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Potlatch 8, Day 1
Friday, January 22, 1999 For pictures of Potlatch 8, see my con photo album. Sorry about the popups!
Although I had urged Jack to get his things and his daughter's things organized last night, I didn't get myself packed up until this morning. I actually finished my unpacking from Swing Out Northwest in the process! I drove over to Jack's house around eleven. He was almost ready, and A----- came home from school shortly. She ate two of the double chocolate muffins I brought, then asked when we'd stopping for lunch! We packed up the car and set off. Lunch was at the Poodle Dog, in Fife. It's one of those places we've driven by many times, but never had eaten at. Despite the pretty good sign, and very cool name, it just seemed like a regular coffee shop type of place. After we dropped off A----- at her mom's place, Jack asked if I minded if we stopped to visit a friend of his. He had worked as a manager of a trailer park, about fourteen years ago, and a couple that had lived there then are still friendly with him today. The couple lives in a double-wide trailer. I think we might have disturbed them at a delicate moment -- we hadn't called them first-- since the husband appeared in his shorts, and the wife came out of the bedroom a few minutes later in a tshirt and jeans. Their two teenage sons played a video game (Yoshi's Revenge?) while we were talking, which was hard for me to stop looking at. Jack and the couple reminisced and got caught up on each other's news for about twenty minutes, then we hit the road again and drove and drove and drove...
We hit the rush hour traffic near Portland. The rain had been spitting down all afternoon, and visibilty was terrible! Jack approaches driving as a competitive sport, I'm afraid, so he amused himself by getting ahead of as many cars as possible. It takes longer than either Jack or I thought to get to Eugene. We had to stop and get something to eat at Taco Bell, instead of driving all the way as we'd intended. At last we arrived at the Doubletree Inn, where Potlatch is being held this year. It's a strange hotel; The rooms are located in satellite building segments, connected to the main structure via breezeways or glass tunnels.
We arrived just as registration was closing down for the evening, but Jack was able to pick up his pre-printed badge. Mine was mysteriously not there, although we were both pre-registered. We got settled in our room, then visited the hospitality room for a few minutes. It was so much fun seeing friends from far away! I was very flattered when some folks asked me to think about coming to Wiscon this May. They are doing a program item about online journals and weblogs (like Bill Humphries' page) and want me on the panel. The opening ceremonies (a carry-over from Orycon?) were good -- the convention committee introduced themselves, Loren MacGregor described the programming to come, and then there was something very special! Jerry Oltion and Kathy Oltion gave an impressive demonstration of how to make grapefruit sorbet using liquid nitrogen! Clouds of vapor rose up as Kathy stirred the mixture of honey and grapefruit juice. The crowd really enjoyed the show and it was very tasty. (I'll have pictures posted here shortly.) For a finale, the couple froze small bananas and shattered them. The obligatory joke, "Is that a banana in your thermos or are you just glad to see us?" was made by David Levine.
We decided to skip the first program item and go to the hospitality suite and hang out. Marci and I are both old hospitality hands. After we scoped out the scene, we conferred and decided on a shopping run tomorrow morning -- the hospitality suite is under-budgeted, it seems to us. I looked across the room, and there was Vicki Jean sitting there! She came down from Portland with her friend Miriam. We reached critical party mass in the suite, everyone talking and laughing. Someone made a beer run and Jack had some Wild Turkey, despite the disappointment of not finding his flask before we left this morning. Someone brought out a strange toy called BINK [?]. The object of this is to roll a small weighted "jumping bean" around a tray, and get it to stand on end in a small depression in the middle of the tray. Fun!
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