Looking at all the proposed cities leaves me torn. Every location has something/someone I want to see. I'm going to end up voting "can go" to every location! If I was expected to choose just one over any other, I couldn't do it, so the thought of a weighted vote makes me very happy.

As for hotels in San Diego, I suspect the prices depend on what area of the city you're looking at. There's tons of hotels along the waterfront and near the convention center, but I'm willing to bet they're the more expensive ones. Otherwise, Hotel Circle in SD is the place to look for better rates since it's inland and you're not paying for the view. What it does have is instant access to all the major freeways in the area so getting here from there is very reasonable and it's not that far from the downtown area, maybe a 10 minute drive. But, I'm a tad partial to the SD area, I lived there for five years and there are times I miss it tremendously.

I grew up in SD and my folks still live there, so I can help out. No interest in being the actual point person but I'm more than happy to help out in a non-leaderly way.

Hey. Wait! Lots of people have met me. Lots. Nilly, Emily, vw, vw's brother, DX, Theo, Nutty, Ellen, Nora and Tom (I've been to their old apt.), Jon, FAQwife, "victor", "thessaly", Allyson, Monique, Polgara, Polgara's sister, Claris (Bronzer, who only posted here a few times) and a bunch of Bronzers who aren't Buffistas. And? I've talked to Deb on the phone.

Hmmm, so which of the aforementioned folks was it that Scott was raising an eyebrow over hearing so much about, again?

Ok, people. Here's your chance. Who wants to be point person for SD? You get ND as a minion.

Or, I can offer you co-point-person status, with included co-ownership with the lovely Erika.

Who wants to be point person for SD? You get ND as a minion.

Now I'm thinking South Dakota and North Dakota.

So, if someone can give me a rough estimate - literally an asspull figure I can wave at various concierges - and a rough date, I can put together hotel info for various plces: City, Berkeley, Marin.

I don't know if an asspull figure would be of any use at this point, deb. It seemed to me that with NO, it was more a matter of what we wanted (prom room, hospitality suite, accessibility needs, room rates for a block of reserved rooms) that drove what they quoted us. Some of the places looked at were better at one thing than another. I think the most important thing is having a ballpark figure for number of attendees to give to the hotels, that's what their quote will revolve around more than anything else.

OK - that'll work. I'll get some numbers early next week. This week I'm nose-down in writing and getting R&RNF off to agent.

I'll try to get some numbers for Seattle over the next week or so, too. Do we want to just look at the city itself, or suburban areas too? My RWA chapter does a lot of stuff at a Bellevue hotel that always treats us well and could probably give us a good set-up for the prom, but it'd be a little bit of a drive to all the interesting stuff downtown.

Yay! A West Coast year! This means I can probably attend, as my home leave point is currently Oregon.

Unless, you know, you guys wanted to have the F2F on Santorini...