LCC Report - Late and Little

[Donna Moore]

Well, I forgot to post my final thoughts of LCC. So, for what they're worth, here they are. I arrived safely back home...eventually. My luggage however remained in Denver for a while. To add insult to injury, I had to pay a $50 excess baggage charge (so I bought some shoes and books - is it a hanging offence?!) and they couldn't even be bothered to put it on the plane with me?????????? And the claim I had to put in did not call it 'lost luggage'. Oh no. It was a 'property irregularity report'. Is it just me or does that seem to indicate that it's somehow MY fault? "Miss Moore, you have irregular property - that's why we temporarily misplaced it."

They also misplaced ME temporarily. My plane from Denver was late which meant that I had 20 minutes to get my connecting flight to Manchester in Chicago. After sprinting from Terminal 1 to Terminal 5 like Ben Johnson (only without the performance enhancing drugs), only to find that I had missed it by 5 minutes. So I went up to the counter and they put me on a flight to London. And where did I have to get it from? Yep - back to Terminal 1. I went through security 6 times on the way home. And every time I beeped. And every time I had to be frisked.

So I arrived home about 5 hours later than planned. Tired, bagless, and happy. I had a great time in Denver. It was wonderful to see everyone again and it was an excellent convention. Apart from the time spent with friends old and new my favourite bit was the surveillance course where we had to split into teams of 3 and follow a sneaky rabbit around Denver. Our rabbit was Jason Starr who donned a really bad fake moustache and a blue baseball cap under which he tucked his traqdemark long hair. Luckily, one of the team spotted him doing so otherwise I don't think we would ever have managed to tail him. As it was, we lost him on several occasions, but managed to pick him up again (in one case I spotted Marcus Sakey looking VERY suspicious so I decided to follow him instead. Luckily he led me to Jason :o) We had great fun. I don't think I could ever make a PI though. I practically ran slam bang into our rabbit about 26 seconds from the start of the exercise :o) Needless to say, he spotted me early on (probably 26 seconds into the surveillance), but he didn't spot my teammates.

The tequila bus was great - a tour of Denver's notorious murder spots accompanied by margaritas - what's not to like? And after the bar each evening I spent time with the funniest guys on the planet, playing poker - thanks guys (both for the laughs and for the fact that the final evening paid for the pink and black polka dot shoes I bought at Nordstroms :o))

As ever, LCC was brilliant. I got to spend time with the wonderful 4MA crowd, have a lovely dinner with my friend Judy, annoy my long suffering roommate Jan, meet the lovely Christa Faust (that was a real treat - the girl's an absolute doll), give loads of hugs, and win some money at poker. My only regret is not getting to spend enough time with other people I love to spend time with - Brian, Dave, Kat...I hope to get together with you in Baltimore.