When an Internet outage turns surreal

After dinner last night in Toronto, I returned to my room and settled down to do all the work that had accumulated.  I couldn't handle my email, however, because I could not get an Internet connection from the hotel's Wi-Fi service.  After verifying the problem occurred on multiple devices, I called the hotel.  They immediately transferred me to "technical support."

After about ten minutes of tedious muzak and reminders that they would service those of us in the queue in the order in which we entered it, a tech came on the line and asked what my problem was.

I explained that the Internet service was out at my hotel. 

She made me provide the hotel name (fair enough), my name, my room number, and whether I was in the room.

I did.  I asked why she needed all of that information--some made sense, some did not, at least to me--and she said, "Security."

I asked about the problem, and she said, "Yes, there is a minor problem with the hotel's Internet service."

"So," I said, "you'll fix it soon; is that right?"

"It's been escalated to our highest-level tech support team," she said.

"So it's not a minor problem?"

"It's a minor problem."

"So you'll fix it soon?"

"It's been escalated to our highest-level tech support team."

"Can you tell me what the problem is?"

"No."

"Why?"

"Security."

"Can you tell me when you'll fix it?"

"No."

"Why?"

"Security."

"I'm trying to figure out if I need to leave the hotel to find a place to work.  I don't want to do that if you will be fixing it soon.  Can you at least tell me if you're likely to fix it soon?"

"It's a minor problem."

"I understand.  Can you at least give me a timeframe in which you expect to fix it?"

"No."  Long pause.  "For security reasons."

"Seriously?" I said.  "You're really going to stick to that story?"

"It's for security," she said.

I gave up. 

Maybe this Internet connection company and the people who protect my allergy serum from terrorist attacks could combine to broaden their security empire. 

You can't tell the books from the writer--or the writer from the books

I'm always surprised by the number of times at cons that I hear something along the lines of, "She doesn't look at all like I expected."  Even ignoring the fact that you can Google pretty much any writer these days and find pics of them, it's always a bad idea to assume that a writer's appearance and their work will have anything in common.  In addition, over time many writers change the types of books they write, so any one association would make no sense at all.

Enjoy the books, enjoy the writer, and don't expect them to look at all alike.

Bouchercon, day 3

I'm accustomed to using the weekend to catch up on sleep, so getting up in the single digits again today left me rather tired.  Still, I had decided the trip downtown to the con was worth the sleep cost, because I very much wanted to see the 10:00 a.m. panel that included Lawrence Block.

Titled "Human Nature:  Our fascination with law breakers & law enforcers in fiction," it proved to be an interesting and entertaining discussion that focused primarily on the motivations of the "bad guys" in fiction.  Once again, the moderator spoke entirely too much and did not give enough time to the panelists, but when they spoke, they were intelligent and thoughtful and frequently funny.  Block was in fine form, speaking his mind eloquently and with considerable humor.

A group of us then wandered up the street to Lucette Grace for lunch.  My sandwich, a very Parisian ham and cheese with butter on baguette, was the closest I've had outside France to the treat I've eaten many, many times in Paris.  It made me want to hop the next plane to Paris.

Among us, we sampled many of the pastries, and each and every one was absolutely delicious.  None was a one-note, all-sweet wonder.  Each featured many nuanced and subtle flavors.  I hope this place survives a long time.

I then drove home for a nap.  I won't be going back to the con this weekend, alas, because I fly out Monday morning and simply have too much to do between now and then to be able to afford more con time.  I will, though, certainly attend future Bouchercons, and I recommend them to anyone who's a fan of mystery, thriller, or crime fiction.

Bouchercon, day 2

Bouchercon, the big annual mystery, crime, and thriller convention, is in downtown Raleigh this year, so I opted to attend without getting a hotel room.  I'm still not sure if that was the right choice, because having to drive in the morning means getting up extra early, but it's the choice I made, and then the rooms sold out, so I have to live with it.

I attended yesterday, but not for long.  I registered, checked out the dealers' room, and listened to the interview with the American guests of honor, Kathy Reichs and Tom Franklin.  Their conversation and comments were interesting, and though I've not previously read either writer, I now probably will.

