{"id":332,"date":"2014-07-03T07:56:31","date_gmt":"2014-07-03T14:56:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/?p=332"},"modified":"2014-07-03T07:56:31","modified_gmt":"2014-07-03T14:56:31","slug":"westercon-67-travel-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/?p=332","title":{"rendered":"Westercon 67 – Travel Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

With WorldCon beyond my reach this year, I will only be able to attend two conventions. \u00a0Convolution<\/a>, at the end of September, and Westercon<\/a>, starting this week. \u00a0As usual, I will attend panels and take copious notes.<\/p>\n

One difference with this convention is that I’ve brought Melissa with me. \u00a0She was delighted when I invited her along, and I think she’s been more excited about this convention than me. \u00a0This is her first, so I’m going to do my best to make sure she has a good time, and gets the greatest Sci-Fi\/Fantasy convention experience.<\/p>\n

The travel day was exceptionally light and easy. \u00a0Melissa was worried we would be late getting to the airport, so we wound up leaving a little earlier than I wanted. \u00a0We had to wait for a little while, but we had each other and our tablets to keep each other entertained.<\/p>\n

The flight from Sacramento to Salt Lake City was uneventful. \u00a0Aside from some queasiness brought on from ascent and descent, there was no turbulence, and the landing was the smoothest I can remember. \u00a0As we were landing, I thought of the conversation Melissa and I had about our life insurance, and how inadequate it probably is. \u00a0I’m not the most confident of fliers, but this was a really easy flight.<\/p>\n

Since Melissa was with me, I arranged for us to have a rental car for this week. \u00a0I normally just take the shuttle from the airport to the hotel, but I wanted to make sure that Melissa could escape if she got too bored with all of the geekery. \u00a0This led to a discovery about Salt Lake City that I will need to incorporate in one of my books. \u00a0I’ll get to that in a moment.<\/p>\n

The route from the airport to the hotel was extremely easy. \u00a0In fact, getting around Salt Lake City seems like it would be very simple, under normal circumstances. \u00a0It is laid out in a grid, and there are adequate signs on all of the roads I’ve seen. \u00a0The street names themselves are confusing, since they not only use numbers, they repeat the same numbers for different streets. \u00a0At one point last night, I turned from one 300 street to another, and a little while later, was at an intersection that was 300 and 300.<\/p>\n

Melissa and I arrived at the convention about a day early, but registration was open. \u00a0I saw a few familiar faces from other conventions floating through the hotel as we wandered into the registration room. \u00a0There were 3 volunteers in the room, looking a little bit bored. \u00a0We signed in, got our badges, and a little bit of swag. \u00a0They didn’t have their programs yet.<\/p>\n

We had some time to kill, so we wandered around. \u00a0We went to dinner at a Brazilian steak place, where they come around periodically and bring different types of meat. \u00a0It was really expensive, but it was good, and we had a good time with it.<\/p>\n

After dinner, Melissa and I went back to the registration room, hoping to get our programs. \u00a0I wanted to plan out our day. \u00a0The programs were still late. \u00a0As I’m writing this, it’s 20 minutes before opening ceremonies, and the programs still aren’t anywhere to be seen. \u00a0This is not a good sign, but I’m going to try and stay optimistic.<\/p>\n

We were fed, and there wasn’t much more we could do with the convention, so we decided to buy some internet access and watch some Netflix. \u00a0I thought it would be great to put it on the television in our room via my laptop, but to do that, we needed an HDMI cable. \u00a0Well, we had a car, and the hotel staff gave us directions to a Walmart.<\/p>\n

That’s when we discovered something interesting about Salt Lake City. \u00a0It is easy to navigate the place, but the lights seem to be timed strangely. \u00a0There was road construction going on near the store, and it was looking like we couldn’t go there. \u00a0Then it hit me: In Salt Lake City, no one cares if you’re trying to go somewhere.<\/p>\n

That doesn’t sound that unusual. \u00a0Apathy is pervasive. \u00a0In practice, this particular brand of apathy struck me as unique. \u00a0As easy as it is to navigate, I found people stopping and blocking paths with indifference, both in their cars and walking around. \u00a0Even the road construction we encountered seemed to encapsulate the idea. \u00a0They simply blocked stuff off, and gave no detour or path as compensation.<\/p>\n

Something else that struck me as strange about the place: it felt empty yesterday. \u00a0Melissa and I were walking through the downtown area, and there just didn’t seem to be many people around. \u00a0We were in the middle of an open mall area, and it felt like it was built up bigger than it needed to be. \u00a0Chicago, San Francisco, and Sacramento all have a little bit of a crowded feel around 5 PM, but not this place.<\/p>\n

I’m hoping that the convention doesn’t feel the same way. \u00a0We will find out soon enough!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With WorldCon beyond my reach this year, I will only be able to attend two conventions. \u00a0Convolution, at the end of September, and Westercon, starting this week. \u00a0As usual, I will attend panels and take copious notes. One difference with this convention is that I’ve brought Melissa with me. \u00a0She was delighted when I invited […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=332"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":333,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332\/revisions\/333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}