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September 29, 2006

Trip Report Part 2: Everything is Big, and Loud

Michelle and I spent the next two days recovering from the ordeal of the journey. We found we were okay for the morning, but after about lunchtime local time we'd succumb to epic yawning fits and had to repair to the room for extended snoozing.

More worrying during this phase was another sort-of medical problem: the heels of my feet are prone to cracking. This would be helped if I'd only wear proper shoes, but alas I don't. My feet like to feel free to be who they want to be! Even now, as I write, I'm comfortably barefoot, and loving it. The thing is, every now and then, if you pursue a risky lifestyle like this, you can run into trouble: cracks appear in your heels. And if you're very unlucky, and happen to travel by air for, say, 25 hours, in very dry air (5% humidity in the cabin), the cracks can get a little carried away with themselves. Sure enough, by the second day of our stay in Anaheim, one of my feet sported a crack that felt like it was deep enough to expose bone. It wasn't, of course; it only felt that way. This led to much hopping, hobbling, limping--and wincing, swearing, and muttering. And lots of sitting around in the hotel's Starbucks, sipping cold beverages expensive enough to pay off a good chunk of Australia's national debt, watching the hotel population wax and wane.

The Pokemon World Championship folks left over the Monday and Tuesday. We never heard who won. For a while there, though, every flat surface around the hotel lobby (and we guessed in other parts of the place) sported very keen youngsters armed with cards having at each other, while worried parents hovered nearby (but not *too* nearby). Slowly these kids were replaced with convention goers. They tended to be older, less visibly healthy, sported t-shirts from other conventions--and prone to loud conversations. Not all, by any means. But there were some very loud folks who wouldn't shut up, and you could hear them everywhere. The grinding headache ground on.

Tuesday afternoon congoers could rock up to the adjacent convention centre for early registration, and avoid a lot of queueing. We showed up, got our convention membership packets, and we went "ooooh!" and "aaaah!" over the fabulousness within. The LA Con IV souvenir book was a beautiful, hefty thing to behold. Mmmm, lots to read.

We went over to the t-shirt vendor, and snaffled up a couple of spiffy con shirts. While waiting in line chatting, a very nice older lady nearby heard our accents and said hello, said her name was "Gay", that she and her hubby Joe had spent a lot of time in Australia and just loved it. We're happily chatting, and then her hubby Joe comes over and Gay introduces us: it's Joe Haldeman, awesome writer guy. Gobsmacked, but trying to be cool about it, I squeak out, "Pleased to meet you, Mr Haldeman," while my world quietly spins off its axis.

Later, upstairs at Program Operations, I collected a new membership badge, which came with all my program duties printed neatly on the back. I was richly impressed. The list of items was intimidating: I was down for a lot of stuff.

Meanwhile, the single impression that Michelle and I could not stop thinking about during this entire afternoon was sheer astonishment at the sheer and spectacular immensity of the convention centre. So big you swear you're crossing three time zones just walking from one end to the other. So big you eye off those folks who have scored electric mobility scooters to help them get around, and you feel murderous jealousy. So big there was a whole, other huge convention event tucked away over at the distant other end of the place, so far away that you never saw any of those people or what they might be up to (it was a garden expo thingy). And it was so big that, when you've got a badly cracked open foot, walking around its cyclopean expanse makes you very tired and sore indeed. The voice of your mother in your head, telling you that if you'd only wear proper shoes you'd never have this problem, does not help.

That evening, as we sat once again in the lounge of the hotel Starbucks, watching folks go by, I was wondering if Publisher Brian and his wife Anita had arrived yet. I knew they were due to arrive that day, and I knew (after asking at registration) that they had indeed registered. I contemplated trying to look them up at their hotel (they were at the Marriott, across the street)--when, to our great surprise, we spotted Anita crossing the Hilton lobby at speed. We waved, grinned, and she spotted us, practically exploded with happiness at seeing us (you want to stand well clear of the blast radius), and came over. This was the first time Michelle and I had seen Anita since Noreascon 4 in Boston two years earlier. We chatted, caught up--and then Anita took us upstairs to the hotel's Executive Level. Turns out she and Brian had booked rooms in both the HIlton and the Anaheim, just in case, for complicated reasons. Nice rooms, too. As part of their deal, they got access to this Executive Lounge where free munchies and beverages and really comfy sofas await the privileged, and you can sit and stare dreamily out the enormous floor-to-ceiling plate glass windows at the twinkly nighttime landscape beyond. If we'd waited long enough, we would have been able to see the nightly fireworkss display at Disneyland (which is just next door, and you can plainly see it from this vantage point). I should point out that this fireworks show each night, from such close range, is INCREDIBLY LOUD, LIKE ARTILLERY GOING OFF.

It turned out that if we turned up to this Executive Lounge in the morning, and signed in as guests of Brian and Anita, we could enjoy all the fancy facilities, including free breakfast, as much as we wanted. This is the kind of thing that makes ordinary civilians like Michelle and me very suspicious and wary. Surely if we actually tried this we'd get busted and bad things would ensue. But, as it turned out, you totally could do what Anita said and all was cool.

This was just as well, bank-balance-wise. Breakfast at the hotel restaurant was expensive. To be fair, however, you got a *lot* of breakfast for the price. In fact, you got what looked and felt like about three people's breakfast, *each*! Our first morning, not knowing what to expect, Michelle ordered the innocuous-seeming omelette dish. The gigantic yellow monster on a plate the size of a cycling velodrome that turned up looked less like something to eat than like a bright yellow (with orange flecks) Ayers Rock. Michelle tackled the challenge, and pronounced it was pretty good, but still had to leave at least half. There was also toast, and "breakfast potatoes" and all manner of side dishes. For my part, I'd ordered bacon and eggs, with a sausage. The result, when it appeared on a similarly epic plate, was, again, way too much food. Which didn't stop me eating it all and enjoying it, but it did give me pause at the prospect of eating here each day. By the time you factor in the price of the meal, the extras, the sales tax, the tip, we wound up paying almost US$40--just for breakfast!

Meanwhile, every time we saw a TV set (and we saw lots), no matter what was on, the only topic the media were talking about was the Jon-Benet Killer Guy, and (this part was the subtext) Isn't He a Great Big Freak! Even after it was plainly demonstrated that he could not possibly have done the crime, he was *still* all over the TV news, looking creepy and blank and weird. The story stopped being, "This is the guy who we think did it," to, "He's just weird and we think it's creepy/fascinating."

Anyway, onward. Next day, Wednesday, the convention was starting. Excitement mounted. I was looking forward to seeing Brian and Anita again, and meeting some of the other EDGE authors who were going to be there--and I was starting to panic at the prospect of my one panel for the day, the "Mix and Match Writing Challenge". Little did I know, as I curled up that night, lulled to sleep by the comatose offerings of local radio, that this panel item would prove even more alarming and scary than I thought!

Posted by adrian at September 29, 2006 08:22 PM

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