Escapade and back again

[carbonel]

Getting to Escapade was a doddle, though the plane was almost an hour late, and then it took about 35 minutes for luggage to show up. I recognized Christina Pilz as she walked off the plane from Denver, which was comforting, since I was confident they wouldn't let the shuttle to Ventura leave without two of us. It took longer for the shuttle to show up than we expected, and I'm very glad gelasius had a cell phone, so that she could reassure me from time to time.

The convention itself was great. I had several nice meals with people, and I always enjoy hanging out in the dealer's room, though I didn't sell as many copies as R&L6 as I expected. Had a dinner and discussion with Barbara T. and Meg G. about comedies of manners. My theory is that there should be more of them. Also discovered that A.J. Hall has written a Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow novel, so I need to see the movie and then read that.

I didn't enjoy Escapade programming as much as I have in some years. I'm not sure if that's an "all the good ideas have been done" thing or if it was just me, or something else. But the party was great. I always moan about "getting to know you" games, but I really had fun with the "fun facts" bingo -- I think it actually works better with people you know well enough to ask a table full of people "Okay, did any of you have sex in the last 24 hours?" No, I didn't have the nerve to do that, but I was willing to piggyback on the person who did. Ended up turning my paper in second, and won a copy of Grease Trek. It can join the Duncan MacLeod mug I won for the Escapade trivia contest many years ago.

Every year I swear I'm going to stay through to Monday, and every year I make a plane reservation for Sunday. Maybe next year I'll remember my lesson. This year I had a 2:25 pm flight, which I thought would be plenty of time, but since I flew into LAX, I had to catch the 10:45 shuttle. Wah.

Once I got to the airport, it turned out they were looking for people to take a bump and get a free flight. I love not having to pay my way to Escapade, so that was an easy decision. They put me on the 5:01 pm flight to Denver, connecting to Minneapolis. Unfortunately, when I actually looked at the boarding passes, it turned out that I had a very tight connection in Denver. So when the 5:01 flight was half an hour late and they were looking (again) for people to take a bump, I volunteered since I would be stuck in Denver otherwise. Thus, two more free flight coupons to add to my stash. They put me on the 11:52 pm flight to Chicago, then going on to Minneapolis. That flight left right on time. They were looking for people to take a bump for that flight, but not offering a replacement flight until Tuesday. I suppose things had got backed up because of the snow in Chicago. In any case, I didn't volunteer for that.

The plane got in at 8:20 am, 10 minutes early, and I picked up my luggage, grabbed a taxi, and came home, where I discovered that there was a three-foot-high ridge of snow and ice (from the plow) blocking my driveway entrance, not to mention the 10 inches of snow everywhere else. I trudged through that to the door, briefly petted my cats, and sat down at the computer just in time to go to work at 9 am.

Luckily, it was a quiet day, since I'd only got a couple of hours' sleep on the plane. After work I took a nap, ate some chocolate, and went back to bed.

I'm feeling much better now. Awake, even.

Comments

flight karma

[rvrjoe775.livejournal.com]

It seemed for a while that Andrew and I were pretty lucky trading for free flights by volunteering on overfull flights, but it's been quite a while since we've had the opportunity. We did get a couple of $100 vouchers when locked landing gear forced a return to Mpls and a plane switch, so I guess that's something.