Umm… I may have waited too long to post anything, because now I am trying to remember what I did the past two days.

The coolest thing on Thursday was definitely having lunch with my best friend from high school, who I have not seen in close to fifteen years. We fell right back into the comfortable ease that we had back then as if there’d been no break, chatting and catching up and roaming around the Tattered Cover bookstore. We, of course, talked about books and writing and she mentioned a few authors whose books she enjoyed. So, after we parted ways again, I ducked into the dealers’ room and snatched up copies of books from said authors, and then hunted them down to get them signed for her.

Later that evening I had a terrific dinner with Lee Modesitt, during which he was his usual charming, classy, and companionable self. After dinner we cruised through the ConSuite and sat and talked with some fans, but by 10pm I was already starting to wear out, so made my excuses and made my way back to my hotel. Without getting lost!

Friday was the Codex breakfast, of which I was the organizer, which had not involved much work beyond calling the restaurant and arranging to have room for 25-30 people and explaining that we were all going to have the buffet in order to make it easier (and avoid the nightmare of the Gigantic Communal Bill.) The breakfast went great, until the server dropped the check on the table. One check. For all of us. Sigh. So, I had to take the check up to the manager and explain that I had, in fact, called ahead of time concerning the separate check issue. It all eventually got sorted out, and I headed to the convention.

But first I called my friend up and asked her if she could break away from work for a couple of minutes so that I could give her some stuff (the autographed books!) She suggested a meeting place near the convention center (she works close by) and gave me directions, and I dutifully headed off. Unfortunately, I missed part of the directions and ended up having to clamber over a rail line and an embankment, and then had to pass the books down to her because I didn’t want to make the six foot jump down to where she was. It probably looked like I was passing contraband.

I had some down time in the afternoon, so I went down to the Sheraton and gave blood for the Heinlein blood drive, which made me feel very virtuous.

In the evening I went and watched the Masquerade, which I always get a huge kick out of since I used to costume. However, my attempts at costuming couldn’t touch some of the creations from the masters-level participants. I was totally blown away by several of the entries. Cool stuff! After the masquerade I made my way over to the Sheraton where the Tor party was in full swing. At least I assume the Tor party was in full swing, because I never actually made it to the Tor party. I stopped first at the SFWA suite, and found it to be just the right amount of crowd for my taste, and then after hearing about “The Smell” in the Tor party, I decided that I had no great pressing need to go on up. However, once again I proved myself to be a total weenie about the whole late-night-partying thing, and made my escape around 11pm.

Tomorrow I will do my best to post recaps of days 4 & 5, but I will say that overall it’s been a really enjoyable and fun convention.

More later. :)