relieved
These are the people who came to see the announcement at Norwescon. I later counted between 60 and 70 people present.
I obsess over technical issues, and deeply wish that I had been allowed an hour in the room so that I could make sure that every piece worked. My computer doesn't have an HDMI port, so I couldn't use the long cable to the head table to connect my computer to the data projector. There was a short VGA cable, and also an even shorter audio cable to connect to the headphone jack. The video connected first time, which was okay. Unfortunately, the audio connection only would carry the music soundtrack on the announcements, not the voice of the announcers reading the results. But the main effect of this (since the slides also had the finalists listed, of course) was that people talked among themselves during the presentation, which was not too big of a deal. I just wish I'd had time to experiment to see if there was some combination of settings or cables that would have carried all of the audio signal.
(As far as I know, the other two presentations had both channels of sound.)
After the presentations, I asked those newly-minted finalists who were present to stand. I wasn't quick enough to get a photo, but I think there were around ten of the finalists present. I'd been hoping that Galen Dara, who had been doing a panel just before us in the same room and is also a finalist, would stay, but she probably had another panel right after us or something like that.
The audience seemed happy with what we did. I heard good things from the other two venues. I understand that Eastercon merrily went on with an "Instant Analysis" panel right after the announcement.
The results were not immediately posted to The Hugo Awards web site. Linda and I needed to get lunch first, and then we returned to the San Jose Worldcon table, where I started putting the results online. But of course I did need to talk to people who were coming by the table. Few things are as offputting to people coming to an info table as the only person there having their head in a computer ignoring everyone. Consequently, it was after 6 PM before I got both the 2018 and 1943 Hugo Award pages updated and the headline announcement posted to the web site. Those news sources that had embargoed copies of the press release were of course able to go live at 1 PM as soon as the embargo lifted, not being constrained by having to run a convention info desk at a convention at the same time. That's okay. The Hugo Award web site is the "journal of record" and while we like to be timely with results, in the long term what's important is having them accurate.
Once I finally got the site updated, it was time to get going. I'd brought my luggage down with me from the Holiday Inn Express so I could catch a shuttle from the Doubletree directly to the airport. When I went to check in, Alaska Airlines kiosk asked if I would like to take the earlier available flight for $25 extra. I said yes. I'm not sure the kiosk should have offered that, because I very nearly did not make it. Between the Terrorization queue and catching the shuttle train out to the North Satellite, I got to the plane with less than five minutes before doors-closing. But I did make it. Even better, despite the seat map insisting that the flight was nearly full, I was directed to an aisle seat at the rear with the middle seat empty.
The result of the rushing through Sea-Tac was that I got to the hotel in Millbrae two hours earlier than planned. That means I get two extra hours of sleep before I drive home tomorrow. Assuming I make it all the way home. I spoke with Lisa as I was leaving SFO and she told me that if I did not feel up to getting the whole way home to stop somewhere overnight and work it out with the Day Jobbe, and I agree with her. Now I must get some of that extra sleep I paid $12.50/hour to get.
I don't feel as sick as I did the past two days, possibly because the stress of working up to the Hugo Finalist announcement is behind me.