X-Message-Number: 25813
Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 03:27:20 -0800
Subject: FDGD 2005 Trip Report: LONG (~15K)
From: Kennita Watson <>
Hello, all --
I haven't written trip reports before. This may be more
of a "trip diary", or "travelogue". It took me most of my
free time for two days to get the information in; it would
take much longer to choose what to remove and to elegantly
arrange the rest. I want to get to the surveys, so I hope
the following ramblings will suffice.
Live long and prosper,
Kennita
--
Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery;
none but ourselves can free our minds.
-- Bob Marley, "Redemption Song"
Frozen Dead Guy Days 2005 -- Trip Report
Before Thursday:
----------------
Ordered mini-easel to display literature on.
Printed out airline itinerary (http://www.orbitz.com/
and http://www.frontierairlines.com/)
and bus schedules (http://www.rtd-denver.com/).
Printed map of Nederland with businesses
(http://www.nederlandchamber.org/).
Printed sketch of Expo floor layout.
Solicited and gathered literature to take.
Sent a press release to PRWeb, to be sent out Friday
starting at 00:01 -- paid $20 for better placement
(some paid upwards of $200).
Thursday:
---------
Shop
Bought 512 MB SD card for camera.
Bought paper to print banners on (ended up with fax
machine rolls because wider paper was out of stock).
Bought binders to display literature on.
Pack
Printed out surveys.
Printed out petitions.
Got help making "Cryonics Advocacy Group" banner.
Backed up computer.
4 days clothes (F/S/N/M).
Two cell phones and chargers and sync cables.
Digital camera and charger and sync cable.
Two laptops and chargers.
Phone cord for mailaka Internet access.
Copy paper.
Mini printer and ink.
Pencils, pens, highlighters.
Binders and mini-easel for presentation.
Masking, packing, duct, and Scotch tape.
Paper and binder clips.
Super Krazy Glue.
Sleep
Slept from about 0330 to about 0700.
Friday:
-------
Ride
Andrew finds everything fine.
At the airport, I discover that buying the large-size suitcase
for the trip turns out to have been a mistake. With the
literature I packed for my booth, the suitcase comes out to
65 pounds (15 pounds over the limit). Rather than jettison
any literature or spend half an hour rearranging things
which might still not fit, I choose to pay the $50 overweight
fee.
Egg and cheese on bagel for breakfast, with orange juice.
Plane ride
Uneventful.
Beverage = orange juice.
Lady assigned to help me with arrival walks me
all the way to the bus terminal. I think the walker brings
out the helpfulness in people, especially when I seem to be
struggling to do things on my own.
Bus
Find bus to Boulder (three of us nearly got on the wrong
bus). Bus leaves on time, but arrives 20 min late (traffic).
I'm glad I left very large time margins.
Ride
Tiffany (Bay Area anthropology student and cryonics-interested
person; her department paid for her plane ticket) and her
boyfriend pick me up at the Boulder bus station and take me to
the Expo building.
They seem to learn their way around the entire town
pretty quickly; I spend the entire weekend pretty
lost. I think MS has affected my spatial coordination
as well as my balance. That there are no street lights,
only a roundabout, doesn't help.
Expo
Set up table, with Tiffany's help.
I asked her to bring me milk or juice. She brought me some
orange juice from B&F Market.
Matt Reynolds, CTO of Nednet, sets up high-speed Internet and
wireless for me (both of my PowerBooks have wireless, one
internal and one PCMCIA).
Sally Stoddard, Expo Coordinator, leaves the key with me,
since I plan to be the first one here in the morning,
and gives me a ride to:
Opening ceremony
Running of a dry ice "flame" (where there's smoke, there's
fire, right?) from Tuff Shed to the roundabout downtown.
Lighting of blue bar lamp over "Grandpa Bredo". He's a
manikin in a "block of ice" (actually, cellophane on a
frame, but it looks pretty good) -- a Brent Warren
(husband to Teresa Warren, the President of the Chamber
of Commerce and my hostess for the weekend) creation.
Skeleton dancers (including Teresa's kids Jesse (17)
and Lily (11)), dancing to music Brent composed using
GarageBand.
Ride
Jesse drives -- fun to talk to. Very mature.
Teresa's
Air is very dry up here. Quintuples my Blistex use.
Jesse tried to use "cleansing lotion" as moisturizing lotion,
to the great amusement of myself and his girlfriend Tadgh
(rhymes with "sage").
