BC's Poly Page
alt.polycon III

APC III was held in San Francisco in the winter month of May (yes, May in still part of the winter in San Francisco), and my family decided to turn the trip into a week-long vacation.

Friday

alt.polycon III was actually in Oakland, rather than San Francisco, and Siobhan, Ldot and I took the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) across the bay Friday morning. Thus, we arrived at the Jack London Inn around noon. They refused to let us check in, however. This was the first of many bad experiences with the hotel, despite an otherwise great time at the con.

Instead of checking in, however, we headed up to the con suite, where we luckily bumped in to Aahz in the halls. Aahz and his partner Stef were the two main organizers of the con. We hung out in a conference room, and watched people arrive. Some of the early arrivals included EveningStar2 and her husband, the lovely and talented Star Straf and her primary Pooch, and Jill. I got to know Jill fairly quickly 'cause she came out to get some dinner with us.

Iain and Jennie arrived quite perkily, and we spent some time chatting; Jennie had her sights set on an SF-area native, and spent most of the weekend in persuit.

My only panel from that con was on Friday night -- I was in the "geek flirting" panel with Star, Jennie and Ray.

Saturday

On Saturday, Anmar arrived. Anmar had won the fan fund award, and confirmed his arrival at the last minute. I wandered up, and started talking to him and eventually, he asked me who I was. We had a neat talk for a while, and then Bill wandered over to where we were standing (actually, I think it was because we were in front of the pop cooler).

Me: "Hi, Bill. Pleased to meet you."
Bill: "Thanks. And you are...?"
Me: "B.C. Holmes"
Bill: "Oh. I thought you were a guy."
Me: "Yeah, my parents had that problem, too."

At that point, Anmar snorted his drink out of his nose. About a month later, I got an e-mail from Bill saying "I'm sorry, I didn't realize you were transgendered. I hope what I said didn't offend you." Offend me? Ha! It was hilarious!

I also introduced Anmar to Siobhan; from that piont onward, she wasn't far from his side all weekend long. And Anmar found a bookend for his other side as well -- Canadian-Stef.

It was also on Saturday that I first met Andrea, and first noticed Jay. Jay was the partner of Verdant -- who was actually absent from most of the con, but that's okay 'cause Jay had lots of really interesting things to say. He was a good speaker, and really knew how to illustrate his point with a quick example.

For lunch, Ldot, Siobhan and I went to the Happy Belly Deli, where we met up with Bill and his wife Holly (one of two Holly's in the alt.poly crowd who, confusingly, also share the same last initial). We waited and we waited and we waited to be served. And then we found Stef and Aahz and an assortment of their secondaries at another table, so we joined them, and waited another forever to get served.

Later I met Michelle, Neil, Kate and B.O.B. (that's pronounced "Bee oh bee" -- don't ask me why) when I sat down to chat with Jennie in the con suite. And that evening I started off flirting with Anmar, but spent the majority of the time chatting with Star and Andrea. Star snuck off to go to sleep at some point in the evening, and Andrea and I chatted until stoopid early in the morning.

Sunday

Sunday started with sad news. The elevator in the three-story hotel broke down overnight, and Guy, who travelled in a wheelchair, wasn't able to join us. Siobhan later told us that she'd gone to the front desk the previous evening, because she heard a buzzing noise in the elevator. "I think it's an alarm, or something," she told the desk clerk.

The desk clerk looked up from her mystery novel: "Oh, someone's just trapped in the elevator." She went back to her reading. Like I said, the service there was really off and off.

We had a nice brunch, and there were some final panels afterward, but people began to disappear. Around 8 pm, a transformer exploded just outside of the hotel, cutting off all power.

We spent some time with Jennie, Iain, Michelle and Neil watching the emergency teams trying to decide if they were going to do something about the transformer (they managed to get it fixed by 6 am the next morning).

And finally, we spent some last hours in the con suite with Debbie, Deborah, and Dagon.

Copyright © 1999 by B.C. Holmes. Last updated December 12th, 1999.

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