motss.con.xi: Josh's con report
motss.con.xi: Josh's con report(If you want my pictures, click here. I mis-posted the URL; sorry.)
Originally posted Jun23/87; content last updated Jul16/05
The following is my motss.con.xi con report, or my experiences of the 11th soc.motss.con (held Jun 19-22 in Pittsburgh PA). If you don't like such things, feel free to hit 'n' and not read it. It won't bother me. Much.
Since I was at the USENIX General Technical Conference the entire preceeding week, I didn't arrive until about 4pm (having awakened that morning at 6am for an 8am flight that was supposed to have been non-stop but which, thanks to a travel agent's mistake, wound up being a 1-stop flight via Chicago (and which was delayed an hour because (a) one subsystem died after landing in Chicago and it had to be disabled, and (b) when arming the doors for departure the flight crew accidentally deployed one of the landing slides)). Got to the hotel, lobby was empty, so I checked in, went upstairs, changed quickly, and went down to the lobby. As it happened, people were starting to assemble to go to dinner on the Gateway Clipper, also known as "Big Gay Scott's Big Gay Boat Ride."
Dinner was tasty (buffet-style, all you can eat until they take the food away); the company was marvelous, and the sights were quite pleasant (both the geographical ones and the living ones; some of the deaf conventioneers with whom we seemed to be sharing the boat were really tasty looking). After the boat ride we broke into 2 groups: The ones who were heading back to the hotel (like me), and the ones who wanted to go up and down on the incline. After getting back to the hotel, we took over the lobby and conversed up a storm. I'd brought some chocolate truffles that seemed to disappear. Around 12, my eyes stopped focussing so I decided it was bedtime.
Of course, I was too out of it to remember everyone I saw — both at the hotel and on the boat — but I do remember meeting Ann G and Toft and Brian Vogel and Ian and Beck, and renewing friendships with the rest of y'all that I'd met before and not seen for as long as 3 or 4 years....
Woke up. I think. Managed to meet the rest of the group heading off to the Grand Concourse for brunch. Ate like a pig, re-met Laurie Mann (whom I'd last seen 9 years ago at the con.ii in Boston in 1989), wandered back to the hotel for a bit and then walked (with Arnold, Leroy, Darren, Ann B, and Ned) to the Phipps Conservatory. Spent a very pleasant afternoon there, walked back to the hotel with Arnold, napped, and met up with Stephanie for the bus ride to Scott & Champ's for the barbecue. Ate like a pig, enjoyed meeting Michael and John (Jon? I never saw it spelled), and enjoyed the Trivial Pursuit game (even though nobody seemed to want to win for a while there). Went back to the hotel and collapsed.
Woke up, finished packing, showered, dressed, and headed to the lobby to meet the remaining motssers for the Stragglers' Breakfast at Pamela's. We made it there on time (more or less) — and Stephanie even managed to be awake enough to join us (even if she did come in her jammies).
-j, briefer than usual