Bouchercons love morning panels, which is why I found myself awake in the sixes and arriving early today for an 8:30 a.m. panel on "Lone Wolves and Loose Cannons."  This event featured a friend of mine, who is an FBI agent and who writes as Alistair Kimble, as well as two other writers whose work I've read, Andrew Grant and Mick Herron.  I generally enjoyed the discussion, though I wish the moderator had let the panelists speak more.

Next up for me was the 10:00 session, "Real Police," in which writer and cop (of various types), James O. Born, did an interesting presentation on guns, knives, batons, and issues around an officer engaging with someone.  Born is a smart and funny guy, and I quite liked his talk.

One thing I appreciate about these cons is that they always allow a decent lunch break.  Our little group chose the nearby Twisted Mango restaurant.  The Caribbean food we tasted was good but not exceptional.

I was quite excited about the next panel, a cadaver dog demo, because I'd enjoyed a similar session at a Chicago Bouchercon some years ago.  This one was pleasant enough but nowhere near as informative or as interesting as the earlier version.

John Gilstrap, author and safety and explosives expert, then took us through an interesting presentation on explosives and guns.  I would have preferred a far higher data rate, but I enjoyed what he shared.

My final session was "Beyond The Wire, Bosch & True Detective," a discussion of mystery and crime material on TV.  I went to hear Christa Faust and Megan Abbott, two writers whose work I enjoy, speak on their experiences and interests in this area.  What they had to say did interest me, but the moderator, who admittedly was the only one on the panel who worked regularly in Hollywood, dominated the discussion so much that I often wished he'd let the others talk more.

All in all, I had an enjoyable and interesting day at a convention I definitely recommend.

On the road again: Bouchercon, Albany, day 4

I'm home.  The trip was as boring as it could be on an airline on which I have no privileges, which also means it went about as well as I could hope.  Both planes were over-sold and very crowded, but I was able to fit my carry-on small suitcase overhead both times, so I cannot complain. 

Bouchercon is a much, much smaller convention than any WorldCon, its SF counterpart.  It is, however, a convention at which everyone I've ever met is an avid and active reader.  Sure, they love movies and other media, but they particularly love to read.  I always find that wonderful. 

I look forward to the day when I finish my thriller and, with luck, it finds a home in the market.  It would be nice to have a novel in a genre that Bouchercon fans recognize as their own.

On the road again: Bouchercon, Albany, day 3

If my experience today is any guide, most of downtown Albany shuts down on Saturday.  Consequently, I wasn't very hopeful about my lunch prospects.  Fortunately, a food truck, Capital Smokehouse, pulled up alongside The Egg and came to the rescue of a whole lot of Bouchercon attendees, including me.

Click on any image to see a larger version.

The menu featured all the sorts of dishes such a food truck should, so I was hopeful.

I particularly appreciated the spelling, "sammiches."

I wanted a brisket sandwich, but they had already sold out of those by the time I reached the head of the line.  I instead opted for the beef and burnt ends sammich, which was yummy indeed.

I've run many Liars' Panels at conventions, so I was quite curious to see how this Bouchercon would do its version.  I'm sorry to report that though the panelists were all quite funny, and the hour passed in pleasant humor, the format really did them no favors.  Instead of raising money for charity and getting the audience involved, in this panel the moderator asked questions and then sometimes asked who believed the answerer.  I had fun, but this panel could have done so much more.

After a bout of work in my room, I headed back to The Egg to watch part of the interview with Sue Grafton and then the Anthony Awards. 

Grafton was gracious and funny as she answered all the questions that fans asked.  I've never tried her work, but after listening to her comments, I'm now quite tempted to read a novel or two of hers.

The Anthony Awards ceremony was low-key but pleasant, just the Toastmaster announcing the nominees and another writer naming the winners.  Presenting all five awards took well under an hour.

I expected to spend some time working and then watch a for-pay movie in my room, but this hotel doesn't offer in-room movies.  In my experience of con hotels, that's rather odd indeed.  Fortunately, I am never without a good book and a work backlog, so I passed the late hours of the day pleasantly.

