The Blood Drive Where Everything Went Wrong
On Saturday, November 29th, we held the Loscon Blood Drive. It was called, “The Blood Drive at the end of the Hallway”. This was the second year Loscon was held at the LAX Hilton, and we’re still getting used to the maze-like layout.
But certain things changed within the American Red Cross. For example, the truck use to arrive an hour before the nurses. Now it’s scheduled to arrive at the same time as the nurses. Kris and I were to meet the truck at 8:00 am. The usually beat us there, but this time we arrived a bit early and no one was there. By 8:10 am, I was getting worried. Did they cancel our blood drive like they did two years ago?
I was about to email our contact when she walked into the room. Through some mix-up with this new scheduling, the truck was going to arrive at 8:30 am. Okay, so we waited. And waited. We went downstairs to look for the truck. We found it – with no driver. The driver didn’t know where the loading dock was and went into the hotel to ask. At this point, some of the nurses were beginning to show up. So three of us looked for the driver. Eventually we found him and led him to the loading dock.
Now, the convention usually pays for the nurse’s parking, but one of the nurses had a van that was too tall to fit into the hotel underground parking. The hotel parking is cramped, small and claustrophobic. She had to go offsite to find parking and we would have to find a way to pay for it.
In the meantime, the driver and some nurses loaded supplies into a service elevator – and got stuck for ten minutes. We learned this when we were in the blood drive room 
wondering where they were.
We finally opened the blood drive a half an hour late. We did have some early signups, but they waited patiently. Our hotel liaison was also able to get cash ($59.00) for the nurse that had to park offsite.
I can’t say everything went wrong. We did reach our goal of 25 units. I had been diagnosed as anemic two months ago and had been taking iron, so I asked the nurses to check my iron level. It was good, so I was the 25th unit.
Hopeful, next year the Red Cross will be used to its new scheduling and the hotel elevators will work.
Dennis
300th blog completed. YAYYYYY!!!
Second Steampunk novel: 17,747 words. Chapter Five done.
Second Steampunk screenplay: 157 pages.
First Steampunk screenplay: Updated with notes from the novelization.
First Steampunk novel: 77,546 words. Completed until an editor reviews it.
Third Steampunk screenplay: 38 pages.
“In making Christmas cookies, Dennis tried a new recipe, ‘Santa’s Peanut Butter Squares’. https://www.lordbyronskitchen.com/santas-peanut-butter-squares/
These came out very good. Mind you, it is a soft, sheet cookie. So don’t be surprised when they don’t harden when they cool. I’m sure we’ll be making these next year. Merry Christmas!” – Vincent Reinhart
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