From: nebusj-@-rpi-.edu   
      
   	A few times as my father and I waited in this preliminary line   
   the pages warned that a VIP was coming, although my father and I never   
   saw anyone coming in except for other pages and people joining the line.   
   The critical question: was the desk we saw the front of the line,   
   meaning we were in a good spot to be one of the 210 admitted, or did   
   the line wrap around a hallway off of that, potentially hiding hundreds   
   waiting?  We could find out just by walking over and looking, but I   
   didn't want to know.   
      
   	As we waited, my father got a call on his cell phone: my other   
   brother, late of California, who was visiting my mother so they could   
   work out his taxes, had found his camera.  This had gone missing at the   
   end of his and my father's cross-country drive to move home, and my   
   father had taken the blame for this from everyone and taken a lot of   
   harassment --- though not a word from me --- for losing it in his   
   endlessly disorganized garage.  The camera was found, though, in one of   
   the boxes my brother had left with instructions that they were all his   
   things and needed no attention.  My father was blameless in their   
   disposition.  So he was having a good day regardless of whether we got   
   in to the show.   
      
   	Finally we got somewhere around 3 pm and a fresh page told us to   
   have our e-mails and photo identification out as they would be giving   
   tickets out based on the numbers there, and those with VIP reservations   
   please come to this second line.   
      
   	This set off fresh wondering to me: did *I* have a VIP   
   reservation?  At the risk of sounding egotistical I had got my tickets   
   partly by pointing out my experience as an advanced watcher of the show.   
   And the e-mail had a little question mark box where an image had been   
   intended but could not be loaded by OS X Mail.  Did this missing icon   
   mean something?  If so, what?   
      
   	The desk we saw was, indeed, the start of the line, so that we   
   could not have been more than about the 50th people in line.  Very good   
   sign.  We felt a lot better right away.  And we were given tickets,   
   actual physical tickets identical except in color to those I'd got in   
   the mail in the 90s.   
      
   	Also we got wristbands, which were new.  The tickets were   
   numbered which, we were told, would determine our place in the audience.   
   My father and I had number 14.  And we were told we should leave, to   
   return at 4:15 for the admission line.  My father gave me both tickets   
   and wristbands and we thought of what to do for an hour.   
      
   --   
   								Joseph Nebus   
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   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)