At 11:09 AM 4/10/98 -0500, Richard D. Lawson wrote:

Arrived in the hotel.  I went wandering about, noting that we were sharing
hotel space with the Archdiocesan Council of Catholic Women.  What they were
going to make of the weekend's proceedings I shuddered to think.

Certainly made for some interesting elevator conversation.

At 7pm I met Ryan Matthews.  While talking to him, Zen walked by and I
greeted him enthusiastically.  He was carrying a giant Ukyo spatula, made
out of the remains of an aluminum refrigerator door.  The thing was *big* -
about five feet long.  It was well balanced; Zen could twirl it about with
ease.  I also met Lara Bartram - someone I'd talked to a bit on KawaiiMUCK.
Lara, Zen, and I sat down at the hotel's pitiful food court and I bought Zen
some pizza.  We talked for a while and had a meandering conversation.
Meeting folks and talking was a big reason I wanted to go the con.

Dang! Just missed you guys then.  Bert Van Vliet and I were down in the art
room about 6:45 to check in with Ryan. We ended up going out to Geno's East
[1] for Chicago-style pizza with Todd Hill, Sean Hayden, and Aubrey
"Neoculture" Thonon.

[1] around the corner from the McDonalds, down the road a few blocks.

I heard rumors of Princess Monomoke being shown.  I went to the main viewing
room, only to discover that the rumors were false.  

They announced on Saturday during the Sonoda panel that it was going to be
shown at that night's Midnight Madness at 12:30am Sunday. Unfortunately,
they announced just before the cosplay that they couldn't show it after all
due to legal problems (the same reason that the Sunday morning run of Eva:
Death and Rebirth bit the dust)

The next morning (well, 12:30pm) I noticed someone in a giant panda costume
standing at the bar, drinking a beer.  The masquerade was set for 8:30pm; I
expected to see a weaving Genma at that time.

I think he was at (or near) the bar all day

At 3pm the Fanfic Panel took place, of which I was a panel member.  The room
was filled to overflowing.  I met Jeanne Hedge and Gary Kleppe, two people
I'd been looking forward to meeting.  (My one regret about the whole weekend
was that I didn't have enough time to spend with everyone, especially Jeanne
and Gary).  I also met Lorelei, yaoi author extraordinaire.  Ryan did a good
job of having many different interests represented on the panel - Mark
Engels was a Battle Angel Alita and Evangelion author, Jeanne did BGC, Gary
did Ranma, Ryan did the Dirty Pair and Tenchi, Lorelei did YYH, and I did
Ranma/Nuku Nuku/Sailor Moon/KOR.

Yeah, I wanted to talk with everyone more. Unfortunately, it was "hi, how
are you" before the panel, and I wanted to run off to try to get Sonoda's
autograph right after the panel (mission accomplished ^_^)