Teresa's kids are wonderful. Hung out with them and Tadgh
and Lily's friend Jessica.
Teresa had left us with homemade enchiladas, which were delicious.
Teresa's dog Star (1 yr old black lab?) loves licking hands.
Lily postulates that it's the salt on them that he likes.
In any case, it gets old pretty soon.
Sleep
About 10 PM to 5 AM.
Spent time planning things to look up, print, arrange, etc.
Saturday:
---------
Ride
Jesse -- needed to be at work at 8 (conveniently, upstairs
from the Expo).
Teresa sent me with a gallon glass bottle filled to the neck
with "Miracle Water" -- reputed to be from the most pure
source in the world, and to have healing powers. It does
taste good, but I didn't drink much because I didn't want
to have to leave the table to go to the bathroom.
Expo
Set up 8 to 10, with some help from Tiffany.
I offered Amanda (Frozen Dead Guy Days Coordinator) the key;
she decided to leave it with me.
Decided Cryobear would be a bribe -- I mean, prize -- for
people who filled out the survey -- alternate prize is
chocolate.
Sent Tiffany out for chocolate. Local market didn't have
much good chocolate, but she came back with some Lindt bars
(pity there were no white chocolate bears -- maybe next year).
B+F Market
Went to get breakfast -- sausage McMuffin -- wandered around
B&F, got Kleenex and found some Ghirardelli bars with the
baking supplies. Also bought some minor-bribe Hershey's
minis (weird colors because they were in an Easter assortment).
Amanda came into the store panicked because she needed the
key -- some sort of snag with Bo (the dry ice man) and tours
Bo was supposed to be doing of the Tuff Shed that Bredo is in.
Expo
Wore an "Ask me about cryonics" T-shirt -- a few people
actually read it and asked.
Ran off at the mouth all day long.
Only one person cut me off curtly.
Within earshot of the "Grandpa's Still In the Tuff Shed"
video. It ran every hour on the hour. Some of the
bits were still funny at the end. It made a good
icebreaker ("Did you see the video?"), and if people had
seen it, I had a clue how much they knew (or at least how
much they had seen).
Food bar for lunch. Hard to talk around -- too chewy.
Decided to speak the lingo. If somebody asked "What
happens to your soul (or spirit) while you're frozen?", they
seemed generally to be concerned that it would be stuck. I
might or might not point out that I didn't place much stock
in the soul thing, but I did say that it probably did
whatever it does when people are astral projecting (wander
around outside the body) -- that seemed to satisfy most of them.
Got a number of questions about how much it costs. Responded
with the approximate price range I know about ($30K to $150K)
and that most people pay using life insurance payable to the
provider.
Sally left me the key again.
Ride
With Brent, Teresa's husband. He's a magician,
ventriloquist, etc., and very funny. He wandered around
the Expo floorfor a while with a Grandpa Bredo ventriloquist's
dummy -- people loved it, especially kids.
Teresa's
Brent found me some extra phone cord so it could go
across the floor instead of hanging in midair.
We listened to music, incl. Count Basie and Weird Al
("I Bought It On Ebay").
Sleep
Falling asleep around 2300.
Woke up around 0200. Back to sleep.
Woke up around 0500. Back to sleep.
Woke up around 0700 when Ginger (large gray fluffy cat)
leaped up on my pillow, purring loudly. Clearly my cue to
get up -- I'm allergic to cats, and had been dosed on
antihistamines, but if cat sleeps on pillow it's hopeless.
I chased her away and put the pillows under the blankets.
Sunday:
Get email.
16 inches of snow overnight. Beautiful (no wind, so snow
stood in walls on tree branches) but it wasn't clear we'd
be able to get into town, so I was worried. Eventually the
snowplow came, but maneuvering my walker over and between
snowdrifts was a chore.
Teresa lent me boots, since I didn't have any. They fit
perfectly (amazing; I wear a 6-1/2 EEE).
Ride
Brent -- talk about weather in Nederland and surrounding
areas. Many microclimates; much more snow in Nederland
than in Denver (say).
Expo
Breakfast = leftover orange juice.
I brought shoes to change into, but the boots were so
comfortable I wore them all day.
Thought to put Kleenex on table instead of under.
Lunch = food bar.
Interview with Time Magazine reporter.
Spoke with insurance salesman/financial planner interested
in offering cryonics as an option for his clients.
