Back from WindyCon
Nov. 15th, 2004 10:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beige_alertI spent a fun weekend at Chicago’s WindyCon.
This was my first Windycon, which apparently has just moved to a different hotel, which has just changed ownership, as all hotels seem to as the major hotel chains all trade buildings for some reason. After figuring out how to get to the parking lot behind the building, I found that it was full, and was directed to a distant location where parking was available. Before going there I had to find a place to park temporarily to check in and unload the car. They didn’t seem to have any place designated for that, so as much as I try to avoid parking in places marked “no parking,” I did in order to check in. It took me 16 minutes to walk from the remote parking, too far away to see the building, back to the hotel, partly on paved sidewalks, partly not. Supposedly, they ran buses occasionally, too. Inside, the hotel is at least as confusing a building to walk through as my place of employment, except with even more confusing room numbering. They are firm believers in odd-numbers one side, even-numbers the other, so with significantly different numbers of rooms on each side room 437, for example, is not especially near 438. Here and there complicated signs indicate ranges of odd and even numbered rooms to be found in each direction. For some reason these signs are not near the stairwell doors, so I’d pop out of a door, pick a direction to turn at random, and eventually encounter a sign indicating which direction I should have turned. Eventually, I was able to remember and pick up the subtle clues as to where I was. I never did figure out the overall shape of the building. There was a wing over there...and a bunch of rooms thataways, and, um, additional stuff down yonder.
Not too surprisingly a number of Milwaukee fen were present, including some people I don’t see too often. Windy is a big con, and there were a whole lot of people in general there, some familiar, most not.
I went down to the filk room on Friday night for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ericcoleman‘s concert and a woman who I did not immediately recognize started waving at me. When I saw the “Xap” name tag I recognized her as exapno, who I met at Pythonacon in October. She has turned into a filk fan, it seems.
Eric was great, as always. There was an open filk interval, then the concert by Barry and Sally Childs-Helton, Debbie, and Jen of Wild Mercy, who were fantastic, of course. Renee Alper and Ray Phoenix gave a Saturday night concert, very pun-intensive, as Renee always is. A member of Wild Mercy (Debbie, I think) got the “Madeira” treatment Saturday night.
The filk circle stayed relatively small, which of course is good for performers who want a chance to perform. It was also a very polite and non-competitive. I was pleased that A.J.’s song got a good reception. I’m also pleased with how much more manageable my stage fright is these days.
I had some good deep-dish pizza with friends at the filker pizza party thatjanmagic organizes. On the way home I stopped for yet more pizza, for some reason, at Pizzeria Piccola. This time I tried the Caesar salad, which is quite good and almost a meal in itself, and the Spicy Salami pizza, which I think is about the right level of spiciness, better than the somewhat bland shrimp and pesto I had last time.
Sunday night I got to bed early, exhausted from not getting a lot of sleep at the con and with my notions of day and night somewhat disrupted by staying up until four filking, and my sleep was a bit disrupted and, interestingly, I had a few brief lucid dreams.
This was my first Windycon, which apparently has just moved to a different hotel, which has just changed ownership, as all hotels seem to as the major hotel chains all trade buildings for some reason. After figuring out how to get to the parking lot behind the building, I found that it was full, and was directed to a distant location where parking was available. Before going there I had to find a place to park temporarily to check in and unload the car. They didn’t seem to have any place designated for that, so as much as I try to avoid parking in places marked “no parking,” I did in order to check in. It took me 16 minutes to walk from the remote parking, too far away to see the building, back to the hotel, partly on paved sidewalks, partly not. Supposedly, they ran buses occasionally, too. Inside, the hotel is at least as confusing a building to walk through as my place of employment, except with even more confusing room numbering. They are firm believers in odd-numbers one side, even-numbers the other, so with significantly different numbers of rooms on each side room 437, for example, is not especially near 438. Here and there complicated signs indicate ranges of odd and even numbered rooms to be found in each direction. For some reason these signs are not near the stairwell doors, so I’d pop out of a door, pick a direction to turn at random, and eventually encounter a sign indicating which direction I should have turned. Eventually, I was able to remember and pick up the subtle clues as to where I was. I never did figure out the overall shape of the building. There was a wing over there...and a bunch of rooms thataways, and, um, additional stuff down yonder.
Not too surprisingly a number of Milwaukee fen were present, including some people I don’t see too often. Windy is a big con, and there were a whole lot of people in general there, some familiar, most not.
I went down to the filk room on Friday night for
ericcoleman‘s concert and a woman who I did not immediately recognize started waving at me. When I saw the “Xap” name tag I recognized her as exapno, who I met at Pythonacon in October. She has turned into a filk fan, it seems.Eric was great, as always. There was an open filk interval, then the concert by Barry and Sally Childs-Helton, Debbie, and Jen of Wild Mercy, who were fantastic, of course. Renee Alper and Ray Phoenix gave a Saturday night concert, very pun-intensive, as Renee always is. A member of Wild Mercy (Debbie, I think) got the “Madeira” treatment Saturday night.
The filk circle stayed relatively small, which of course is good for performers who want a chance to perform. It was also a very polite and non-competitive. I was pleased that A.J.’s song got a good reception. I’m also pleased with how much more manageable my stage fright is these days.
I had some good deep-dish pizza with friends at the filker pizza party that
janmagic organizes. On the way home I stopped for yet more pizza, for some reason, at Pizzeria Piccola. This time I tried the Caesar salad, which is quite good and almost a meal in itself, and the Spicy Salami pizza, which I think is about the right level of spiciness, better than the somewhat bland shrimp and pesto I had last time.Sunday night I got to bed early, exhausted from not getting a lot of sleep at the con and with my notions of day and night somewhat disrupted by staying up until four filking, and my sleep was a bit disrupted and, interestingly, I had a few brief lucid dreams.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-16 06:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-16 09:19 pm (UTC)