I was far too exhausted last night from Tuesday’s ascent of Pikes Peak to do anything more than upload the rest of Wednesday’s photos and then collapse, so I had to wait until this morning to write up my peregrinations on the first day of Denvention.

As I approached the convention center a little before 10:00 a.m., I was stopped in my tracks (and for the first time in my life, this is meant literally, as I was right at a set of trolley tracks I needed to cross) by a cry of “Edelman!” I turned to see that it was the other Edelman, the nefarious David Louis Edelman, whose existence is befuddling con committees all over, as they continue to seem unable to tell us apart. I hope the photo below will prevent future confusion. (FYI, I’m the one on the right.)

He led me to registration, where, as I related yesterday, I stood in line for exactly an hour. It was frustrating, as I could see badged friends wandering by in the distance, such as Connie Willis, Ed Bryant, and others, but I was trapped and couldn’t chat with them. But I did manage to wrangle some people over, such as Mark Rich and Roger Dutcher, and I also made new friends with others trapped in the line, such as Al and Larc Bogden, who were suffering immediately in front of me.

I then headed to the dealers’ room, where, in addition to schmoozing with Stephen Baxter (who I haven’t seen in years) and the Analog/Asimov‘s staff at the Dell booth and Steve Carper and Glenn Gillette at the SFWA booth, I managed to track down Otto Filip, who handed me my contributor’s copy of the latest issue of Postscripts, in which you’ll be able to find my short story, “A Very Private Tour of a Very Public Museum.” I’ll be reading this story today at 4:00 p.m. in Hyatt Agate C, so please come by!

After chatting with Kyle and Monica McAbee about whether there are works any longer which we’ve all read and can be considered a part of a common dialogue the way issues of Astounding or Heinlein novels used to be for older readers, which led to a discussion of Cory Doctorow’s wonderful novel Little Brother, I wandered off to find Mary Turzillo, who was going to chauffeur us to the house of Denvention Toastmaster and local resident Wil McCarthy for a barbecue.

After much zigging and zagging, we climbed the gravel drive to the McCarthy aerie and were feted with burgers, pulled pork, and corn on the cob and entertained by Walter John Williams’ stories of saving lives on Lake Tahoe, David Gordon’s Everest attempt, and more. On the way back to the con with Mary, Irene, and Deanna Hoak, we stopped at a Rite-Aid and stocked up on candy to be given out at our readings.

After dumping our purchases at our hotels (and hiding from a tornado, as I related yesterday), Irene and I headed over to the SFWA suite, which is always a site to behold on the first day of a Worldcon. The air was breathable, there was space to sit, and the noise level was not yet deafening. I’m sure that by tonight, that pleasant environment will be but a memory. We stayed there long enough to down some munchies and chat with Jane Jewell, Sheila Williams, Larry Niven, and others, and then went off to the other wing of the Sheraton to check out the con suite and bid parties.

I bumped into Robert Reed, Wil McCarthy and David Hartwell while standing in the hallway directly between the entrances to the Seattle in 2011 and Reno in 2011 bid parties. As far as I can tell, there were no fisticuffs as the two parties tried to lure conventioneers in. (There I am below with Wil and Bob.)

While inside the Reno party, I received a reminder that I’ve been attending too many conventions lately in the form of a visual aid—Robert Sawyer, who I also partied with three weeks ago at Readercon as well as two weeks ago at the San Diego Comic-Con. I plan to accept no responsibility for all this travel, choosing instead to blame Readercon being a week late this year and Worldcon being a month early for creating this convention collision.

After visiting the con suite and the Texas and Chicago parties in the sub-sub-sub-basement of the Sheraton, Irene and I came back to the Marriott and crashed. But now we’re bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and I’m all ready for the Bataan death march that will be Stroll with the Stars at 9:00 a.m. I hope to see some of you by the big blue bear in a couple of hours!