On the road again: Bouchercon, Albany, day 2

In between work sessions, I managed to get out today for a lunch, two con events, and a dinner.

Lunch was at a little pizza joint, Pizzeria Sapienza.  I ordered two slices and a bottle of water, but the slices proved to be so big that I didn't finish the second.  The grease required four napkins worth of sopping, but after that, the pizza was tasty and the crust excellent.

The first bit of the con I caught was a panel on maintaining suspense in a novel.  I didn't learn anything I didn't already know, which was a shame, because I'm positive I have a great deal still to learn.  It was nonetheless interesting to see how different authors grapple with the challenge of making their books into page-turners.

Dinner was at dp, an American Brasserie, the sister restaurant to Yono's, the source of Wednesday night's good Indonesian tasting menu.  dp sits in front of Yono's and is the bar/dining room that you pass through to get to Yono's.  The food was nearly as expensive as Yono's but not anywhere near as tasty, a relatively basic meal that was good but no more.

Back at Bouchercon, I enjoyed watching the live auction, an event I strive to attend every year.  Crime fiction fans are willing to spend way more money than their SF counterparts at these charity auctions.  In tonight's affair, two authors, Chris Grabenstein and Donna Andrews, did a fine job of auctioning 18 items:  16 chances at having a character in an upcoming book named after you, and two novel critiques (from bestsellers Sue Grafton and Charlaine Harris, no less).  Each item opened with a minimum bid of $200, and almost all sold for twice that or more.  They raised a great deal of money for local libraries, which is a very good cause indeed.  I once again wished that SF fans were as generous.

Afterward, heading up to my room to work, I had to walk by the bar, where writers and fans were gathered.

Click on the image to see a larger version.

You can always find the most writers at any crime fiction con at the bar--and that is true of many SF cons as well.

Tomorrow, I hope to spend more of the daytime at the con than at my hotel room desk working.  We shall see how it goes.

On the road again: Bouchercon, Albany, day 1

Being a foodie doesn't mean you enjoy only fancy meals.  It means you have a strong interest in food.  In my case, it also means a fascination with the noble tube steak.

That interest led me to today's lunch destination, Dallas Hot Wieners, a business that has served downtown Albany diners for decades.

As always, click on an image to see a larger version.

The food here is anything but fancy, but it sure is tasty.  I, of course, opted for the two signature hot dogs, the one with sauce and the one with cheese.

Yeah, my arteries were hardening even as I ate.

In for a penny, in for a pound in this place, so we shared an order of cheese and sauce fries.

The sauce really is a slightly spicy sauce, not a chili.  The cheese really is, well, you know: the stuff you pump from a can in great yellow spurts.

Over at the convention center, the dealers' room occupied a nifty, tiered space.

The opening ceremonies took place in the lovely theater in The Egg.

Man, would I love to do a stand-up show there to a packed house.  (Hey, I can dream.)

Dinner was an adequate but no better meal at Taste Restaurant. Had the food lived up to the dining room, it would have been excellent, but, alas, the interior design of the place was its best feature. Its worst feature was the dessert I chose: the chef's special cherry cheesecake. I was hoping for a lovely creation of cheesecake-y goodness infused with fresh cherries. What arrived instead was a hockey puck of sadness, a little disc of cheesecake that looked as if it had died of sadness and that tasted, to steal from Better Off Ted, like despair. I won't be going back to Taste this trip.

At the end of the main street that runs to the capitol stands this imposing part of SUNY Albany. 

Should the zombies attack this campus, the students should mount their defense from that tower.

On the walk back to the hotel, I spotted and could not resist this plaque.

How can you not love the name "Bogardus"?

On the road again: Bouchercon, Albany, day 0

As bad as many of my flights are, most of them are on American Airlines, where as a lifetime platinum member of their frequent-flier club I have some privileges.  Today, I flew to Albany on United Airlines, on which I have no privileges.  Worse, both flights involved commuter jets.  So, I was expecting a rough trip.

Amazingly, everything went swimmingly.  The flights boarded and departed on time, I had time for lunch at Dulles, and I arrived in Albany in as good a shape as one can be after spending a few hours in tiny airplane seats.

