Safe in DC.

The thing I always forget when traveling to the east coast is the time difference. Right now the clock next to me says it is coming up on 1am, however my brain thinks that it is more like 10pm. Now this might not be a problem, until I have to get up 8am tomorrow and my brain starts screaming at me asking me why the hell we are waking up at 4 am?

I must say, all cities look the same from the back of a late night taxi. Bright lights just beyond the ribbon of concrete as you hunker down in the back of an odd smelling cab and wonder, I always wonder this, “so what will the hotel look like this time?”

Ahh the mystery of the hotel. Doing this job, I’ve stayed in lots of them. Some nice, some not so nice and many that were just too blah to remember. The thing is, you never really know for sure until you get there. Leather events have a terrible habit of changing hotels from year to year due to politics, budget or a management that wants nothing more to do with “those people”. I’ve stayed in swanky executive hotels, roach traps you would not dare walk barefoot in and one hotel that was going to be turned into low-income housing, the next week.

Thing is, as a vendor, the hotel will make or break you. If it is crappy, out of the way and with out amenities life can really suck. So far I really must tell ya that I like what I see. The host hotel for Black Rose is dead in the heart of the US capitol, I can see the capitol building from my room, clean, there is a Starbucks in the lobby (hey I’m from Seattle, I have more caffeine molecules in my blood stream than white blood cells) and the towels don’t smell of old men. Did I also mention that it was pretty expensive? Well expensive by convention standards, about 150 a night plus taxes. Yep, you pay more for a nice place to sleep, but so far the folks here don’t seem to mind. The event organizers are telling us that we have well over 1200 bodies in attendance this weekend and I’m guessing most of them are staying here too.

So will folks, after dropping more for a nicer hotel, spend more or less money on toys and other goodies in the vendor space? That, dear readers, is the question we do not yet have an answer for.

On that note, I should try and get some rest. Tomorrow will be a long, long day.