Galacticon
Mar. 24th, 2002 10:56 pmThis was a Trek con, and mainly a Klingon con. Yes, there is Klingon fandom that is only loosely tied to Trek fandom. I've never seen so many Klingons in one place. They were pretty cool, though.
The folks down there were very hospitable. They also like to flirt. I assume that it was meant to be harmless flirting, rather than that we were dashing anyone's expectations. This was the first time I felt compelled to work "my husband" into casual conversation, though.
Sometimes it seemed like everyone in Chattanooga smokes. The con did have non-smoking space, but I still reeked of smoke each night. I actually double-bagged the dirty clothes in plastic bags so the smoke wouldn't contaminate my backpack.
Another cultural difference: I heard, for the first time, Cajun jokes. It makes sense; Canada has Newfie jokes, the south has Cajun jokes. They're the same jokes, for the most part. :-)
Speaking of culture shock: upon entering the Chattanooga airport, the first sign you see (other than the "airport" sign, I mean) says, in large letters, "no guns". The second, much smaller, sign says "no smoking". I don't think I've ever seen a "no guns" sign on a public building before.
The Chattanooga airport is small, comfortable, very clean, and well-maintained. Best I've seen anywhere.
One leg of the flight down (Comair) had a kick-ass flight attendant. I must find out where at Comair to direct an appropriate letter.
The Cincinnati airport is in two buildings, with a shuttle bus between them. On the way out, our plane was 20 minutes late taking off, which made a serious dent in my 59-minute layover. And, of course, the connecting flight was in the other building, on the other side of the not-very-fast shuttle bus. If I'd known where to go, I might have done an OJ and run for it. As it turned out, though, I got to the gate just as they started boardnig, so all was fine. Other than that, all flights were on time and the last leg coming back actually landed 20 minutes early. I don't know how they did that, given that we took off on time. Favorable winds? But that's still something like a 25% gain, so that can't be all from wind. Shrug; I don't fly nearly enough to have instincts for things like this.