Subject: Trip Report Part 1 of 2: Just When You Thought It Was Safe To Go Back to the Newsgroup
From: steve31415@hotmail.com (Steve)
Date: 16 Jul 2002 00:06:47 -0700
Newsgroups: alt.fan.letterman

Just When You Thought It Was Safe To Go Back to the Newsgroup:
Another DaveCon Trip Report
(or How To Say Nothing in 600 Lines)
by Steve

(Maybe we can string these reports out till Labor Day....)


Part 1 of 2: Introduction, and pre-June 20


First, I'd like to thank Traci and Renee for organizing DaveCon 2002--
it was obviously a lot of work on their part.  Also, thanks to Karen
for organizing dinner and to Karen and Brad for the lovely shirts.
(Hopefully my verb tenses in this report will turn out to be
sufficiently in agreement for Brad!)

Also, a big thanks to Traci for her extreme patience.  Never
having been to New York before (except for a trip on the cross-
Bronx Freeway), let alone Manhattan, I was a little worried
about security and other issues, and Traci was very helpful in
answering questions about logistics and other things.  Happily,
my notions of crime in Manhattan seem to be outdated; I observed
nothing during the time I was there (although Sarah did claim to
have stolen my camera).

I know this trip report is late, but think of it this way: DaveCon 2002
was a 26-person group, and it was 26 days ago, so there you go.

For the sake of the readers (both of you), I plan to divide the
trip report into two interleaved parts.  I'll go chronologically
like people have been, but I'll indent the secondary stuff (that's
not really related to Dave or N.Y.) so that readers in a hurry can
just read the good stuff easily.
Here is a couple of hypothetical examples:

    Secondary material:
    It was a bit warmer than I expected on Saturday.

Primary material:
After the show, for a brief moment, I met Dave and got to ask him
a question.

Recently, I've been reading the other trip reports.  My first
reaction was, "There's more to this group than This Dave threads?"
For the longest time, my server had been getting only This Dave threads.
Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed all of the previous reports.
Hopefully I won't repeat too much of what's already been written.

One comment on Bill Lehecka's.  He mentioned that it was the Eleventh
Trip Report, and, indeed, in addition to being the report about his
eleventh trip, it was the eleventh report about DaveCon 2002
(at least in the order I saw them)--and I actually thought he meant
this latter meaning at first.  The brain works in mysterious ways,
when it works at all....

I think I'm actually ready to start now.


Pre-Manhattan: Steve's California Adventure

    The trip started back on Friday 6/14 at 7:15 PM Pacific Time.
    I was headed up to the Bay Area to see a couple of friends graduate.
    I was in a big rush, as usual, but this aim-to-get-to-the-airport-
    two-hours-ahead thing is great for me, as it means I have an extra
    hour to get there *one* hour before the flight....  Apparently,
    San Diego is listed as a Top Ten U.S. city in population,
    but this is because it gobbles up neighboring cities, not because
    there's a huge metro area here.  So the airport is actually pretty
    small and the lines at security are usually fine.  Things worked out
    fine that day, so I got to the gate in plenty of time, although
    I didn't get the best seat (love the Southwest Airlines open
    ("cattle") seating).

    The plane was a little late, but not too bad.  When I got to
    San Jose, I tried to get a rental car, but my credit card was denied!
    Apparently this was due to an overzealous fraud detection department
    and the 3 charges on my card the day before at an electronics store--
    one was an error corrected by the store, one was a gift, and the
    third was a digital camera--more on that later.  (This purchase was
    partly inspired by Helen's getting one.)  Anyway, I eventually got
    the credit card thing straightened out, and I had an enjoyable
    weekend seeing my friends again.

    "Highlights" of the weekend were someone actually getting cake shoved
    in her face (I thought that only happened on TV shows), a deer
    running through the park right past people kicking a soccer ball and
    jumping over the ball, and the San Francisco Quote of the Weekend:
    "A neighbor of mine had a pot plant in his backyard, and his friend
    said 'Careful, people can see that.'  He said, 'You mean they'll
    call the cops?'  'No, they'll steal it.' "
    That sounds about right for SF....

    The other interesting bit I recall from that weekend was a discussion
    about government--that no one who wants to be President enough to
    actually become President should be allowed to be President, so
    perhaps the President could be chosen randomly, like jury duty.
    Oddly enough, the people who came up with this idea were sober.

