Tuesday, September 05, 2000

Worldcon Report
- Balin @ 22:42 PST

Corvar and I enjoyed a great day at Worldcon. After meeting Corvar and having breakfast, we braved the downtown Chicago traffic in one vehicle. Upon arrival at the convention Balin of Moria felt right at home, as the convention was spread out in a number of locations connected by tunnels and walkways. At times we had to go up to a passage then back down a level to get to the correct location, much like the Fellowship's trek in Moria.

Luckily, Corvar had previous experience with this maze and with a minimum of confusion we found registration and the day's adventures began. We proceeded to find the correct room for Douglas Anderson's Hobbit Slide Show. Mr. Anderson is the author of "The Annotated Hobbit". We got there early hoping to find some other Ringers. We were not disappointed. We met three people that visited Tor.Net regularly. Sadly, we did not get pictures. We did have an enjoyable time watching the Slide Show. "The Hobbit" has been translated into several languages and each country's version seems to have had very unique illustrations. Some of the illustrations were down right horrendous while others very interesting. Mr. Anderson even showed pictures of locations and objects that were the inspiration for Tolkien's own illustrations. All in all, it was a very interesting, entertaining and educational presentation.

After the slide show we briefly talked with the other Ringers. All too briefly, I fear, as we did not get a chance to invite all of them to a "tea". Next we had lunch with Mr. Anderson. (Corvar, in a very Hobbitlike fashion managed to plan our day around meals.)

After lunch we were able to check out the Dealer's Room and the Art Show. We found a hat we wanted to get for Xoanon. It was covered with Dr Who buttons and pins. We decided against getting it as the Lady wearing if might have objected. As this was a Sci Fi convention, Tolkien and Tolkien art did not have a strong presence.

By this time it was mid afternoon and Corvar and I met, as planned, with a very gracious fan of TOR.Net for "tea". We spent a couple of pleasant hours talking about the books, the site and especially the movies with Ms. Heather Nachman. She is from Virginia and was here for the convention. Thank you Heather for a wonderful discussion.

We returned to the Dealer's Room for a last quick look and then headed for home. I enjoyed meeting Corvar. He is very engaging. I hope we will be able to share more such adventures. I am afraid we did not truly do justice to Worldcon but the small piece we were able to see was excellent and a lot of fun. I recommend everyone attend at least one convention just for the experience. I know I will be looking forward to future events. I hope to meet many more Ringers at them and have many more enjoyable "teas".

Balin bows.