Baltimore, Here I Come!

[stoutfellow]

Well, I took the plunge; I'm going to Balticon. It'll be my first con, so I'll be reading up on the "your first time" advice that's appeared from time to time on the LMB list. Who else is going?

Meanwhile, I've been discovering the pleasures of MusicMatch Jukebox. It's been sitting on my computer since I bought the thing, but it was just this morning that I got around to finding out what it could do. I'm in the process of loading all of my CDs onto my hard drive now. For the moment, I'm dumping them all into a single playlist; I suppose eventually I'll make smaller, more specific ones. (My CD player is a three-disk carousel; loading it is inconvenient, in particular because, to put in the third disk, you have to close the carousel, make it rotate, and then re-open it. It has a tendency to fight you at that point, re-closing almost immediately. The idea of having them all on my computer is exhilarating.)

Comments

[fairestcat]

Hurrah!!!! Looking forward to seeing you at Balticon! norabombay and I will be there, along with some other locals, including ase and mearigh (Scott H.) We're of course hosting the multi-night list room party, but we'll also be all around the con during the day.

Myself, I'm a big believer in the jump right in method of starting to go to cons. My first con was a Worldcon, ConJose to be exact.

[kd5mdk.livejournal.com]

Mine to. Same Con. (Well, I went to ArmadilloCon the week before, but it didn't really count, I'd say)

My advice: Share a room only with people you get along with (hasn't been a problem for me yet), and agree on your schedulish ideas. While daveamongus and his clan were wonderful about letting me share a room with them, and I thank them dearly, it turned out that they're "early to bed and early to rise" types, and I remember getting back at 11pm once, forgot my key, and woke up dsudis to get in. On my second Con, I stayed with the Amoeba in the Hotel Bujoldar, rooming with marnan, tygerr and iclysdale. If we were in the room at 11pm, it would have been because we'd stopped off to change clothes before going out again. That was far more to my natural inclination.

So, what to do:
1) Meet some people you know online who are going, listies, forex, and consider doing some things together. Check the schedule for things you want to do. Understand that unless you have what I consider a very boring time, you will not do them all. There's so much room for constructive chaos (like finding yourself chatting with Lois after a panel, and discovering it's lunchtime. This would be when I'd suggest going for lunch, almost without regard for what's scheduled next.) The problem is of course when you have no idea when one of these remarkable opportunities will come along, so you can't just mark out a time in between panels to "have an adventure". Well, you can, but you have to make one up then, not rely on it to come to you.

I recommend attending all the events that mailing lists, interest groups and other stuff you're involved in organizes. Cat and Nora's room party will be an excellent place to at least meet some very interesting people, regardless of how you are about parties in general.

Finally, remember, especially at a Con like this, you already know lots of people there, you just need to find them. (Cell phones, if you have one, are very handy.)

Wow. That's a lot of talk for someone who has been to two Cons worthy of note.