You are currently browsing the Jamie Leigh Hansen’s Blog weblog archives for July, 2007.
If you look through the site, you will see lots of things in progress. Have fun looking through it. :) Let me know if you have any changes to suggest or if you’ve found anything of interest. 
And thanks for your patience!
Jamie
There were incredibly long lines as people lined up for the absolutely huge literacy signing. Over 500 authors, I think? It’s a really great thing, but there is no way someone can buy all the books they want from their favorite authors.
Personally, I didn’t even try to go near the bestselling authors. I would have wasted their time trying to say hi when they had people lining up to buy their books and meet them. And often have them sign books already owned.
It’s always so great to be able to put a name to a face. Over the course of the conference, I was able to meet Sylvia Day, a very beautiful woman who took the time during her signings on Wednesday night to give me loads of encouragement.
And I absolutely had to meet Lisa Renee Jones. Our husbands definitely hit it off the way we’d hoped, I think, though it took forever to be in the same place at the same time. Lisa held up a copy of my ARC (which I’d received copies of right before leaving for my trip.) and showed it to everyone around her. She is so supportive.
And, hey! I got to meet Jo Beverly. My youngest is so incredibly jealous. I even told her I did it for her (she saw through me, though.) What can I say? That woman has captured two generations of my family completely.
Motel 6 was nice, clean and cheap. Just the way I like ‘em. After getting in after midnight, we decided to just sleep. So, though I am VP of my chapter, I did not go to the President’s retreat. Very bad of me.
Craig and I slept in to 8 am, which was 6 am at home, which was 4 hours before we usually start an “early” day.
We showered and took a ridiculously expensive cab ride to the Hyatt. I mean, seriously. 20 cents for every 1/9 of a mile? I know gas and wages are expensive, but 1/9th? Then it’s 45 cents if we are stopped at a stoplight? Or in a traffic jam? No wonder movies show New Yorkers always hopping out of cabs and running.
We get to the Hyatt just dreaming of unpacking and taking a nap in our room. Until we discovered I’D ARRIVED A DAY EARLY.
Well, crap. See why I shouldn’t plan trips?
The room was expensive enough to give me heart palpitations. Then they wanted to charge $5 for a bottle of water? And $80 for incidentals? What incidentals? Making the bed? Fresh towels? Isn’t that what the first two hundred dollars should have covered? Good Lord. I am a seasoned traveler, but now I know why I prefer to drive. Well, ride.
While we waited for room arrangements, I checked in to the conference. From there, the trip started looking up. (For future reference, please remember I am short. Even out of my wheelchair.)
Right off, we met Justin and Amy Knupp! They recognized me from my picture!! I’ve had decade-old friends that have looked at my pic and told me it doesn’t look like me. Of course, they are oblivious to how insulting that is. It’s the best pic I’ve ever taken, yes, but it is me and was taken just last summer.
I made an appointment with Justin to talk about my website and our chapter’s website (which went extremely well. Justin is awesome.) and we continued about the business of checking in and meeting people.
And, within a few hours, guess what arrived? My bookmarks and business cards! They are so pretty and definitely worth all the work put into them. I owe a huge thank you to Theresa DeLucci and Megan Barnard at Tor.
The first day passed in a happy blur as we learned our way around and met a few people and settled in to our very nice, comfortably firm but soft beds with their thick feather pillows (since we’d forgotten our pillows, , this was quite nice. Usually any other pillow gives me a headache, but these weren’t bad at all. We were able to sleep very comfortably all week.
Okay, yes, I am a blonde. (Yes, with an “e”. Blonde is a girl, blond is a boy. I like the specificity of it. Check www.dictionary.com if you doubt me.) However, I hate my idiocy being blamed on my hair color. The blonde jokes are cute, sometimes funny, but when you have a child whose hair color exactly matches yours and she adamantly rejects any thought of being blonde, it grows old. I am stupid on my own, okay? It’s not my hair.
So, for example: I bought my plane tickets at Expedia.com. We arrive at the airport an hour and a half early. We stand in line at American Airlines because that’s what the itinerary says. We go through the line, try to check in and they say, “Go to Alaska Airlines. That’s where you should be.” Now, picture the irony since we are supposed to go to Texas.
We stand in line at Alaska Airlines and make it through and they say, “Oh, not this one. Go down [a block] and be in that line.”
Okay, good thing I have my scooter, but I feel bad for my poor hubby. He had to push the wheelchair with three pieces of luggage loaded on it. (Yes, it was a trick, but really neat how well it worked.)
So we stand in line and go through it and they say, “Oh, you have a scooter.” Like I didn’t mark handicapped on the plane form when I bought the ticket? Geez. So we went to Customer Service. The shortest line of all.
We stood there for 45 minutes and missed our flight.
We hadn’t even gotten to Security yet.
After getting through Customer Service, Security was a breeze. There are some advantages to being in a wheelchair, (skipping long lines) as long as you don’t mind the much more thorough, although respectful, search. And having every single bag looked through.
So, we go through and we are free! We loaded on to the plane easily, though it turned out to be a tiny one. There are times when I really wonder if heavy people, like me, should register their weight. Do you have any idea how many times I was asked how much my scooter weighed? And all I could think was, “Not as much as I do.”
Well, it all worked out well. We arrived in Dallas early. All we had to do was get our luggage, call the shuttle I’d already paid for on Expedia, and go to the motel I’d reserved for the night.
If only I’d printed the Expedia vouchers. I took my now-broken scooter (the handle on the lever that makes the steering column go forward or backward, came off. Only my husband can adjust it now. Yes, we’ll get it fixed and it was registered with the airline right away.)
It turns out, not printing the vouchers is a really bad thing. It took four hours to find somewhere we could print them. Finally, they just had to fax them. Then we get on the shuttle and learn how bad a shuttle through Expedia is. The Shuttle Bus is normally $17/person/trip. Expedia charged $20. And out of that, they only give the shuttle $13.
Expedia made $7/person for an online buy that took them virtually no effort.
So, two lessons: Expedia is a rip-off and PRINT ANY VOUCHERS.
Price: 4 more hours at the airport and $150 on my cell phone. (It was after 9 pm Texas time!)
Verdict: Ridiculous and largely my fault.
Okay, by now I should know better than to name dates for anything. My sense of tomorrow is sometime next week. Or somewhere thereabouts. I try so hard to make deadlines. I write them on calendars, I make to-do lists, I sneak into my husband’s planner and mark a few things…Nothing works. It’s not because I don’t try to be organized, but because I forget what day it is. (Even though there is a huge calendar on my desktop) Or, because (shocker here) things happen.
My desk consists of my laptop and whatever I can fit on the two cluttered tables on either side of my recliner. There are pictures in the cryptarium. This, seriously, is my work space. If it doesn’t fit, well, that’s what God made piles for.
However, there are a few things I really try to keep track of. One happens to be mailing trackers. You’d think I’d get smart and insert the tracker in my One Note. (I love One Note. No naming and organizing files through my windows system. No pushing save. Type it and it’s there.)
Well, the page proofs for Betrayed were misplaced through some comedic (Yeah, right) system of errors. I mailed them, but not to the precisely correct address. They may have even arrived, but not on the desk they were supposed to. Here is where a tracking code is seriously vital.
I can find every tracking code for everything I’ve mailed this year (because sometimes I really am that good. lol) But not for the page proofs. Go fig, right?
So, for the last few days, it’s been all about the page proofs. I swear, Betrayed is such a demanding little sucker. Every time I think I’m done with it, guess what? Things happen.
Site designed and Maintained by
Stonecreek Media, Inc
