Renovation: Day 2...

[daveon]

Wednesday

"We have a dang good breakfast." 

The man at the desk who couldn't run the credit card scanner had said.  Sadly, his definition of good and mine didn't seem to occupy the same venn diagram, but there was a place next door which did and we finally got back on the road for the "hop" to Reno.

It was about 270 miles to Reno and we covered the ground briskly, arriving at the Atlantis a little after noon with the aid of our GPS unit and the "in car safety device" which made highly old fashioned and entertaining noises whenever a police vehicle was within a mile.

Anyway, we were able to unpack and head to the convention center for the usual badging and other ceremonies.

A swift pint of the insanely NOT A SESSION Double IPA later, I took in a bit of the Opening Ceremony and then headed to the Green Room to meet the team for my initial panel on Social Media.

I'll be clear, and I'll probably write more on this another time.  I'm something of a Moderation Nazi - in that I like to be organised and have a reasonable idea of who's who on the panel and work through a set of sensible questions.  Fortunately the structure seemed to be agreeable to the panel and we had a really rather good panel exploring the next developments and implications on society of the growth of social networking.  Big thanks to Rene Silber, the charming Lauren Beukes, Alex Payne and Pat Cadigan.

We could have been there all day, which involved running at breakneck speed across the convention center for the second panel of the day.  It wasn't as good.  I don't think I should really go into what the problem was…

After that I returned to the Fan Bar for another killer pint and there to bump into the cream of British Fandom… or at least, the bits that float to the top where dinner plans were hatched.

"The cow, the whole cow and nothing but the cow…"

The Atlantis steakhouse didn't disappoint with an excellent Lobster Bisque and Kansas style Rib Eye, barely cooked to perfection with a splash of Blue Cheese Potatoes (the menu said Rochefort - I'm not convinced) all washed down with a fantastic  Malbec.  It wasn't cheap but as I correctly suspected, the rest of the weekend wasn't going to be good for decent food options for me - purely based on evening things I had scheduled.

After that we headed back to the Atlantis where I finally got to meet the excellent Chris Gerrib and catch his live act.  We briefly toured the party floors which, frankly, were a bit, meh, and then headed back to the convention center and lounged in the Fan Lounge admiring the Iron Throne.  About 1ish, we called it a night… or rather I didn't - instead popping over to see the Poker Room.

"A pair of Deuces…"

I'm not a bad Poker Player - I'm not necessarily a good one, but I can hold my own and cash games in casino's are, if you're careful, actually a lot more benign than most people think.  The first rule is this: learn who can play and who can't - and then ONLY go up against the good ones if you really think you can beat them.  If they've a lot more chips than you in a cash game, then bluffing is stupid.  It can't work, because they can, and WILL, call you and that's that.

I lost a bit of money to start while I built a picture of the other players and who to watch and who to bet into.  

I'd have ended the evening about even having broken one of my rules with a strong 2 pair and walked into 3 of a kind…  she'd played her hand nicely.

It was therefore good to later have the same situation with 3 of a kind against her 2 pair, only to get a fourth 2 on the river…  there was a $100 bonus for 4 of a kind, so that pushed me up $100 on the night and I bade everybody my fairwells and, finally, hit the sack - Day 1 was in the can.

Comments

[chris-gerrib.livejournal.com]

I didn't know I had a live act! ;-)

It was nice meeting you too. Oh, and I have an answer to your air conditioning question which shall feature in an upcoming blog post.

[daveon.livejournal.com]

Yes, I'm about to post myself on the subject of air-conditioning... or rather the lack thereof!

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

I agree about the lack of AC. I had the thing turned down as cold as it would go and the only time it ever actually got cold in the room was about 6 or 7 AM. The rest of the time, it was never cool enough in that place.

[daveon.livejournal.com]

To be fair to the air-con in the Suite's, we had a LOT of people in the London Bid Party but even so, I was expecting to be a lot colder in Reno than I actually was, especially in the convention center itself.