Tuesday
August 4, 1998









Email:
diana@sff.net

Well, it was bad enough that my flight to Baltimore via Detroit was to leave at 11:10PM Monday night, but then after I got to the airport, I found that it had been delayed an hour--leaving at 12:10AM, to arrive in Detroit at 7:15AM. This presented a small problem since my connecting flight was supposed to leave at 7:16, and I was thinking that perhaps a one minute layover was a bit tight. Well, they did rebook me on a later flight, plus I got bumped to first class! I tried my damndest to talk my way into first class for the first leg (Seattle-Detroit) but all I managed to get was a $5 meal voucher. Better than nothing, I guess, and it's not like I was in any major rush to get to Baltimore anyway, except to have time to get some sleep before people I know started arriving.

But even though I couldn't get into first class for the first leg, I did get a whole row to myself. As soon as the plane was in the air, I flipped up all the armrests, and stretched out (as much as one can stretch out in three seat's width.) It took me a while to doze off though because the little shits behind me kept kicking the seat, but finally they got tired too and I managed to grab about two hours of semi-sleep.

The sun was up by the time I landed in Detroit, and I had nearly two hours layover. It took me nearly twenty mintues though to find an espresso stand, and I was muttering some serious obscenities by the time I finally found it. (Yes, Alan, I am now addicted to espresso. Happy?) But, to tell you what barbarians Detroiters are, there is only one espresso stand for the whole friggin airport. Inconceivable! I already miss Seattle with its ubiquitous espresso stands.

Oh, and the double-grande-mocha that I finally got was lousy. I don't think she put any mocha in it. Hmmf.

But I finally did make it to Baltimore, and flying first class is preferable to flying with all of the peons. My luggage, amazingly, was waiting for me when I landed, and so I finally made it to my hotel, with all of my personal posessions. And, amazingly, I actually had a room at the hotel! Not everyone did, because apparantly the hotel overbooked. The first thing I did was take a nap. When I woke up late afternoon I went and got my convention badge, then waited for other people to show up.

And people did finally trickle in. I found Kurt, and Ron & Lisa Collins, then we picked up Jason Tanner and James Hartley, and eventually we even sucked Kent Brewster into our evil mix. We all sat around until about 2am in the hotel bar talking about absolutely everything. This is why it's so cool to get to Worldcon a day early--lots more time to shoot the shit.

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And, as you can no doubt tell, I got online. However, I'm calling long-distance to my ISP, and I can't get the computer to use my calling card properly, so I'm just dialing directly and having it charged to the room. Sheesh. I may fiddle with it more today.

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Oh, and for people who read Ron Collins' journal, he wanted me to make a post reminding everyone that he's at Worldcon, and that's why he's not posting.