Gone, but not forgotten

Here I am. Sorry no posts. The hotel at Bouchercon in SF charged $10 per day for wireless internet usage. Decided not to bother and save some money.

Here I am in Salt Lake City. My plane was supposed to leave SF at 1pm today. Weather delays made it 3pm which meant I missed my connection to get home at 6:30. So the next flight to Billings is at 9:45 and gets in at 11pm. I'm killing time here at the SLC airport in my four hour layover. Not fun at all.

I had a good time at Bcon. The best part was making friends with other 4ma-ers: Dame Judith, Lesley Austin Smith, Kim from Minnesota, Tania, Stina, Ann, Jane, LJ Roberts, Sally Cadigan, Lucinda (didn't catch up with Stan) from Stop You're Killing Me.

Worst part? Yes, the airport. And hauling a heavy bag. But the very worst was the problem with my newsletter. More on that later.

I'll go into more detail in a later post. I got in on Wednesday and it was HOT. In the 90s. It got progressively cooler as the days went by that by today it was cold-ish and rainy today.

The hotel was nice, though, expensive, but by all accounts, it was too big for the convention because everything was so spread out. I believe it had an affect on the interaction between authors and readers -- a big disconnect if not even a cold shoulder sometimes. The room was fine -- my view is above -- the Bay Bridge. I didn't have a roommate so that was nice. Actually, Kim said she'd like to room if I go to any other conventions because we seem to be on the same wake/sleep schedule and we got along great.

The panels were okay, some fantastic. I've always liked Val McDermid's books but that Scottish accent! I fell in love. She could read the phone book and if I were in the same room, I'd be happy.

The gift bag was a disappointment. The books I initially got were pretty old and pretty crappy. I scrounged a couple others along the way so I have some things to give to people. But they made my bag heavy. :) There were about three magazines in the bag which I liked and a couple graphic novels that we'll see if Steve likes.

The food was expensive. But mostly good. We did a lot of walking for which my punished me.

So. My newsletter. There was a big rush to get it there by a week ago Friday. Kinko's delivered it to the hotel Friday morning. I get there on Wednesday afternoon and ask to see it and the conference organizers say what newsletter? I had to hunt down the boxes. In the basement. The organizers didn't tell me they wanted them delivered to a different location for the stuffing into the bag. So the newsletter didn't get into the gift bags in the first rush of registration. The organizers said they would "scatter them around." Later I worked with the actual registrators to put them in the bags as they were going out. I was totally sweating hauling boxes to the area, stuffing bags. Completely upset.

Next morning I go in again to the registration area and they aren't stuffing the bags so I go through the process again. I'm completely upset and fighting tears. I tell myself I have to let go of the outcome but it doesn't seem like I'm getting much help. The husband of one of the volunteers sees this and I think said something to some powers in the room so I didn't have to sweat it as much. But it was way too bumpy of a ride. Throughout the weekend I kept grabbing a few and putting them out around the place. So I wound up shipping two loaded boxes home and leaving another one because I just couldn't afford the shipping.

I had fun; I had stress. Overall I made some good friends.

Much love,

PK the Bookeemonster