Developmentally disabled adult tour -- boy do I admire the
counselors! Sold one man one of the prize chocolate bars;
I can buy another one. To refuse would have felt like telling
a two-year-old there's no Santa. I also sold some gum that I
had planned to give away free, because the counselor insisted
she pay. OK -- I guess that was a life lesson for them.
I sold another to a lady who only had a few cents; she was
about to have a fit when she couldn't find what money she did
have; counselor managed to more-or-less convince her that it
was found (I think she she slipped about 7 cents into a bag --
remember "It's A Wonderful Life"?).
Only one person rebuffed my request to take survey with a less
than friendly attitude.
Offered someone Kleenex while she was reading literature;
friendly discussion ensued. I think having the Kleenex accessible
in general is good, as would be a small wastebasket (lined
with a plastic bag).
Ride
To roundabout with Sally.
Closing Ceremony
Met Aud.
Ceremonial popsicles for everyone. Brent did most of the
ceremony, including turning out Grandpa Bredo's light.
I did a short closing statement: "Many are cold, but few
are frozen! All hail Grandpa Bredo!" -- cheers
Walk with help over to Pioneer Inn.
Hauled walker up stairs.
Dinner at Pioneer Inn
One side very smoky -- ate on the less-smoky side.
Talked at length with Sally and Aud and Kjetil
(pronounced Cheh-TEEL) (Norwegian reporter), mostly about
cryonics. I think Aud is still fairly together, but she
struggles with the language. She has a 3-month visa,
during which time she will try to refinance the house
(to work further on the cryonics facility, I think).
She reiterated that she plans to be frozen.
Sally's house -- 6-person party.
Talking, drinking, rhyming cribbage, etc.
Ride
With Brent
Teresa's
Pack.
Start on trip report.
Sleep
After 0200 - about 0630.
Get email.
Monday:
-------
Repack
To put more stuff in carry-ons and waist pack.
Almost forgot to move my Swiss Army knife to checked bag.
Teresa gave me the boots, since she has new ones she likes.
How sweet!
Ride
Teresa -- more discussion of beautiful scenery and microclimate.
Between Nederland and Boulder, drop 3000 feet in 4-1/2 miles.
Bus
Used lift. Worked great, but slow and noisy (backup sound
for entire period of operation).
Discussed FDGD with passengers behind me. They heard about
it on CBS Sunday Morning and went down, and had fun tossing
pizza (accuracy as well as distance; had to get it into
"Bredo's" mouth). They had heard of the Ted Williams case (one
was a baseball fan), and about the argument between the siblings.
Didn't seem too creeped out by the cut-off-head thing once
I explained the future medicine angle and the brain-as-key
principle. Discussed politics and religion, including
terrorism and Nazism, for reasons I don't recall, and still
managed to part friendly.
Airport
Denver International Airport is huge -- I wonder if it is
as big as Chicago O'Hare or larger.
The man who helped with my suitcase wouldn't accept cash.
During the trip, I gave away literature, but gained some
other stuff, so my suitcase weighed 60# -- This time I had
time to remove and rearrange stuff; the bag handler took
pity on me and accepted the suitcase at 50.5 pounds. I
managed to fold the overage into a packet that I could take
as an extra carry-on. Next time I'll mail stuff ahead and
divide up my checked bags.
Andrew called; he was called in to work, so he couldn't
give me a ride home.
Thoroughly wanded (nicely) at security.
Needed electric cart (slow to arrive).
Got a seat change from 15C to 1C.
Called Will; he'll pick me up -- call as soon as I land.
Plane Ride
Orange juice and Sun Chips (pretty healthy as chips go)
and water.
Someone who saw me struggling to get my suitcase off the
carousel and to drag it along behind my walker helped me
the rest of the way to the curb with it. Will arrived
shortly thereafter.
Ride
Talked about Worlds of Warcraft.
Went to Hobee's for late lunch.
Home
Plug in computers, plug in phones, leave the rest
for later; I have my priorities.
Notes:
512 MB SD card comes home unused. I could have used it,
but forgot to load it into the camera.
Next time I want to have a slide show running on my second
laptop.
Could have handed out many more cards.
I didn't manage to use a lot of the presentation stuff,
because I ran out of time to prepare it, but I wouldn't
have had room to display it anyway. I'll need to plan
my displays much better next year.
I love telling people about this stuff.
People are bringing more and more carry-on luggage. On
one leg of my trip, people who were seated late had to
gate-check their bags. Find out whether your airline
seats from front to rear or rear to front and choose your
seat accordingly.
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