Back from Austin

Got back home about 10:30 p.m. last night, got up at 5:30 and spent a full day at work. Any hopes I had of knocking off early died when a board I cover, which meets at 3 p.m. and which has been known to meet for only 15 minutes to a half hour, had the longest meeting I've ever seen in my three years on the job here. I had to cut out with the meeting still in progress or I wouldn't have gotten my rental car returned to Enterprise by 5 p.m.

Saw Jayme Blaschke at ArmadilloCon, he has agreed to write the introduction for "Texas and Other Planets". I spoke to Gardner Dozois in the phone, and he has agreed to write a blurb.

The hotel where the con was held had a strange layout - all the meeting rooms are in the basement, and the main banks of elevators did not go down there. They come out in the ballrooms. As a result, the most direct route from the lobby to the con was up and down a steep marble staircase. The only elevator to that lower level was in the corner of the atrium and went down to the pool outside on the patio. I think everybody will remember this as "The Con in the Basement".

That was the one down side. The con itself was great - the programming was excellent. People were picked who could talk intelligently on the appropriate subjects. I think the con-goers really enjoyed themselves.

I shared a room with Bill Ledbetter and Adrian Simmons. That worked out well for all of us. We all drove in separately - Bill from the Dallas area, Adrian from Norman, Oklahoma, and myself from Mount Pleasant. Since I was a last-minute addition, I slept on a guest cot, but it was actually quite cozy. The con-goer I had shared a room with in the past couldn't make it this year.

I may blog later on details, but I need to get to bed.