After doing a phone meeting and checking into my hotel room, I headed off to register for the con.  Registration setup was in The Egg, a part of the Empire State Plaza.

On the way there, I walked up to and then by the rather imposing seat of New York State government.

On the way back from registration, I happened to pass by the state's fallen firefighters' memorial

and its Viet Nam veterans' memorial.

Both were lovely pieces, sad but useful reminders of some of those who have paid dearly in service to America.

Speaking of reminders, not far down the street from where the powerful gather to legislate on the citizens of this state, boarded-up storefronts and dead businesses shouted to anyone willing to hear that the economy is far from fully recovered.

On the other hand, this is still America, so if you want Lay's Chicken and Waffles potato chips

by God, you can have them--as long as you have $3.49 plus tax to pay for them. 

As it turns out, I had that much money with me, but I didn't want to risk having 1,600 calories of weirdly tempting yet likely nasty salty snacks in my room, so I gave them a pass.

Dinner was a good Indonesian tasting menu at Yono's, which a little research suggested would be one of the better restaurants in town.  The meal wasn't great, but it was good, and I'd definitely like to try more Indonesian food now. 

All the rest of the day and time into the late night went to work, as usual.

Tomorrow, the con begins in earnest.

On the road again: Bouchercon, Cleveland, day 6

I approach travel days, which are not usually much fun, as a series of small tasks, most of which are annoying obstacles between me and anything else I’d like to be doing. Today was full of those tasks.

Get up. Work. Shower. Dress. Work. Check out. Cab to airport. Check in and get boarding passes. Go through security. Get lunch. Work. Get on plane. Fly and while on the plane, wish for bandwidth, read, and work. Get bandwidth at second airport; today, LaGuardia. Fight Boingo for access to the bandwidth I’d just purchased. Work madly. Board plane. Work.

And so on. Each time I complete a task, I achieve a small victory and am a step closer to home.

I’m home now, so today’s obstacles are behind me, for which I’m grateful.

The award for today’s most interesting airport moment goes to the couple seated two tables over from me at lunch at Cleveland’s airport. The man and woman had just finished discussing what they would do when they hit their vacation destination, an exchange I overheard because they were on the loud side. That decision made, the man returned to slowly chewing his grilled chicken sandwich.

Into the silence, the woman said, “I want to ask you a question. Are you ready?”

Even I blanched at that wording.

The man gulped the bite he’d been chewing, slouched a bit more, and nodded very slowly.

The woman put her arms flat on the table, leaned forward so her breasts rested on them, pinned him with a laser-like gaze, and said, “Exactly what kind of relationship would you say we have?"  She paused.  "In your own words.”

He quickly took a bite and chewed even slower than before.

She stared at him for a few seconds, gathered her trash, and stood. “You think about it for a minute.” She walked to the trashcan. I’m sure it was only an accident that she walked like a porn model, her butt swaying back and forth in skintight jeans and her chest jutting from her arched back. I’m sure she didn’t mean to flip her long hair.

No, I am not making up any of this.

The man glanced at me with wide eyes, as if I might have on my person some technology that could transport him either out of the airport or back in time.

I shrugged and shook my head.

He couldn’t keep his eyes off her for more than a second, though, so he watched as she dumped her trash and returned.

She sat and said, “Well?”

At that point, I gathered my own trash and left. I was willing to watch the setup, but I didn’t have the heart to stick around for the finale. From what little I saw of her body language as I was leaving, though, I don’t think his dream for what would happen after they reached their hotel was going to come true.

I wish the two of them the best of luck with their vacation. They certainly made me appreciate my quiet, dull lunch.

They also reminded me of another great truth of traveling: You never have to be bored in an airport if you are willing to pay attention to the people around you.

On the road again: Bouchercon, Cleveland, day 5

I've written before about the strangeness that is a hotel after a con has closed down.  One minute, the halls are full of badged people hustling to and fro, chatting in clumps, looking baffled, and milling about.  Signs outside meeting rooms list programming events.  People sit attentively in chairs inside those same rooms.

