My Convention Career: 1991

• Baycon, San Jose -- The first (and probably last) time I ever worked at a Baycon, mainly because San Francisco had won the bid to host the worldcon in two years and they decided to use Baycon as a shake-down test of how the programming staff would work together. The experiment accomplished its goal, at least for me: I decided my ideas of programming and most of the rest of the team's were different enough the we probably wouldn't work well together. My other service to the con was keeping their GoH, George RR Martin, company, since he knew very few local people.

• New Orleans Science Fiction and Fantasy Festival -- A great, fun weekend although I didn't do much at the con itself except participate on a couple of panels. The Albuquerque contingent turned out in full force and we spent a lot of time hanging out in the French Quarter. We even managed to get a table at K-Paul's for dinner!

• Chicon V -- I'd volunteered to work in Program Ops for this convention but they seemed indifferent to whether I worked or not so I decided to take this worldcon off. The committee had been in disarray before the con and evidently during it as well. Notable for a folkdance held on Thursday night, which I've never seen at a convention before or since.

  Although I didn't work the convention, I actually was busy all weekend catching up with various friends and current and former co-apa members. I also ate really well at this con: not only was a tradition of high tea at worldcon Sunday afternoon upheld, but the con hotel actually had a kosher gourmet restaurant in it! This con is also famous for a letter the secondary con hotel passed out to all of its guests explaining that "Because of the science fiction element of this group, some of our guests will be in creative costumes representing futuristic or scientific characters. Please do not be alarmed should you encounter one of these individuals."

• Loscon, Los Angeles

• SMOFcon, Portland

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