jpskewedthrone | Norwescon--Day 1: The Flight

OK. I'm back. In body if not in soul. Norwescon was GREAT! I highly recommend this con. The people were nice, comfortable, enthusiastic, and just generally all-around good. Panels were active and full, some standing-room-only. The panelists were all good, with things to say. The weather was crappy, but that's Seattle for you. Lots of rain, a bit of hail and snow when I ranged away from the hotel on Saturday, but since otherwise I was in the hotel . . . the weather didn't affect me much.

So, I'll do the day-by-day postings so that I can talk about the panels and what was discussed in more depth. I may split Friday into two postings, since I was on 6 panels that day alone.

But first, Thursday: The Flight.

Left State College at around 2:40 EST. As I was walking out to the plane (a little puddle-jumper), I noticed rather threatening clouds on the horizon. Sure enough, once we'd taxi-ed to the end of the runway we had to wait while the storm cell blew over. 30 minutes. Ugh. So I hit DC 30 minutes later, there's a crowd of about a billion waiting for the shuttle bus to the bigger terminal. I admit I was rather rude and shoved through everyone to force myself onto the first bus that arrived. Got to the large terminal, run up the stairs, checked the monitor, rushed to the gate . . . and immediately boarded and sat down just in time. LOOOOOOOOOOOONG flight to Seattle because we had headwinds and they slowed us down by another 20 minutes at least. Inflight entertainment: The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. I watched, I read, I finally got bored, so began chatting with the kid next to me. There were a few groups of high-schoolers on the plane: one a bunch of squeeing girls just coming back from France, and another coming back from a school trip to DC. The kid next to me was someone I knew I could talk to because he had a calculator watch. His voice also cracked and change pitch at least 20 times during each sentence. But he was great to talk to, obviously intelligent, and I predict incredible things for him in the future.

Because we all know I have psychic powers.

Landed in Seattle in rain, of course, grabbed my bags which only looked mostly beat up and searched, then dashed to catch the shuttle to the hotel because of course I was now late for the private DAW dinner. I was also sweaty and ichy. Got into the hotel, checked in (11th floor room), and went in search of an elevator. Somehow I totally misinterpreted "go down this hall, the elevators are on the left" because I could not for the life of me find the elevators. But in the process I did find the green room and pro check-in, so I checked in there. THEY told me where the elevators were, so I found them, got to my room, stripped down (yes, I'm talking about stripping), washed up, changed clothes, and rushed down to the restaurant for the DAW dinner.

Great dinner. Great people. I got to meet CJ Cherryh, Jane Fancher, Irene Radford, ElizaBeth Gilligan, Peter Stampfel (he does exist and was teased horribly by everyone about rejecting The Cracked Throne when I sent in the first draft), Marsha Jones, Betsy Wolheim, and of course my editor, Sheila Gilbert. The dinner was alot of fun and this time I was actually mostly relaxed around everyone. I ordered salmon and soup. But the salmon wasn't done when all the other plates were done, so they brought me MORE soup, and by the time I was done with that I wasn't hungry anymore. But I ate the salmon, which was delicious, when it came and then wobbled up to my room completely full and totally exhausted. It was midnight, but really it was 3am. I crashed.

Tune in tomorrow . . . or whenever I have a spare moment to get to it, when the first real day of the con begins. Lots of panels to talk about. Lots of fun people to meet.

But now, back to the day job. *sigh*