sleepyWith the room nearly empty, Lisa considered traffic-flow issues, and we did a little bit of furniture moving to attempt to remove some of the more obvious bottlenecks. Later, seeing how some of the area was being used and what the traffic flow was, I created some quick signs (using the printer in the business center downstairs) that looked useful for the Hospitality area, so I felt like I'd accomplished something.
Just before 7 PM, Chairman Glenn Glazer returned from dinner and others began returning from their meals and drinks. Registration opened and SMOFCon was moving forward on "Night Zero."
Around 8 PM or so, I realized that I needed dinner. Lisa and I invited
drplokta to join us; we would have asked others, but most of the people around at that time seemed to have just come back from dinners. The three of us went down to the Sonoma Chicken Coop (yes, Lisa and I are in a rut) and had a nice dinner, and I felt much better after that.After dinner, we hung around Hospitality and talked and smoffed (of course) for a couple of hours after dinner, but I was feeling unaccountably tired and crashed early, shortly after the SMOFCon committee had a brief meeting of those of us who are on-site (some won't be here until tomorrow) to make sure we're all on the same page. The convention doesn't need me to stay up round the clock, after all, and the web site is as up to date as it's going to be.
I did consider trying to get up a pick-up poker game going this evening, but here's no good space near Hospitality. If the adjoining room to the main suite had the right sort of table and no bed in it, it would work. The Santa Vesta Room downstairs would also work (and we have access to it and will hold the formal Probability & Statistics Seminar there on Saturday night), but it's difficult to get people away from the Hospitality Suite, and I understand that. Ideally, side functions like this would be just a few steps away; however, there are very few places that have the layout like Chicago and Austin had that facilitated this.
