An experiment, from Worldcon

[drwex]

Usually when I trip I post-mortem blog. I may try posting bits and pieces instead, when I can. Wireless in the hotel is craptastic but free. In the convention center it's pay so unknown quality. Thus probably morning and evening bits.

Drive was good, though longer than advertised. The "now you get to travel through Canadian farmland and small farm towns" bit was very unexpected. They're a bit more relaxed in their definition of highway than we are. Seeing signs next to swaths of the corn fields that looked a great deal like markers as to which GM-varieties they were growing in that swath was a bit startling.

Hotel is fine, Canadians are nice. Montreal is big and I don't know what, if any, of the city we'll get to see. Having to logistic the kids is a show-stopper for most things, like fireworks that don't start until 10P and require you to be there a couple hours in advance.

The con so far is OK. I sort of burned out on Worldcons a while back. We're doing this one because they claim to have enough programming to entertain the kids, because Gaiman is GoH, and because it's drive distance from where we live.

So far Pygment has done one programming item while I sat in the room with the sleeping kidlets. We saw Gaiman once, in the hallway with his minder. I was surprised he wasn't being fan-tailed but Pygment claims most people wouldn't recognize him anyway. His blog entry this AM identified the woman he was with as his con minder, which is an amusing but necessary thing.

I'm told the dealers' area is pretty much all books and almost all Canadian businesses. Apparently few US dealers could afford or manage to get their stock past Customs. I imagine we'll hear more about this from those on the running-the-con side of things.

On to Day 2...