There have been a lot of posts around the blogosphere (as well as some Wikipedia monkeying) calling the new pope “Pope Palpatine I”. However, to stick with the double-name scheme used by the previous two popes, and to recognize his service to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, a better name is required.
I propose “Pope Palpatine Vorbis”.
John Scalzi, with the cooperation of his publisher (Tor), is making an electronic version of his novel Old Man’s War available to troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, as he notes on his blog.
If you qualify, he has directions on how to get it there.
If you don’t, consider thanking Scalzi and Tor for supporting the troops by buying a copy of the book (currently out in hardcover). It’s good. (This offer has pushed me over my “don’t generally buy hardcovers” plan.)
Got up, ate a vague breakfasty type collection of food from the con suite (which was very well stocked, kudos to the folks responsible), and got packed for the return trip.
After that, had some nice conversations with folks, headed back to the room to finish some things, spent some time hanging out in the green room, checked out, made a last “goodbye folks” pass around the atrium area, and headed out the door to catch the 1330 shuttle to the airport…for a 1635 flight.
Yeah, three hours ahead. The shuttles on Sunday ran only every other hour, so there wasn’t a 1430, and I didn’t want to leave the hotel any later than that in case there was traffic, the security lines were a nightmare, and/or the gate was halfway to Calgary. I did have an offer of a ride to the airport, but leaving at 1500 would still make me a bit leery. This meant missing a couple interesting panels, but that’s life.
The good news was that Kip Williams and family, who I’d wanted more time to talk to, were also on the shuttle; this meant my con would last a little bit longer. We arrived at MSP, went our separate ways to our separate check-in counters, and I checked in.
Kiosk check-in took almost no time, and the security lines were short; by 1400 I was already near my gate. There was an earlier UA flight to Chicago at 1530, so I figured I’d try to get on that, and (with luck) also get on an earlier ORD-BOS flight and arrive home somewhat less tired. Since there wasn’t anyone at the desk and boarding for the earlier flight was an hour away, I headed to the (singular) US Airways gate to see how Kip & company were doing.
We chatted for a while, I headed back to my gate to see if I could get on the 1530, and a gate agent arrived. Once she had a moment, I asked if I could get on the earlier flight; she said there were plenty of seats, and printed out a new boarding pass, as well as a standby card for the earlier ORD-BOS flight.
Two minutes or so later:
“I’ve just been told that our aircraft has a mechanical problem and will be delayed for two hours at the current estimate.”
I, along with all the other folks on the 1530, get rebooked (most of us onto the 1635 flight I’d started out with). I do wind up with a better seat for my trouble, at least. This also leaves me more time to chat with Kip & company, as well as get something resembling food so I won’t have to eat at ORD.
The 1635 leaves on time, and arrives at gate B1 at ORD. I look at the monitors to see if I can catch the earlier BOS-ORD flight…and it’s running slightly late! It’s also leaving from B16, at the other end of the concourse.
I run down the concourse, reach B16, and the door is closed. However, right behind me, a couple other people from the MSP flight arrive; they, however, were booked on this flight originally (since they’d been scheduled to take the 1530 from MSP before the rebooking). The agent opened the door, ran down the loading bridge, and said “hold it”, then came back to scan their boarding cards.
As they headed down toward the airplane, I asked the agent whether there’s any chance of my a boarding the in their plane, since I was on the standby list. She taps a couple of keys on her keyboard and says “get on board and take 13F”.
As it turned out, 13F was full, so the cabin crew told me to just take an empty seat; I did, and wound up in 7E. (At that point, middle seat, who cares? I’m on the plane.) 7A and 7C were occupied, as were 7D and 7F.
The door closes, and an announcement is made that Mr. So-and-so should come to the first class cabin; his upgrade has cleared. The guy in 7C gets up and heads forward. I move to 7C. My good luck continues to hold.
An uneventful flight later, I arrive at BOS a bit before 2130, an hour earlier than my original scheduled arrival. This is early enough to catch the MBTA’s Silver Li(n)e “airport service” (1600-2200 Sundays only; this is so they can claim to have started service by the January 2005 deadline required in the Big Dig mitigation settlement) to South Station. A change to the electric trolleybus at Silver Line Way (with a few minutes’ wait), then on to South Station to board the Red Line and home in about an hour from the seat belt sign going off at the gate. Not bad for a trip that didn’t cost me $25 in cab fare! (Didn’t cost anything, actually…the T pass was already paid for.) I so want to go back to Minicon next year. I may try to stay an extra night on one or both ends to simplify the travel logistics and/or see more of Minneapolis (I never left the hotel).
This was a great panel, with interesting contributions from each of the panelists coming together to make something even better than any individual panelist’s presentation would have been. They covered topics from the curse words of the title to the banning of books (Terry complained that even Utah wouldn’t ban his) to the way that young adult books are often read by younger children these days. A recurring theme was the mixed blessing of the success of Harry Potter; it’s helped many good YA books get back into print, but with “Potter-like” marketing even for those books that were covering that ground years before Rowling.
After the panel, I went with a couple folks to the hotel restaurant to try to get lunch. For whatever reason they were still serving from the breakfast menu, so I wound up having a bowl of oatmeal for sort of brunch, on the grounds that they couldn’t screw that up too badly. (They didn’t, but for that price they’d better not have.)
Lunch, or at least something resembling lunch, having been acquired, I spent some time wandering around the con. First, another dealer’s room pass (during which I failed my saving throw and bought something, but managed to limit myself to three paperback books), then a bit of looking at the art show, followed by some general wandering-about-talking-to-folks. Eventually, I headed to the Green Room for a bit to relax and find something to supplement My So-Called Lunch.
My panel on Fictional Internets was scheduled for 1600, which put it up against a panel on writing with the guest of honor in the big room. Not surprisingly, the turnout was fairly low, though higher than I expected given the competition. I enjoyed this panel, though we wound up getting side tracked into a bit too much discussion of the real Internet before getting onto the real topic of the panel. (We were waiting for the scheduled moderator, who never made it.)
After that panel, I went back to the con suite, where I wound up playing my one game of the con (Settlers of Catan). That finished shortly before 1900, so I went to the LiveJournal party almost immediately. Somewhere in the course of the day I also stopped by the spot where custom LJ badges (complete with userpics) were being made and added one to my collection.
The LiveJournal party was loads of fun, and I spent quite some time there (which resulted in missing the auction, some panels, a reading or two…). Following that, I took in the Chicago Worldcon bid party, then spent some more time in the con suite before heading off to bed. That was the Saturday that was.