The next, the hotel staff has taken the place back to Kansas.  The rooms sit empty.  Few people fill the halls.  Check-out lines are long, and then the hotel is back to normal, until the next event comes to transform it.

Today was that transition day for Bouchercon, as it wrapped up around noon with the last sessions. 

I enjoy this con, and I go to a lot of panels, but I come away yearning for more time to write, so that I could actually finish the mystery I've started, see if I could sell in that genre in addition to SF. 

Dinner tonight was a fixed-menu affair at Crop Bistro, a beautiful place set inside what was once a Federal bank.  We added a couple of appetizers to the salad, main, and dessert three-course menu.  Everything we tasted was good, but the portions were so large that we ended up wasting a lot of food.  Unlike last night's disappointing Flying Fig, Crop Bistro would get my business were I to come this way again.  For those who live here, I certainly recommend it. 

Now, back to work.

On the road again: Bouchercon, Cleveland, day 4

I'm taking advantage of every chance I get to sleep more, so I slept as late as I could today without jeopardizing the morning work or the first panel I wanted to attend. 

That discussion proved a very good choice indeed, as Mark Billingham, Karin Slaughter, John Connolly, Alafair Burke, and Martyn Waites held forth entertainingly for almost an hour on the topic of heroes and villains. Two points of the discussion were of particular interest to me.

The first concerned the Amazon sock-puppet scandal.  A group of writers that included four of these five panelists posted and signed a simple condemnation of this practice and a vow not to indulge in it.  This post, which to me seems quite clearly a good (if probably Quixotic) thing, apparently drew quite a backlash.  It's an interesting topic to explore, if you feel like diving down that particular rat hole.

The other topic concerned whether writers were basically done by the time they're fifty.  I don't know the ages of these panelists, but most must be well enough past thirty that they were definitely not in favor of this concept.  Connolly cited James Lee Burke (one of my all-time favorite writers) as someone who is still doing amazing work quite late in life.  As someone who didn't start his first novel until he was fifty, and who feels he is still learning and improving, I have to hope that my best days as a writer are still ahead of me and that I never stop growing my skills.  Time, of course, will tell.

The next panel was a very different discussion of how authors create characters.  I went to see Charlaine Harris, who is always both gracious and entertaining, but I was also particularly interested in the very analytical way that Elizabeth George approaches the problem of character creation. 

The Anthony Awards ceremony was the highlight of the early evening, though waiting for its hour-late start was a bit painful.  Toastmaster Connolly moved the ceremony along smartly, and the winners kept their acceptance speeches mercifully short.  I have to give a special shout out to Dana Cameron, who walked away from this convention with two different awards and who has a story in The Wild Side. 

Dinner tonight was an okay but overall disappointing meal at the well-reviewed restaurant, The Flying Fig.  The service ranged from mediocre to bad, and the food was serviceable but no more.  Either of the previous dinners I've had in Cleveland bested it easily, so I can't recommend this place. 

Tonight, I hope, will bring a lot of sleep. 

On the road again: Bouchercon, Cleveland, day 3

Today proved to be very busy at work, so I spent a lot of it doing email either in my room or in various chairs while trying also to listen to panels. 

I particularly enjoyed the "Cop vs. Constable" discussion, in which writers from Australia, Denmark, the U.K., and the U.S. talked about ways in which the laws and cops, though fundamentally similar, differed.  Michael Connelly and Mark Billingham were among the panelists, so it was sure to be entertaining. 

After a quick lunch and some more work, I caught the discussion between Michael Koryta and Michael Connelly.  They sort of interviewed one another, and though I didn't learn a lot, I enjoyed it. 

Karin Slaughter then interviewed Toastmaster John Connolly.  I came away from that presentation a bigger fan than before of Connolly's work.  His writing process is way closer to mine than to Slaughter's, so I found the contrasts in their approaches interesting.  I also found myself agreeing with just about everything Connolly said. 