On Monday afternoon, I went to the airport for the flight to Newark.
I was excited and a little wary at the same time--as I said, I
was a little worried about security, so it wasn't ideal for me to be
arriving after midnight.  But my fears were unfounded, as I was
picked up and taken to my hotel without incident.  By the way,
the car service Traci recommended was pretty good for the most part,
but the driver was talkative and insisted on mentioning the hookers
at the Port Authority....

It was very exciting to be in Manhattan for the first time--so many
sights and sounds!  I checked into the Best Western President and 
settled in.


Tuesday 6/18/02: First Day in Manhattan

The next morning (and I use the term loosely, not being the earliest
of risers anyway, and at the disadvantage of a three-hour time change)
I got ready to meet my friend from school (Mike) downtown for lunch.
I am happy to say that, in my first two minutes on the streets of
Manhattan, I heard someone yell "Givl you!"  That's about right....

After lunch, Mike went back to work, and I decided to head over to
Ground Zero--it was nearby.  That was quite an experience.  The only
negative part was people selling "Disaster!" books for $10 and trying
in other ways to profit from tragedy.

After this, I was in the mood for doing something touristy, but not
too obvious, so I took a short subway ride to the Teddy Roosevelt
Museum on 20th.  The tour guide was very friendly, and he talked
for a while until the top of the hour.  Then we went on a tour
of the restored/re-created house.  Although I was the only one
on the tour that time, it wasn't that impressive (only a few rooms
were shown), but the museum was pretty awesome.  TR is one of my
favorite Presidents, and I also really liked the book "The Alienist",
which he is in.  That book gives a vivid look at Manhattan of 100
years ago; the excitement of the mystery story is in synergy with
the excitement of the era.
    I recently heard McCain being compared to TR (in terms of being
    a reformer) so I suppose I should like him, too?

The only downside to this tourist stuff was that I ended up arriving
at the Ed after 5:30, and I just missed being in the group of 
"losers" that waved to the camera just before it went into the
Hello Deli to play Psychic Salad.  Oh, well.  I decided to hang
around a while.  This was the show with the rooftop golfing, and
every time someone hit a ball, DeLace and the other security guy
struggled to keep 53rd Street as clear as possible.  They asked us
to please stay on the sidewalk on the North side, so as to avoid
being hit by errant golf balls.  (Oddly enough, many pedestrians
didn't want to follow this advice, especially those in a hurry.)
Sure enough, a ball did end up on the street, but I don't think
that little cop vehicle was really in danger.  I missed being on
camera then, too.... It's neat to be on 53rd Street during the
taping--at least on that day, there was a lot of activity.  The
band was easily audible through the closed doors during commercial
breaks.... The last golf shot was not completely shown on TV; the ball
hit near 53rd and Broadway and then bounced high into the air onto
Broadway (where traffic was NOT controlled) as Late Show staffers
chased it in vain.

After the show, Al Franken came out and signed a few autographs and
posed for photos.  He looked older than I expected.  I also saw
Will and Paul.  At about 7:00, I saw Rupert struggling to lock
up the deli--one of the locks was giving him trouble that day.
I left shortly after that, and the rest of the day was relatively
uneventful.


Wednesday 6/19/02: Don't Skimp on the Sunblock

Wednesday morning came, and I had planned, the night before, to
finish reading the camera manual and to delete some pictures--I
was already almost out of space on the disk--but the camera batteries 
ran out....  Traci called me and set up a meeting at Island Burger 
at about 2:00.  So that's what she sounds like.  I also talked 
to Don(z5), who said he might meet us by the Ed after his dental 
appointment.

First, though, I was scheduled to meet two recruiters for lunch.
These are the people who helped get me my current job, so I wanted
to make a good impression.  I was running a little late, and
these East-West blocks were longer than I thought, so I ended up
rushing over towards Grand Central Station, where we'd arranged to
meet.  Now, on Tuesday I skipped putting the sunblock on, which was
a mistake, so this day I had plenty on, but as I rushed over there,
some of it apparently got in my eyes, so it was really "cool"
for me to meet these people with watering eyes!  Luckily, I got
to a bathroom and rinsed them out, but still not what I had in mind....
Despite that, lunch went pretty well, but we ended later than I
thought we would, so at about 2:10 I called Traci to tell her
I'd be late, but I had to leave a message.  Maybe she doesn't
always answer her cell phone in order to give herself an air of
mystery?  No, actually she was still in the subway at the time,
running late herself.  So I left a message, and I also managed
to get batteries for the camera on the way (but I still hadn't
had time to delete any photos).

