[meteorite-list] Tucson Show, Party, Harvey Awards, Venue, etc.

[Notkin]

Dear Listees:

Greetings from sunny Tucson where it is a pleasant 61 degrees.

I have today spoken with the manager of the Arizona Plaza (formerly the 
Vagabond Inn; formerly the Ramada Inn University) in Tucson, and he has 
confirmed that they WILL be open during the 2005 Tucson show, although 
the long-term future of the hotel in uncertain. Show veterans will know 
this hotel well, as it's been the home of Blaine Reed Meteorites for 
many years. Thanks to Bill Mason for letting us know about this.

Accommodation is available in the $100/night range, so if any of you 
are having trouble finding rooms, this might be a good solution. It's a 
bit pricey, but so are all hotels during showtime. The Arizona Plaza is 
very well located for show events, and is definitely a fun place to 
stay. Contact me off-List if you need booking info.

Regarding the Sixth Annual Meteor Mayhem Birthday Bash and Harvey 
Awards:

As previously posted, we will not be holding the 2005 party at the La 
Fuente restaurant, which has been its home for the past three years. As 
we now regularly have well over 100 guests, organizing a dinner at La 
Fuente, or any restaurant, is problematic at best. Every year, some of 
our guests have been unhappy with the food service; there were problems 
with customers' checks, etc., and we don't want to deal with that any 
more. My co-host Steve Arnold IMB and I are, therefore, planning on 
moving away from a sit-down dinner situation to a more 
informal/fun/social event with bar service. To that end we are 
considering holding the 2005 party and Harvey Awards ceremony in either 
the lounge bar or the ballroom of the Arizona Plaza.

The event will take place on the evening of Friday, Feb. 4, 2005. On 
the same night -- at 7 pm -- our good friends at AAPS ( the Association 
of Applied Paleontological Sciences  http://www.aaps.net  ) will be 
holding their annual charity auction and dinner in the adjacent Mineral 
and Fossil Co-op. Many folks would like to attend the auction AND the 
party, so we are considering having a slightly later start for the 
party (with the Harveys presented around 9 pm) so that those who wish 
to have dinner with AAPS can do so, and then walk next door for the 
Harvey Awards. Dinner at the AAPS event will be catered by fine Italian 
restaurant The Barefoot Contessa, and is available to non-AAPS members 
for a very reasonable fee (reservations are requested). It's likely to 
be an excellent dinner and is always a most enjoyable event.

Sorry for the overly-detailed post. I mention all of this here because 
I'd like to get some feedback from those planning on attending the 
party. Does this sound like a good solution? I'd appreciate some 
on-List comments, especially from those of you who have attended the 
party and Harvey Awards in the past.

We're trying to put together something that will work for everyone!

It's less than six weeks to showtime, and we are looking forward to 
seeing many of you here soon.


Thanks and regards to all,

Geoff N.
www.notkin.net
www.paleozoic.org