Left out one bit from my Saturday report. While █████ and Scott and I were walking back from the American Dime Museum, we stopped at the Washington Monument on Charles Street. This is a cylindrical tower of white stone which was designed by the same architect who would later design the more famous Washington Monument in D.C. In fact, it was the first large-scale civic monument in America, if the plaques are to be trusted. It's hollow inside, and the young stewards sitting inside the entrance watching sports on TV were more than happy to take our dollar apiece donation for admission. (On the way out we saw the donation box in the lobby and began to suspect that our dollars had ended up in the stewards' pockets.)

The interior of the tower was a steep and narrow spiral staircase with 228 steps. Though it was a bit claustrophobic, we all managed to get to the top, look out the barred windows at the city on every side, and descend again without mishap or hyperventilation. I started to get mild cramps in my thighs as we continued down the street, though, so when █████ wanted to stop at a shoe store I took advantage of the opportunity to rest on the couch for a minute. When we told the shoe store clerk that we'd just been to the top of the monument, she said, "Oh, that's not so high."

If it weren't for this callous dismissal of our effort, I would never point out that the clerk's hindquarters were rather too wide for her to have made it up that staircase herself without suffering serious abrasions.

Anyway.

My 6:00 pm panel on Sunday ("Identity Theft: A Crime in SF and Reality") went surpassingly well, I thought, despite the fact that Don Sakers and I were the only participants who showed up. The audience was well-informed and offered good questions and comments, and the hour was fairly lively. After the panel, one of the audience members, who had offered several helpful comments, introduced himself to me as Eric Sorenson—the very fellow who had followed my web site from way back and who, under the name Stephen Sondheim Smith, had contributed brilliant parody lyrics of Mormon hymns and other songs to my feature "The Nauvoo Cabaret." In fact, I had built the Cabaret specifically to showcase his lyrics, I liked them so well. It was a great pleasure to finally meet him in person.

At 7:00 pm, █████ and I retired with Scott to the hotel's cigar bar to smoke a Cohiba he had brought back legally from Cuba and look at a laptop slideshow of splendid photos from his Cuban adventure. Then we tried to get some quick food before my 10:00 pm panel ("Alien Theology: Religions Practiced by Non-Human Sentients"). However, the food came late, so I, er, opted for food over panel. Hey, there were six panelists listed in the program, which sounded like a hell of a lot anyway.

After dinner, we met up with Toby Buckell, Dave Kirtley, and Paul and Stacey Melko in the cigar bar and yukked it up for an hour or so. Then █████ and I retired, and we caught a 10:00 am train for home the next morning.

And that, my friends, was our Balticon.