Eventually I got to Island Burger, and the others were all
there: Traci, Carl, Chad, and his friend Carla.  This part
has already been recapped, but one thing I should mention
is that, of all the burger places in Midtown, Island Burger is
one of them.  Actually, I didn't eat anything, as I'd just eaten
lunch, so I'm not qualified to judge.  The waitstaff didn't seem
to mind my sitting there without eating.  In fact, come to think
of it, they never asked if I wanted to order at all--hmmm.
Afterwards, we went over to the Ed, and Carla hung out with us
a little, teasing us that she was really a Leno fan, and then
took off.  We happened to be hanging out there when this bearded
guy said "Traci?", and we got to meet Dave Sikula, who was
apparently on a business trip, or was seeing lots of plays,
at least.  He was nicer than expected....  We also saw Don, who
gave out CDs and dental products.
    I have since listened to Don's CD, and enjoyed it, especially
    some of the tracks near the end.
The business of standing in the hallway to the Ed Office Building
has been chronicled (as has Traci's meeting with Bruce).
Walter was very nice and talked to us for longer than I expected.
Later, on 53rd Street, Alan Kalter walked by and someone yelled
to see if Alan wanted to touch someone (can't remember who in our
group it was) and he smiled and said, "Absolutely not."

Eventually, we headed down toward the Daily Show, and we were joined
by Libby and Ann.  It started raining a little so we took shelter
under a canopy while waiting to get in.  I figured this was my last
shot to fix up my camera before the show, in case we could take
pictures, so I got it out, knowing there might be comments.  Sure
enough, someone (Carl?) commented on my reading the huge manual,
and I explained that it was a new camera....

Having VIP seats to the Daily Show (thanks, Traci!) meant that
we got to sit down in the waiting room rather than standing.
(Getting to the waiting room meant going through a metal detector
which kept beeping but no one seemed to care.)  The warm-up person
there was pretty good.  One woman in the audience inexplicably said
she had to leave at 6:30, which was actually when they were starting
taping, so I don't think she got to see the show....  One thing that
kinda bothered me about the warm-up people at both shows was the big
emphasis on laughing.  It makes sense that they want a decent audience
track and that subtle reactions may not be picked up well, but the
big emphasis on it makes it seem like the performers are insecure,
or their microphones are horrible, or something.  It seems a little
odd that a normal, un-coached audience reaction is so far off from
what they want.  Oh, well....  The part where Traci got to ask
Jon a question has been documented.  In a response to another question,
Jon expressed his preference for Klondike bars, in a nice little bit.
(His off-the-cuff response seemed so fluid that I suspected that the
audience guy who asked the question might be a plant, but no one else
believed this.)  Someone also asked how old you have to be to intern
there, and that answer didn't seem obvious to any of the staffers.
Jon's warm-up was free-flowing and not on a rigid schedule--it was  
really fun.  The show itself was very entertaining, and I was wondering
if we would be on camera, but the camera swept the other side of the
audience.  (I'd heard that where the camera sweeps changes from show
to show, but I've been checking that out since, and it doesn't seem to,
so we were just on the wrong side.)

On another side note, Traci was going on and on about Lewis Black,
and he wasn't on the show.  In fact, I haven't seen him on the show
in a while; perhaps he went to extreme lengths to avoid her?
The guest was Cynthia McFadden, ABC newswoman, and the panel could've
been dull, but Jon handled it well.  After the show ended, the staffers
were in a big rush to get us out of there, so after a quick picture
of the set, we were herded out.

We went to dinner at Goody's, as has been mentioned.  The food was
excellent, and I enjoyed meeting Rona.  The pork dumpling appetizers
were really tasty.  The procedure for eating them involved puncturing
the top with chopsticks, but I found that they still tasted great
if I skipped that step.  Some of the dishes had unusual names;
I believe it was Libby who ordered A Little Bit of Everything.
At the end, I was trying to help figure out the bill and I divided
by 9 instead of 7, so I got teased about having two imaginary friends--
whoops.   [:)] 

After dinner we went to the pastry shop in Little Italy, and saw the
bikers and the Mr. Tang sign.   Afterwards, people went their separate
ways.  Chad was headed toward his stand-up gig (open mike night,
where Carla was performing, too).  I took the subway back to Midtown
and got back to the hotel just in time for the Late Show.  (My favorite
bit of this show was the large print Book on Tape with the guy yelling,
"IT WAS THE BEST OF TIMES, IT WAS THE WORST OF TIMES.")