LA

Arrived uneventfully in LA yesterday around 11:00. Thong dropped me off at the airport early. Of course, I checked the bag and sailed through the security lines easier than I usually do. Bought a muffin and coffee and sat at the gate for two hours twiddling my thumbs and reading blogs via the TREO. Seth B. showed up close to when the plane started boarding.

On entering the plane, a woman asked if I'd exchange seats so she could sit by her daughter, but I was mean and kept my window seat instead of switching to the middle seat across the aisle.

At SNA, we waited quite some time for the luggage to arrive. I dropped my brief case in mizzlaurajean and davidschroth's rental car -- they were waiting in the "circle" for me. (And circle they would as I waited for my luggage.)

Eventually, my luggage arrived, and I caught up with Laura Jean and David again, and we went off in search of food. We ended up at an In and Out Burger, then cruised for the hotel on the streets of Anaheim.

When we got here, (saw Jack T. and Terry F. while we wuz getting stuff out of the trunk, and gerisullivan during the process) we unloaded the car, checked into the hotel (truepenny and Elise M. were sitting in the hotel's restaurant. It was Elise M's BD yesterday, which I seem to have forgotten about.) We checked in, found the guy to have our luggage sent up, and David took the rental car back to the car company.

Laura Jean and I unpacked. When Daivd got back, we went over the to the Convention Center and registered, bought convention t-shirts, tickets to Disneyland (Twilight Special), and came back to the hotel to dump the registration packet, t-shirts, changed into sensible shoes, I smeared myself with SPF 45 sunscreen, and we set out on foot for Disneyland. It was warm, and while we had some luck searching out the A/C rides, we pretty much went or didn't go based on the wait time.

First off, was the Jungle Cruise. It was shaded and we got to sit plus the line wasn't too long. I either needed to subtract fifty years, or add a six pack but it was in the shade and we wuz sitting down.

Lines to Indiana Jones wuz too long, so we picked up the "come back later tickets" and wandered on to the Pirates of the Caribean, which made the Indiana Jones lines look miniscule. We wandered on to the Haunted House, where lines were only intermidable instead of infinite. It was also hot, but eventually we made it in. Much better than the average carnival haunted house, and very cool.

I think the next ride we took was Snow White. It resembled nothing much more than Dayton's Xmas, only you sat on a little car and didn't have to walk. We only went through for mizzlaurajean.

The Matterhorn's lines wuz long, but in the shade, and they moved along quite fast. We got in line, and ended up on the ride in not very long. It was a dark roller-coaster that bumped along. The car in back was filled with screamers, but none of the three of us could figure out why they were screaming so much. Still, it was mostly in the shade and fun.

We wandered along over to the Star Wars ride, and because of an open chain, jumped a line. (Bad us). It was pretty exciting. I almost remembered what I'd read about the ride when it openned.

Back to Pirates and a fairly long wait in line. The multiple Johnny Depp robots are cute and the A/C and water felt great.

At Indiana Jones, we avoided the lines, which were pretty short by that time, and walked an insane twisty passage to the ride. it was probably the best "roller coaster" we went on -- we skipped Space Mountain. You sit in "jeeps" four across with about 32 of your closest friends, but the ride was fun.

We shopped for a bit waiting for the fireworks. They wuz awesome, but you could not pay me enough to play Tinkerbell at the event. (She flies around on a wire up a couple of stories.) I taped the fireworks, but I've not checked out how well it came out. Pretty impressive. We ran into drewan and rvjoe775 with their friends after the fireworks.

LJ got some postcards on the way out of the park. I probably should of.

We forced David to get on a bus back to the hotel. Had we read up, we could have rode all day on the bus for what it cost us to take the bus back to the hotel...

Showered to get the sunblock off, then we had to find food. The hotel's restaurants wuz closed, and while we coulda called room service, we looked at the Restaurant Guide (which leaves a bit to be desired), and set off on foot. Laura Jean and I both complained about the foot part. We ended up at a chinese chain that didn't have the hotest food, but we ate and wandered back to the hotel.

David went upstairs to read, Laura Jean and I hit the parties. We found rvjoe775 and wandered amongst the bid parties for a bit. Ran into Robert J. Sawyer at the Denver bid, and his wife at the Australia bid. We talked quite a bit with Carolyn. We wandered back to the Chicago party, and quickly hit Columbus and KC. We found a few friends along the way and ended up back at the hotel room around 2:00 to find duck feathers in all the pillows -- I shoulda checked earlier.

After several unanswered phone calls, I went down to the Front Desk, and the pillows arrived.

I awoke around 6 am, local time, found a wireless network I could get out on, and here I am. The other two are sleeping. I didn't catch many of my calls yesterday. Too much noise, and by the time I caught them, it was too late to return 'em.