Greetings to all of you on your way, all of you still at home, and those who are already here!!
I am keeping my promise to share and post.
First safety tip: If you drive, drop off your luggage at registration first, or go to registration without your luggage then pick it up from the parking garage. Otherwise, you will have to drag your luggage through the casino floor, and it is not necessarily fun.
This is the entrance to the hotel from the taxi/valet lanes. If it doesn't look like this, you're in the wrong place ;-) The Rio was very easy to find - visible from I-15.
The bar, with some nice glassy artsy stuff, right inside the entrance. Looks a little spiffy, I'm not sure if it has a dress code or not.
The check-in. There are several others, for variously levels of clubby and important peoples. This is where I checked in, however, so you may find yourself standing in line here tomorrow.
If you want to take the shuttle away from here, or if you parked in the parking garage that I didn't use, this is your exit.
There is a tweet-up at these pools Wednesday afternoon at 3pm. Be there or be square, but come out of the pool in time to change your clothes and go to the C&J dinner, which is at the Carnival World buffet.
Look! Real Sand! and a shallow area for the little ones! Family friendly, yes. ;-)
This cabana is available for rent. I am sure you can rent a cabana boy if no one volunteers.
The only hot tub I saw was behind the 5th pool, which is about a half-mile of glare-filled walking from the entrance to the pools. Okay, I exagerated. A little.
Safety tip #2: Bring your shades, folks. The sun is bright in this western city, even though they're at a lower altitude than where I live. Really bright.
The famous are already here - Markos, Elisa, and Arshad, who were looking at pictures of Ari and Eli just moments before this photo.
Here is our big fat assembly room - where we will gather together for the liberal keynote events. So the next picture you see from this room should have more people in it ;-)
The fearless leader of Netroots for the Troops, TexDem with lieutenant VeloVixen. Hey, did you know that possum had a MATCHING DIARY today?
Volunteer staffer Austin is herding the volunteers for the event. There is actually a ceiling light swinging above his head several dozens of feet, and he is on the job, making sure we are safe.
Dangerous swinging light fixture. Really.
We are on the screen at the convention center!
I also went to Gail Knits just to get needles, and she made me buy some beautimous and awesum hand-dyed yarn for a shawl. I stopped at Trader Joe's too, since we don't have any in Salt Lake City.