After a few hours of work, I ventured into the damp outdoors to pick up some soda.  While I was waiting for a light to change so I could cross a street, a cop stood next to me and scanned the area.  His unhappiness was palpable, which was completely understandable given the weather.  When a woman on the other side of the street jaywalked directly in front of him, and then three men followed, he stopped them all and demanded they produce IDs or be arrested.  I could chalk that up to a grumpy cop, except that he was Caucasian, those four were African American, and while hassling them he let a dozen Caucasian jaywalkers saunter by.  Sad to see.  I don't blame him for wanting to stop people from jaywalking--it can be dangerous--but he didn't need to go as far as he did, and if he was going to do that, he should have applied the same penalty to all offenders. 

All that said, you can bet your ass I won't jaywalk around here.

Work in the room was positively inviting after the outdoors, so I kept at it until it was time to go to the live auction. 

Mystery fans spend serious money at these auctions, which are almost always in support of a good cause; the proceedings from this one went to local libraries.  The right to have a character in the next Lee Child book named after you was the big earner tonight, garnering an even grand.

More work is still to come, and then, I hope, a lot of sleep.

On the road again: Bouchercon, Cleveland, day 2

The con kicked off in earnest today.  I spent, as is sadly usual, far more of the day working than doing anything else, but I still managed to squeeze in multiple fun events. 

I slipped away from work in my room during the daytime to catch two panels, one on odd things writers will do in the name of story research, and the other an interview with Guest of Honor Robin Cook.  I didn't learn a ton from either one, though I came away impressed with Cook's passion and work ethic. 

Thanks to Thomas & Mercer, Amazon's mystery publishing line, the Bouchercon folks were able to host a reception and opening ceremonies at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  I've been a supporting member of this place since around the time of the groundbreaking, and I've always wanted to see it, so I was quite excited by this opportunity. 

Directly in front of me when I stepped off the shuttle trolley was Johnny Cash's bus.

He lived in it on the road for many years, so it was cool to see.

The I.M. Pei-designed structure was, of course, even cooler.  

The guitars appear all around Cleveland, and though their quality is uneven, I quite like them as a theme.

Wandering the museum was a very emotional experience, because rock and roll has been so important to me for virtually all of my life for which I have memories.  They don't permit photography in most areas, but a security guard confirmed that it was okay for me to take this shot of the original awning from CBGB.

Without rock music, I don't know how I would have made it out of adolescence.  Hell, without rock, I don't know how I'd make it today.   I loved my time in the museum.

Dinner was at the Greenhouse Tavern, a place that focuses on local sourcing, where we again made a meal of starters.  The sickest dish we tried was the "Animal Style Frites."  You can read the menu's description here, but suffice to say that anything with fries, bacon, fried eggs, mozzarella cheese curds, and brown gravy can't help but be as delicious as it is life-threatening.

For dessert, we had maple and walnut brittle ice cream, a special Jeni's flavor that is available only at this restaurant (and that brought me there in the first place).  It was mighty damn good. 

Walking both to and from dinner, I was struck again by how lovely downtown Cleveland is. 

The young me was wrong.  This is a very cool place, and I'm grateful for the chance to have come here.

On the road again: Bouchercon, Cleveland, day 1

Growing up in Florida, I had three strong mental associations with Cleveland:

1) Lake-effect snow.

2) This Randy Newman song and the burning rivers it mentions.



3) The fact that more tourists who visited St. Pete seemed to be from Cleveland than from anywhere else.  I figured that if you were that eager to leave home, home must be pretty miserable.  (I now realize that there are many, many alternate interpretations of the same paltry body of data.)

Despite these associations, when Bouchercon, a convention for mystery and thriller fans and writers, and a gathering I quite like, moved to Cleveland, I followed.  I'd also heard many good things about Cleveland over the years, so this con afforded me an opportunity to see the city for myself.

After less than half a day here, I have to admit that I am finding Cleveland quite charming.  The downtown architecture is splendid, a blend of new and old skyscrapers with grand re-purposed buildings and the occasional lower structure still boarded up and awaiting its ride on the gentrification train.  The hotel is grand in the old style, but with large remodeled rooms that feature decent wireless access and tons of electrical outlets. 

