Also? t tacklehugs Kate P.

Heh. Sounds like we need a localista get together--I have Raquel's amp, you've got her whiteboard, Maria has my spare keys...

Nicole reminded me ... big thanks to SA, who was my F2F mentor, yoda, etc., and made me feel immediately welcomed and at ease. Also? So much fun to shop, eat and talk with.

Aw. You too, sweetie. I really enjoyed spending the day with you.

Yup, yup. And none of this FedEx stuff. The keys will be delivered in person.

Kristin, Jon B. went to Richmond to visit friends and should be back home either tonight or tomorrow, AFAIK.

t tacklehugs Kate P., JenP, Raquel, SA, and Lee

All your hugs are belong to us.

JSw, so glad you made it home OK, but how the hell do you flush your license down the toilet?

All your hugs are belong to us.

Ask any of the Bay Area Buffistas -- this is my philosophy in a nutshell.

Thanks Kate and Maria re: Jon's info. I was just concerned since I hadn't seen any sign from him, and it's already Tuesday night.

t tacklehugs Maria

We've turned F2F into Bitches. AIFG

Sorry for disappearing. I thought I had best speak to my parents since I had last spoken to them a few weeks ago before they left for Florida and there were a couple of messages on my answering machine from them wondering where I was. All is well. Their fears that their only son had been axe-murdered ("Oh, you were in the #1 US Homicide city?", says my dad, always one to put a positive spin on things) have been assuaged.

So, I goes into the stall at the toidy at Pearson International, and I drag my pullcart bag and my carryon in with me, since as a good Canadian I obey all the directions about unattended luggage, even when answering nature's call. My carry-on is stacked on the pullcart, and my passport and license are set down on top of the carry-on. I flush the toilet, and turning, bump my case. The passport and license fall into the bowl, which is emptying as if powered by a jet engine. I quickly grab the passport, but I'm too late to save the smaller license card. I curse my travel-addled and tired brain for not putting them both away when I was finished with them earlier, and I add another item on my To-Do list for this week, since I've been travelling for ten days and really need more life-maintenance projects this week.

I have corrupted quite a few of my diehard won't-get-a-cell-phone-ever friends. This will make staying in touch so much easier at the next gathering though. (Which I think should be this summer. Toronto isn't that far!)

Corruptor! The easy-staying-in-touch part is crucial. At lunchtime today, after I was checked out and hadn't made contact with Drew, I figured I'd walk to Union Station and call from there to make lunch arrangements. Walking down the street, I bump into ... Drew and Hil. Better than cellphone, yes, but decidedly more random. This summer would be great for gathering. Toronto definitely is not far!

I've never had a cell phone and I'm not exactly anti cell phone just more that I didnt' think that I really needed one. But after being at the F2F I'm thinking of ditching my home phone and getting a cell phone with decent long distance plan so it's easier to keep in touch.

Hey! No fair ND bogarting all the organizing fun! I'll definitely help out, starting with revising the RFP (request for proposals). I'd be up for sending it out to convention & visitors bureaus in whatever cities we want to consider. Or, it could be used as a template for gathering information. I strongly suggest using an RFP to gather the info, either directly or as an organizing tool used by individual Buffistas, rather than have people make random Internet searches or phone calls. That way, when you evaluate, you’re comparing apples with apples.

It wouldn’t hurt to discuss what the evaluation criteria are, though. Price seemed to trump all. I walked by the Wardman Park Marriott that was a strong contender, but $30/day more than HIOTH, and you know what? It’s a 5 star hotel in a great location. It would have been a better value, but – the price broke it.

Also, I linked to a place I found very early in the year that was a retreat center with a huge kitchen and central gathering area, and nice cabins with beds, not camping, and it was loudly shot down. If price is truly a priority, and there is a genuine desire to spend more time with each other and less on tourist-ing, then I think the evaluation criteria should be revised and places outside major urban centers should be considered.

Here’s what the RFP said this year:

Selection Criteria:

A hotel will be selected based on cost and ability to meet our hospitality suite and dinner/dance requirements. Proposals should be responsive to all items listed on Attachment A, and submitted to (me) at (email). Email is preferred.

[Attachment A, in a listing table, with a column for replies]

Rooms

Cost -- Single? Double? Bedroom suites? Are they located near the hospitality suite? Note: rooms and suites, and a range of prices is preferable

Hospitality Suite(s)

Cost -- One suite? Two suites side by side? Does it/they have a full kitchen? Is it available to us from normal check-in time to normal check-out time? Does it have a TV, VCR, and/or DVD player? Note: We don’t need beds in these rooms at all, just lots of comfortable living room style seating.

Saturday Dinner/Dance

Cost -- hall rental? Menu samples and prices? Can we decorate ourselves? Can we bring in our own beverages, including alcohol? If one of our local members does not have sound equipment & amplification, do you have it? Cost?

Location

Where are you located? If you are in an outlying area, is a transit station to the major metropolitan attraction nearby? How far away is the transit station? Is there a charge for self-parking?

Special Needs

Is the hospitality suite(s) wheelchair accessible? Is the Saturday Dinner/Dance wheelchair accessible? Do you have a wheelchair accessible room with drive-in shower?

Please list any other amenities your hotel has Note: Internet access is appreciated

Okay, so we're in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, which is much more touristy than the rest of Zimbabwe. We (my four friends and I) go out to dinner at the big, old, elegant Victoria Falls Hotel, a remnant from the colonial days. We take a taxi there, after having been informed by the hostel where we're staying what is a fair price to pay for the taxi ride. The dinner is memorable for me, mostly because I nearly stabbed my friend H. with a fork after he made a comment about my table manners (perfectly adequate, for the record, but indubitably American).

We ask the hotel to call us a taxi to take us back to our hostel, once again making sure that we know what a fair price is (of course, I can't remember the figure--let's say 200 Zim dollars, which was at the time equivalent to either four US dollars or about sixteen US cents, depending on whether you exchanged your money at the government exchange bureaus or on the black market). The taxi comes and fetches us, but when we reach the hotel, he tells us the fare is 400 dollars, twice what we were told to pay. We refuse, and pay him 200 instead. He gets angry, shouting in our faces, and won't let it drop, even when the hostel staff come out to warn him to go away. When it becomes clear that he won't budge an inch, we give him the extra 200 and he finally leaves. We shrug it off and climb up into our tents (perched atop the truck) to go to sleep.

Several hours later, J. and I are awakened by something heavy falling on top of our tent, which makes a loud noise. We scream and generally freak out, J. yelling "Hilfe! Hilfe!" (Help!) as loud as she can. We are disoriented and scared, and the first thing that comes to both our minds is: it's the taxi driver! It takes us a few minutes to register that whatever it is, it's not actually attacking us. Our screams have woken up P. in the next tent, and he thinks it is baboons. Eventually we realize that it's gone, and we gradually calm down. S., who shares a tent with P., sleeps through the whole thing.

In the morning, it happens again: crash! And now it's walking on top of the tent, until I shove it off and it drops to the ground with a yowl. We look down and see that the offender is, in fact, neither the taxi driver nor a baboon: it's the hostel's resident cat.

We are suitably embarrassed. But it became a running joke for the rest of the trip, particularly Jude's frantic calls of "Hilfe! Hilfe!"

...okay, now that I write it all out, um, maybe you had to be there. But it was really funny! Once it wasn't scary anymore.