Back to California...
So, Thursday morning, Tom and I walk 'round to the local Post Office, procure one of their self assembly crates (the biggest size) some mailing address labels and a roll of parcel tape and head back tot he house to finish our packing.
We load up the dirty laundry, shoes we won't need at the convention and some small bits and pieces into the crate, tape it shut, address it and then Alex drives me back tot he Post Office, where I get to fill in the customs declaration and paperwork for shipping the crate (I put "Dirty Laundry" clearly on the description of contents so they are warned and can take the Necessary Precautions should they decide to open the crate and examine the contents.... Tom says that if they release his socks, that's their own lookout).
Back to the house to say goodbye to Alex, who is leaving town for a few days, finish packing, say goodbye to Seanan Who had the morning off work (and is, thankfully, looking more healthy than she had the previous evening) and arrange a cab to get us to Concord BART station.
Off to Fremont.
We arrive early and assume Kevin is still entangled in the expected conference call with work so leave a message and settle with our books to wait... it occurs to me that Kevin might not check his messages, so I call Cheryl and learn Kevin is already on his way to the station, having been in a reception blackspot when we called him - no conference call after all.
Kevin loads our bags into the back of the Big Brown Camper and off we head to the Doubletree Hotel, where we check in, are given welcoming cookies by the receptionists, dump our bags and head back down to reception to meet the crowd of lovely costumers going on the tour of the Winchester Mystery House (http://www.winchestermysteryhouse.com/).
Several miles of walking during the fascimating main tour and the behind the scenes tour later we are ready to head back to the hotel. Several of us decide that the "Mystery" part of the name is misleading. "Weird," yes "peculiar" even, but there's no mystery. The house was perpetually being rebuit and remodelled, extra rooms and wings and floors added. The whole idea behind it being the madwoman owner (widow of the Winchester Rifles millionaire) trying to appease the "vengeful spirits" of the people killed by her husband's rifles and the house was meant to beperpetually inomplete in order to do this. So, of course there are doors that lead to blank walls, a staircase that leads to an unbroken ceiling (actually the underside of the floorboards of the room above) switchback staircases that have seven zig-zag flights to go up one storey due to tiny little risers and very deep steps due the Widow Winchester's arthritic condition making climbing ordinary stairs painful. There's no mysetery to be had there.
But, it was fun, interesting and well worth going to visit.
Back at the hotel, more people arrived and registration opened so we got our stuff and started to meet people and mingle.
I was chatting to Sandy and Pierre Pettinger (http://www.scifiinc.net/scifiinc/gallery/bio/Pettinger,_Sandy_and_Pierre.htm)when voluteers to help move/unload tech equipment were called for and several of us were loaded intoa car, driven to a warehouse in the middle of nowhere (where a truck was mostly full already by the time we found it), driven back to the hotel then spent some time hauling stuff to the two main function rooms as it was unloaded and devided accordning to destination outside.
It was somewhere around then that I knew the convention had begun
We load up the dirty laundry, shoes we won't need at the convention and some small bits and pieces into the crate, tape it shut, address it and then Alex drives me back tot he Post Office, where I get to fill in the customs declaration and paperwork for shipping the crate (I put "Dirty Laundry" clearly on the description of contents so they are warned and can take the Necessary Precautions should they decide to open the crate and examine the contents.... Tom says that if they release his socks, that's their own lookout).
Back to the house to say goodbye to Alex, who is leaving town for a few days, finish packing, say goodbye to Seanan Who had the morning off work (and is, thankfully, looking more healthy than she had the previous evening) and arrange a cab to get us to Concord BART station.
Off to Fremont.
We arrive early and assume Kevin is still entangled in the expected conference call with work so leave a message and settle with our books to wait... it occurs to me that Kevin might not check his messages, so I call Cheryl and learn Kevin is already on his way to the station, having been in a reception blackspot when we called him - no conference call after all.
Kevin loads our bags into the back of the Big Brown Camper and off we head to the Doubletree Hotel, where we check in, are given welcoming cookies by the receptionists, dump our bags and head back down to reception to meet the crowd of lovely costumers going on the tour of the Winchester Mystery House (http://www.winchestermysteryhouse.com/).
Several miles of walking during the fascimating main tour and the behind the scenes tour later we are ready to head back to the hotel. Several of us decide that the "Mystery" part of the name is misleading. "Weird," yes "peculiar" even, but there's no mystery. The house was perpetually being rebuit and remodelled, extra rooms and wings and floors added. The whole idea behind it being the madwoman owner (widow of the Winchester Rifles millionaire) trying to appease the "vengeful spirits" of the people killed by her husband's rifles and the house was meant to beperpetually inomplete in order to do this. So, of course there are doors that lead to blank walls, a staircase that leads to an unbroken ceiling (actually the underside of the floorboards of the room above) switchback staircases that have seven zig-zag flights to go up one storey due to tiny little risers and very deep steps due the Widow Winchester's arthritic condition making climbing ordinary stairs painful. There's no mysetery to be had there.
But, it was fun, interesting and well worth going to visit.
Back at the hotel, more people arrived and registration opened so we got our stuff and started to meet people and mingle.
I was chatting to Sandy and Pierre Pettinger (http://www.scifiinc.net/scifiinc/gallery/bio/Pettinger,_Sandy_and_Pierre.htm)when voluteers to help move/unload tech equipment were called for and several of us were loaded intoa car, driven to a warehouse in the middle of nowhere (where a truck was mostly full already by the time we found it), driven back to the hotel then spent some time hauling stuff to the two main function rooms as it was unloaded and devided accordning to destination outside.
It was somewhere around then that I knew the convention had begun