing visit from Setzu Uzume (one of the Tweeps I'd made a note to make sure to meet up with), and that led into having dinner with Deborah and Juliette+family, who are people I'd never really gotten to know previously so I felt quite socially successful.
The "meet the guests" social was quite low-key with a chairs-around-tables set-up and I first spent a bit of time standing looking around for some group I felt comfortable connecting with. Eventually I gave up and used my fall-back technique of picking a table at random and saying, "Hi, I don't know any of you, can I join you?" and since I ended up being the only person with a "guest" ribbon at that table, I also felt virtuous about fulfilling the "mixer" function.
A little later I as accosted by someone I know through File770 but who uses a different name face-to-face and so had to make the connection for me. She dragged me off to the San Jose worldcon bid party (for which I'm already a pre-supporter) to chat which rounded out the evening.
Too often when I have a leisurely schedule on weekends, it means I have trouble sleeping, but so far I seem to be getting plenty. My body doesn't quite understand the whole bit about not getting up on a work-day schedule, but I lazed a bit then went down to the hotel gym for some elliptical time. I swear that I will also take advantage of the pool and jacuzzi at some point. I brought a suit and dammit I'm going to use it.
The one minor annoyance about the hotel layout for my intended plans is that there's really no good "casual hanging out space". The bar is a small space off the coffee shop with high-perch chairs. There's an open seating area with tables out in front of the coffee shop that is sometimes used for table service spill-over but other times is available for casual sitting, but it's very much tables-and-chairs, not lounge space. There's a cozy little lounge area with a fireplace on the other side of the lobby, but it's included in the space being used for registration and so isn't available for general use. The middle of the lobby has a central fixture with upholstered benches on four sides, which I suppose could serve the purpose, but it's right in the middle of the coming-and-going for hotel check-in. And there's also a minor annoyance in that all these lobby-adjacent spaces (the cafe spill-over, the lobby benches, etc.) seem to me to be getting a lot of air-drift from the smoking areas outside the front of the building. The hotel itself is smoke-free, but the designated smoking areas are in locations that seem to cause bleed-over into all the natural hanging out spaces. (I may be noticing it more than usual because my lungs are still recovering from the bug I brought back from Chicago.)
But enough about annoyances. My first panel, "Connections from the past and how we deal with them" was sparsely attended, partly from being the first time-slot of the event, partly because there were evidently some snafus at con reg that were backing people up. We started with just us four panelists talking to each other and ended with three audience members (one, a husband of a panelist). But we explored the stated topic and had a good time.
After that I explored the dealers room and art show and spend a fair amount of time wandering around figuring out where things were. But eventually what I wanted was to sit in some comfortable public space where I could watch people go by and spot people I wanted to talk to or meet. And I simply couldn't find any space that worked for it. In late afternoon, right after I'd tweeted something to that effect, I bumped into Kitt Kerr and Theresa Edgerton and joined them for another wander through the dealers room. And then they were similarly looking for a place to sit and chat so we found something reasonable in the corridor leading to the cafe, where there were comfy chairs but it wasn't quite so much in the smoke-drift patterns. Being in a traffic flow area did what it was supposed to, and we picked up Deborah J. Ross and Juliette Wade, and a passing visit from Setzu Uzume (one of the Tweeps I'd made a note to make sure to meet up with), and that led into having dinner with Deborah and Juliette+family, who are people I'd never really gotten to know previously so I felt quite socially successful.
The "meet the guests" social was quite low-key with a chairs-around-tables set-up and I first spent a bit of time standing looking around for some group I felt comfortable connecting with. Eventually I gave up and used my fall-back technique of picking a table at random and saying, "Hi, I don't know any of you, can I join you?" and since I ended up being the only person with a "guest" ribbon at that table, I also felt virtuous about fulfilling the "mixer" function.
A little later I as accosted by someone I know through File770 but who uses a different name face-to-face and so had to make the connection for me. She dragged me off to the San Jose worldcon bid party (for which I'm already a pre-supporter) to chat which rounded out the evening.
Too often when I have a leisurely schedule on weekends, it means I have trouble sleeping, but so far I seem to be getting plenty. My body doesn't quite understand the whole bit about not getting up on a work-day schedule, but I lazed a bit then went down to the hotel gym for some elliptical time. I swear that I will also take advantage of the pool and jacuzzi at some point. I brought a suit and dammit I'm going to use it.
