Conventions

While setting up in the Green Room today, we ran into the legendary Steve Jackson, of Steve Jackson Games. He posed for us with one of his friends:

Today, we drove from the Bay Area to Reno, Nevada. Upon arrival, we immediately headed for the Reno-Sparks Convention Center to pick up our Renovation   (aka Worldcon, aka the 69th World Science Fiction Convention) badges and scope out the lay of the land.

As usual, we got a bit turned around at first, but then we saw the sign to the right—our clue that we were nearing our destination. We then picked up our badges and work out the logistics of Stack Exchange’s sponsorship of the Green Room, which—while not a Renovation issue—required us to stand in line to talk to people at six different help desks, split up over three floors.

After finishing that sprint and taking a breather, we ran into our friend Karen Anderson  , who is working on the con’s Daily Newsletter (she’s an editor and excellent writer by trade). She introduced us to her sweetie, Tom Whitmore .

Your fannish acronym of the day is SMOF, which stands for “Secret Master of Fandom.” Tom Whitmore definitely is one—he was a co-founder of The Other Change of Hobbit bookstore, a former Worldcon chair (for ConJosé, the 2002 Worldcon), and the Fan Guest of Honor at Denvention, the 2006 Worldcon.

Tom and Karen then introduced us to Patty Wells, Renovation’s Convention Chair. That means she’s in charge of, well, basically, everything. It was immediately clear to us that she’s a lady who gets stuff done, and we found her to be amazingly un-frazzled and calm—particularly considering that this next week is the culmination for her of years of effort. If I was in her shoes, I’d be thinking about the three million things I had to do in the next hour. Instead, she was gracious and charming to the two of us—people she’d never met before.

Tomorrow (Wednesday) is the first day of the convention, and if you have any questions about the program, the schedule, the speakers, the vendors, the costumes, the Hugo Awards, or the convention itself, just ask in the comments.

And now, it’s way past our bedtimes. More to come!

Hi, I’m Tom Negrino, and I’m a member of several Stack Exchange communities, including Science Fiction and Fantasy, Writers, and Apple. In real life, I’m an author of computer books, with more than 40 books published. And of course, I’m a lifelong reader of Science Fiction. My wife, Dori Smith, is a Stack Exchange Technology Evangelist and Community Manager.

Together, from August 17 through August 21, we’ll be representing Stack Exchange at Renovation, the 69th World Science Fiction Convention, in Reno, NV. Stack Exchange is helping to sponsor the Green Room for program participants. I’m speaking on three panels. Dori will be promoting the Science Fiction and Fantasy and Writers sites, and roaming the halls with Stack Exchange swag, including shirts, stickers, and pens.

Dori and I will be posting to this blog throughout Worldcon, so expect to see some of the flavor of the con, including pictures of hall costumes, coverage of some of the sessions, and more. If there’s anything you especially want us to write about from the con—sessions you want covered, questions you want asked, attendees you want photos of— please say so in the comments. We can’t promise to fulfill every request, but we’ll do what we can.