To give the city a chance to put a good foot forward, I made my first meal here, tonight's dinner, be at as close to a sure thing as possible:  Iron Chef Michael Symon's signature restaurant, Lola Bistro.  We made dinner a shared affair that consisted of an assortment of entries, an order of the delicious rosemary frites, and a few desserts.  The weakest dishes were good.  The strongest dishes, the crispy pig's ear, the beef cheek pierogi, and the deconstructed lobster roll, were excellent. 

I was wrong about Cleveland, at least so far.  I quite like it and look forward to seeing more of it.

So you can share some of what I saw today, what follows is a selection of my iPhone happy snaps. 

Enjoy (and click on any image to see a larger version).

The ceiling in a lovely hall in sort of indoor shopping center slash business center. 

A fountain in the same area.

The view entering another large hall in this same building.  The place feels like an old train station, but I haven't had time to make sure that I'm correct.

Yet right outside the end of the building, the industrial city reappears.

This lovely metal detail work... 

...is part of this beautiful vent grate.

A lounge area in the hotel.

Sunset through my hotel window.  The sky was so much redder than I can show you.

The historic (for reasons I don't know) 4th street dining area.

The top of a building as I saw it while walking back to the hotel.

On the road again: Bouchercon, St. Louis, day 5

I never sleep well before morning airplane flights, and today was no exception. After a restless night, I showered and headed for the airport.

A tornado hit STL a while ago, and they're still rebuilding from it, so the routes through security and to the gates still showed signs of the earlier destruction and the ensuing construction. I have no complaints, though, because everyone was very nice, the Admirals' Club's bandwidth was more than adequate, and the plane left on time.

Lunch in ORD was the usual: a pair of Chicago dogs. These are among the weirder hot dogs, but they're still tasty.

Most of the evening went to unpacking, catching up on email, and so on, as is usual for the hours after hitting home from a trip. No complaints, though; it's good to be home for a few days before I leave again Monday morning!

On the road again: Bouchercon, St. Louis, day 4

The con's big activity for today was the Anthony Awards brunch. Bouchercons run their award ceremonies with speed as the top priority, so the food was buffet-style, standard hotel breakfast fare, which is to say eggs and bacon and sausage and bacon and fruit and bacon and biscuits and bacon. Did I mention bacon?

Where SF Worldcons draw out awards with multiple presenters, Bouchercons have a single presenter announce them all. This year's Toastmaster, Ridley Pearson, did something unusual: He presented the awards in as random an order as he could manage. He wrote each category on a small piece of paper, crumpled those sheets into little balls, and put them in a small jar. The con chair chose the first one, and then winner of each category chose the next category. Nice idea.

You can easily find all of the winners online, but I was particularly happy to see Dana Cameron, one of my fellow contributors to The Wild Side, walk away with the Best Short Story award for "Swing Shift." The same story had earlier garnered Dana the Macavity award, so it was a great weekend for her. My congratulations to her.

Finding dinner tonight proved to take more time than I had expected, because this part of downtown St. Louis appears to roll up the sidewalks on Sunday. We finally ended up at Rosalita's Cantina, which served up far better TexMex food than we had feared we might get. Everything we tried was good, the server was very nice and attentive, and all in all, I'd recommend it to anyone in downtown St. Louis looking for a solid TexMex meal.

Tomorrow, I leave early for a day of taxis, airports, and traveling that will, I hope, result in me being home tomorrow night.

On the road again: Bouchercon, St. Louis, day 3

Let's look at a few pictures.

On the way to lunch yesterday, we passed a building that was boarded up and awaiting renovation. On the boards covering some of the ground-floor windows, someone had painted architectural highlights, like this one.


And this one.


And this one.


The women in these shots are not people I know. I was trying to get the shots, they were walking, and they ended up providing scale. I hope they don't mind.

Where we were hoping to eat lunch was this place, whose name made it irresistible.


Alas, it closed three minutes before we hit it--we were heading to lunch quite late, due to work demands--so I never got to experience the Chili Mac's diner.

Walking late yesterday, just to explore downtown a bit, we encountered the bowling alley at which Bouchercon held its bowling tournament. Yes, a con with a bowling tournament.


You have to admit, though, if you were running a con and for some strange reason had to involve bowling, you'd be pretty darn happy to put it at the Flamingo.

