Forewarned is forearmed, as they say. Much better day today.
I slept in, debated taking my car, and eventually decided to drive, even though my hotel is *technically* only about 15 blocks away (and badly located to pick
up the local mass transit). Not that confident of my navigation around here yet. My trusty GPS got me back to the Center, at which point I shrugged and
parked in the garage again. THEN I buttonholed the Center's information desk about when the building locks up. Turns out that if you *exit* the Center on
the correct side, and go to the far side of the parking structure, there's a structure-only elevator that does *not* get shut down. Plus, I was planning
on getting out of the Center at the end of the last function anyway.
Went out to lunch (Hard Rock Cafe -- my sister collects shot glasses from the various cities). I must say, Denver's 16th street pedestrian mall is pretty
nice. The free shuttle bus tends too crowded for my taste, but it's definitely handy. I wish I had more time to explore.
Went back to the Center, half-slept my way through a bunch of panels (dunno why, I got plenty of sleep), hung out at the last Center function of the evening,
the film about the Chicago 2000 WorldCon. I took off before the end, around 20:15, and discovered that the escalators, at least, *had* been shut off. This
was a problem b/c the movie was being held in the sub-street-level ballroom. Now, *I* could walk up the single storey of stairs easily enough, even at this
altitude and with my weight, but this con has a *lot* of attendees with disabilities of various degree -- I've heard some serious grumbling from that
demographic that the con management *badly* under-resourced the handicapped-assistance elements of the con. I don't know if the *elevators* near the
ballroom were shut down in addition to the escalators, but if they were, I expect some serious bloodletting at the gripe session.
Anyway, armed with my secret knowledge of how to get up into the parking structure without near-killing myself, I returned my car to my hotel ($18/night for
parking, argh, and the Center charges $7-10), then walked back halfway to get to the Sheraton, where most of the late-night functions and the Con Suite are.
My vague plan is to just haunt the Center by day from now on, and hit the Sheraton at night. I watched some Original Gundam in the anime room, and then camped
out in the Con Suite looking for interesting conversations -- my favorite part of most cons. Ended up trading Programming Horror Stories (robotics vs server
sysadminning) for a couple hours. Decided to leave about midnight so I could get up in the morning. After some thought, I sprang for a cab back, which cost
me about $2.50 for six-seven blocks. Probably money wasted, but I would have been walking through several blocks of completely shut-down businesses, and I
just don't know this area well enough to feel confident taking unecessary chances.
The Sheraton, BTW, has an INSANE layout, and I say that as someone who survived the Hyatt Regency in Chicago when it hosted the 2000 WorldCon (another con that
had functions spread out over multiple hotels, but there you could walk the pedestrian sub-street tunnel/mall and have no problems with weather or traffic).
The con functions are either on Floor 22 (all room parties on one floor, not a bad idea), or two-three levels underground. And the signage is very poor.
Also, the Sheraton has two buildings, but their underground sections don't connect, leading to some Keystone-Cops scenes where people entered the main
building, followed the signs underground, ended up going back *up* a different set of elevators, crossing the street or the second-story sky bridge, then going
back *down* into the sub- or sub-sub-basements to get at the anime, film, gaming, and Con Suite areas. If you ran a LARP in that place, you'd have to call
out the FBI to *find* everyone afterwards.
All in all, a much better day than Wed, now that I have my feet under me and a better handle on the contextual terrain. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be up to
full steam and can really wring the most out of my remaining time.
I slept in, debated taking my car, and eventually decided to drive, even though my hotel is *technically* only about 15 blocks away (and badly located to pick
up the local mass transit). Not that confident of my navigation around here yet. My trusty GPS got me back to the Center, at which point I shrugged and
parked in the garage again. THEN I buttonholed the Center's information desk about when the building locks up. Turns out that if you *exit* the Center on
the correct side, and go to the far side of the parking structure, there's a structure-only elevator that does *not* get shut down. Plus, I was planning
on getting out of the Center at the end of the last function anyway.
Went out to lunch (Hard Rock Cafe -- my sister collects shot glasses from the various cities). I must say, Denver's 16th street pedestrian mall is pretty
nice. The free shuttle bus tends too crowded for my taste, but it's definitely handy. I wish I had more time to explore.
Went back to the Center, half-slept my way through a bunch of panels (dunno why, I got plenty of sleep), hung out at the last Center function of the evening,
the film about the Chicago 2000 WorldCon. I took off before the end, around 20:15, and discovered that the escalators, at least, *had* been shut off. This
was a problem b/c the movie was being held in the sub-street-level ballroom. Now, *I* could walk up the single storey of stairs easily enough, even at this
altitude and with my weight, but this con has a *lot* of attendees with disabilities of various degree -- I've heard some serious grumbling from that
demographic that the con management *badly* under-resourced the handicapped-assistance elements of the con. I don't know if the *elevators* near the
ballroom were shut down in addition to the escalators, but if they were, I expect some serious bloodletting at the gripe session.
Anyway, armed with my secret knowledge of how to get up into the parking structure without near-killing myself, I returned my car to my hotel ($18/night for
parking, argh, and the Center charges $7-10), then walked back halfway to get to the Sheraton, where most of the late-night functions and the Con Suite are.
My vague plan is to just haunt the Center by day from now on, and hit the Sheraton at night. I watched some Original Gundam in the anime room, and then camped
out in the Con Suite looking for interesting conversations -- my favorite part of most cons. Ended up trading Programming Horror Stories (robotics vs server
sysadminning) for a couple hours. Decided to leave about midnight so I could get up in the morning. After some thought, I sprang for a cab back, which cost
me about $2.50 for six-seven blocks. Probably money wasted, but I would have been walking through several blocks of completely shut-down businesses, and I
just don't know this area well enough to feel confident taking unecessary chances.
The Sheraton, BTW, has an INSANE layout, and I say that as someone who survived the Hyatt Regency in Chicago when it hosted the 2000 WorldCon (another con that
had functions spread out over multiple hotels, but there you could walk the pedestrian sub-street tunnel/mall and have no problems with weather or traffic).
The con functions are either on Floor 22 (all room parties on one floor, not a bad idea), or two-three levels underground. And the signage is very poor.
Also, the Sheraton has two buildings, but their underground sections don't connect, leading to some Keystone-Cops scenes where people entered the main
building, followed the signs underground, ended up going back *up* a different set of elevators, crossing the street or the second-story sky bridge, then going
back *down* into the sub- or sub-sub-basements to get at the anime, film, gaming, and Con Suite areas. If you ran a LARP in that place, you'd have to call
out the FBI to *find* everyone afterwards.
All in all, a much better day than Wed, now that I have my feet under me and a better handle on the contextual terrain. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be up to
full steam and can really wring the most out of my remaining time.