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AG 2004—Cheap and Dirty Pictures
- Registration on Wednesday afternoon.
As you can see, it was virtually empty. The number of early arrivals
apparently were few. "Goodie bags" were part of the registration
process, and were, at least in part, filled on the spot as people signed
in. The goodies included, in addition to the four-color program, a heap
of paper about places to go in Las Vegas and surrounds, decks of used
cards from Arizona Charlie's Casino, a used styrofoam Bingo ball, a
plastic champagne glass with a blue light in the stem emblazoned "Happy
New Year 2004," a string of Mardis Gras beads, and a funky troll
keychain. Contents of the goodie bags varied one to the next. I'd heard
that there were tee-shirts in some of them, but apparently there were
far fewer tee-shirts than registrants.
- Warning! In the discussions about hospitality
and so forth, the business about publicity and the external focus of
this AG got lost in the noise. This sign, affixed to the registration
table, reminded me of that issue—and of the quesion it raised:
Whose party is this, anyway?
- The administration room. This room was,
at the time, being used for registration administration, and contained,
among other things, the computers with the registration data on them.
I included this picture as an indication of the size of these meeting
rooms and a demonstration of the amount of open space in them. Scott
Rainey enters the picture frame on the right.
- The Mensa Boutique. Set up in yet another
room about the size of the administration room. That's Joe Zanca hisself
on the left, wearing the tie-died tee shirt..
- The hospitality room. The tables with
the black covers tied back mark the center of the room, so you have
to imagine a space equal to what you see in this picture on the right
side of that line of tables. That line of tables leads to a table arrangement
shrouded with gold drapes. That table contains the food. All of it.
Behind the food table, dimly and slightly to the right, you can see
another arrangement of tables with three people standing in front of
it. That's the beverage table, at which bartenders employed by the hotel
dispense drinks. On the beverage are glasses inviting tips for the bartenders.
The cooler on the left contains soft drinks (I don't remember whether
there was water, too); on the right side of the room was some root beer
on tap and a ceramic container of room-temperature water.
The Mensa power elite are occupying the tables in the left foreground.
The lady in the red jersey with her elbows out is Stacy Kirsch; standing
to her left is Dave Remine. The teensy reddish blob at the table to
the left of the standing gent in the blue shirt is Russ Bakke.
- The food table. That's it, folks,
all the food there is for however many people are registered today.
As you can sort of see, it's large bowls of chips, goldfish(!), and
popcorn; arrayed around are banks of small bags of chips of various
kinds, cookies, and granola bars.
- The beverage table, or bar, I guess.
I already said about all there is to say about it.
- Incidental and illustrative pictures. I went back and took some pictures
to illustrate my observations of last night. You can go back to the
observations page and see these pictures in context, or just look at
them here.
- The "lobby" between the
Paris and Bally's. I used my older son Damon as a foil to shoot
the casino. He's sitting on the edge of a fountain in the Paris;
the "Welcome to Bally's" sign is obvious. If you look
closely between the woman in the green and white striped top, you'll
see five or six steps leading up. At the top of those steps, you're
in Bally's.
- The Convention Center, hub of Mensa
activity in the Paris
- One of the streets of Paris, with
the backs of the heads of Damon and TJ Lundeen in the right foreground.
- Okay, what you've all been waiting for: the
M-Salon Meet 'n' Greet pictures. Most of these came out pretty well,
considering the circumstances under which they were taken, I think.
A couple are less than flattering, for which I apologize, and maybe
we can replace them later. The order in which I decided to present them
is more or less the order in which they were taken. But first, y'all
were curious about Margot's hair, so I took her picture separately earlier
in the day, and that shot is much better than the one taken this evening.
- Ken G. (thoroughly in character, but, alas,
no kilt while he was just sitting around the smoking hospitality room.
- A way better picture of Adina, as she
tells us how critters do it.
- Michelle—a nerd in rock star
clothing.
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