Lunch today was at Mosaic, a fusion place with a more ambitious menu than I would have expected from this area. While most of the dishes we sampled were tasty, and I applaud the chef's fusion goals, I have to be clear on one point: no matter what you put on your menu, these are not frites.


Even with the addition of grated Parmesan and specks of white truffles, you may not call these truffled frites. Truffled housemade chips, sure, but not frites.

I'm glad we've settled that.

Exiting the restaurant, we spotted this rooster sitting outside a second-story window, the fabled St. Louis guard rooster, standing watch over the mean streets of downtown.


Or something.

I'm going with something.

Dinner took us to Stefano's, a little Italian place around the corner from the hotel's outlying ballroom building (this hotel sprawls over three buildings). The pizza was surprisingly good, one of the best I've had in a long time, with all fresh ingredients and a tangy tomato sauce that was simply excellent.

For dessert we tried two variants of a dish that is apparently a local, if not Midwestern, classic: the gooey butter cake. When Jeni's ice creams started selling an ice cream with that name, I thought they had just made it up, but apparently not.

The classic was sweet and definitely gooey.


The chocolate was, if anything, even sweeter and also quite gooey.


Stefano's claims to have won an award for the best gooey butter cake in the area, so I now feel well-schooled in this odd tradition.

Before and after dinner, the con offered live music from writer Max Allan Collins and his band, Cruzin'. They played mostly covers, but the music was fun, the crowd was into it, and I quite enjoyed it. A lovely end to the evening.

On the road again: Bouchercon, St. Louis, day 2

Most of today went to work, so there's not much of note there. Move along.

Lunch was a completely serviceable meal at a local deli, The Edible Difference.

The walk to and from the place gave me time to check out a bit of the downtown. A great many buildings appear to be unoccupied or barely occupied, as if a wind from the depression had blown through here and taken many of the businesses with it. Other streets showed the effects of real estate developers smelling opportunity, with loft-style condos for sale in building after building. The economy has clearly not been gentle with St. Louis.

I was able to catch the Robert Crais interview, and he was quite entertaining. When the questions turned to his work, he was as neurotic as any other writer I know; it seems endemic to the job.

After some more work, we hit the charity auction. People at this con really spend at each Bouchercon's auction, and this year's was no exception: it raised $17K for a local library.

Dinner was a very good meal at a local Peruvian place, Mango. I had not expected to find Peruvian food here, but I was very pleasantly surprised when we spotted this place. If you live near here, definitely check it out.

On the road again: IDF, San Francisco, day 5Bouchercon, St. Louis, day 1

My day began at 4:30 a.m. after less than two hours of sleep. I'm good at living on very little sleep, but less than two hours is hard even for me. I felt sub-optimal all day, though I managed to do all my work, not miss any connections, and so on.

On the first flight, I was lucky enough to snag an upgrade. Unfortunately, the guy next to me was a surgeon heading to a conference at which he was giving a presentation on some refinements to open-heart surgery techniques. To prepare for his presentation, he watched a real open-heart surgery video over and over and over, frequently pausing it to make notes, on his laptop. So, I had over 90 minutes of bloody surgery video running right next to me, unavoidable if I glanced to the aisle to answer a question from the flight attendant or even just to stretch my neck. Lovely. Not the best treat for a stomach running on no sleep.

In DFW, I managed almost an hour of work in the Admiral's Club and then got a Red Mango parfait for the trip to St. Louis, which was blissfully uneventful.

I haven't been here in many years, but it definitely has that older Midwestern town feel. The "Grand" in the hotel's name must apply only to the common areas, because it certainly has nothing to do with the room. The whole place has the worn, tawdry feel of an aging hooker in dresses way past their best days.

I'm also fed up with bandwidth in upscale hotels. The places charge you a ton, and then the bandwidth sucks. That's been my experience in both hotels this trip. If they're going to touch you for $14.99 a day, as this one and the last did, you should at least get a great connection. Cheaper hotel/motel chains provide better bandwidth for free. Very frustrating.

I'm now registered for Bouchercon and hope to be able to attend some of it tomorrow, though right now I have three calls scheduled at times spread out enough that they will control the day. So it goes.