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Potlatch 8, Day 2
Saturday, January 23, 1999 For pictures of Potlatch 8, see my con photo album. Sorry about the popups!
I'd set the alarm, but woke up before it went off, so Jack was able to keep on sleeping. Marci and I had agreed to do a shopping trip. The Hospitality suite seemed underbudgeted; emergency supplies of chocolate, fruit, other snacks, and toys were needed. We drove off, thinking we'd easily find a grocery store. We did see a Target, which would be good for the toys, but grocery stores were thin on the ground, even after several casts in different directions. Finally we asked at a convenience store and made our way to a Safeway. We filled the cart with good stuff, then drove back to Target for the toys, stamps, stickers, colored pencils, and other fun things. Our best find was a set of colored plastic balls, semi-transparent, which had small motion sensors and flashing lights inside. We arrived back at the hotel a bit after the first panel had started, and donated all our bags of stuff to the suite. People started decorating their badges right away, with stickers, markers, crayons, and rubber stamping. It's a Potlatch tradition! I was surprised to see Jack in the hospitality suite, instead of in the programming room. He told me that he'd gotten a call from his work! This was the weekend when the project he'd been working on for a year or so was going live, and they were running into an unexpected problem. Maybe he'd have to go back to Seattle! This would really be a shame! Certainly one of the disadvantages of a cellphone with free roaming. But for the present, his teammates were making progress. Because he was expecting more calls, he'd stayed away from the panel, even though it was the one thing he was really interested in for the day!
We turned Potlatch into a relaxacon, and hung around the hospitality suite until it was time for lunch. Jack got into tech discussions with Mark and with Bill Humphries. A group of folks started milling around in the lobby, trying to decide where to go to lunch. When Kate Yule mentioned barbecue, Jack perked up and we made up a foursome with her and David Levine. With just a few wrong turns, we drove into downtown Eugene, and found our destination: a combination bakery, barbecue, and brewery! The food was great, and we had lots of good talking too.
Again we got back after the panel had started, and Jack wasn't that interested in going. He urged me to go, but I thought I'd rather spend the time with him! So there was more hanging out, until teatime. The tea was held in the room next to the con suite, with fancy sandwiches and cakes and tea, all to benefit the Tiptree Award. Vicki Jean ate with us, and Marci Malinowycz and Tom Whitmore. I liked the sandwiches, even though one kind contained actual Spam. But the marzipan slugs, though amusing, didn't taste that good. After a rest and a change of clothes (I think we toured the dealers room about this time) it was time for the banquet. I'd bought the tickets because they hadn't sold the minimum yet when I'd asked, but we really weren't hungry at all! I wore my patchwork dress from Freddie, and the beads I'd bought at the Clarion West auction last year. Even though we'd had so much food already, we did eat salmon (it was the "salmon chanted evening" banquet, of course!) and salad and dessert. I don't know when I've eaten so much in one day! But that's just the way things worked out.
This year's edition of "Whose Line is it, Anyway?" was extremely funny! Tami Vining was featured, since the day before had been her birthday. She wasn't on the panel, but they brought her into the jokes and she was a witness in an improvised fashion courtroom scene. Jack admitted to me that it was worth seeing, even though he'd chosen to do something else at Orycon. We both felt absurdly pleased when a line that we'd written down was used in a scene, or a suggested location was used in improv. It's entirely random, of course! After the game was over, we wandered through various room parties, then went to sleep. At least I went to sleep. Jack was seized by the muse of database design, and actually did some work! First he was making notes on paper, then did some brainstorming with his laptop. I was able to sleep through most of this, so I didn't mind.
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