Hotel and Registration Deadlines, Plus
\nInformation about Individual Activities
\nDENVER, CO, AUGUST 8, 2012 \u2014 It\u2019s \u201cCrunch Time,\u201d as the
\nsaying goes! The last day to make hotel reservations at the Grand Hyatt Downtown
\nDenver and get the ifCON group rate of $115 is Tues., Aug. 14.
\nAnd the LAST CHANCE TO REGISTER for ifCON Denver
\n2012 is Fri., Aug. 24. In order for ifCON to get proper credit,
\nbe sure to make your hotel reservations through our website,
\nwww.ifcondenver2012.org, where you can also register for the
\nconference itself. To have your name and contact information in
\nthe conference program, you will need to register online by Fri.,
\nAug. 17. If you have questions, contact Conference Chair Alan
\nEsler at jinglesp@msn.com.
\nBelow is a conference overview for those who have not yet registered, as well as for those
\nattending who will need to make choices about their preferred activities in certain time
\nslots. For other information about Denver and beyond, go to www.VisitDenver.com, or
\nstop by their storefront at 16th and California, three blocks from our conference hotel.
\nThursday, August 30
\nRegistration opens in the Hospitality Suite, sponsored by PFLAG
\n(Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays), on the
\nlobby level of the Grand Hyatt at 3:00 p.m., and we hope to see
\nthe majority of you at that time. We are so excited to be hosting
\nyou! At 6:00 p.m. we\u2019ll be on our way to the historic mining
\ntown of Black Hawk for a five-hour trip to Isle of Capri Casino
\n(back at 11:00). For only $20, you\u2019ll get $10 in tokens, a buffet
\ndinner, and the roundtrip bus. Now THAT\u2019S A BARGAIN!
\nFriday, August 31
\nMorning features a walking tour with one
\nof Denver\u2019s most famous historians, Phil
\nGoodstein. He is the author of numerous
\nbooks about Denver\u2019s past, and we have
\nasked him to include as much Asian
\nhistory as possible. The other morning
\noption is Denver\u2019s Downtown Aquarium,
\non the banks of the South Platte River,
\nwhose freshwater and marine aquaria total
\napproximately one million US gallons.
\n1
\nFriday afternoon offers a choice of two Denver-only attractions:
\nThe \u201cUnsinkable\u201d Molly Brown House Museum just east of the
\nState Capitol OR a free tour of Rockmount Ranch Wear in LoDo.
\nThe museum, which offers guided tours by docents in period
\ncostume, currently features a special exhibit in commemoration
\nof the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic.
\nRockmount was founded by Jack A. Weil, who worked daily until
\nhis death in 2008 at age 107. Jack was to Western wear what
\nHenry Ford was to the car; he introduced the first commercially
\nmade shirts with snaps and bolo ties. The Western shirts worn
\nin Brokeback Mountain were from Rockmount Ranch Wear,
\nand the two lovers\u2019 shirts that Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger)
\nretrieves after Jack Twist\u2019s death (Jake Gyllenhaal) were
\nauctioned for charity. Gay activist Tom Gregory, life partner of
\nGeoCities founder David Bohnett, paid $101,100.51! At the time
\n(Feb. 2006), Gregory told Gay.com that he will never separate
\nthe shirts and he won\u2019t let anyone try them on.
\nAfter dinner on your own, this day of decision-making activities ends with ifCON Denver
\n2012\u2019s Opening Reception at the Grand Hyatt, sponsored by Visit Denver.
\nSaturday, September 1
\nA full day is in store for Saturday with a bus trip, departing the
\nhotel at 7:00 a.m., to the Royal Gorge (the grand canyon of the
\nArkansas River), home to one of of the world\u2019s highest suspension
\nbridges. This is the area where we\u2019ll be whitewater rafting
\nand horseback riding and\/or have a chance to go over the bridge.
\nThe Arkansas is rated one of the top
\nwhitewater rivers in the entire country,
\nbut the rafting is open to those of all skill
\nlevels (i.e., no previous experience required).
\nAnd let your \u201cinner Brokeback
\nMountain self\u201d out with a morning or
\nafternoon of horseback riding.
\nWe\u2019ll have lunch in small groups,
\nsponsored by Beta Nightclub in lower
\ndowntown (LoDo), which is offering free entrance (waiver of the
\n$15 cover charge) on Saturday night to those showing their
\nconference ID badge. PFLAG will be providing snacks for the
\nbus ride back to Denver; then dinner on your own at 7:30 p.m.
\nSunday, September 2
\nAnother day of choices begins with either the Denver Art Museum OR the annual Taste
\nof Colorado festival, both in Denver\u2019s Civic Center area at the south end of downtown\u2019s
\n2
\n16th Street Mall. The Art Museum is famous for its American
\nIndian art, a collection of 16,000+ works representing over 100
\ntribes across North America \u2014 the first art museum in the U.S.
\nto collect American Indian arts, exhibiting these items as art
\nrather than anthropological artifacts. The museum\u2019s Pre-
\nColumbian collection is also outstanding \u2014 and expansive \u2014
\nrepresenting nearly every major culture in Mesoamerica, lower
\nCentral America and South America. The North Building
\n(1971) was designed by Geo Ponti, and the Frederic Hamilton
\nAddition (2006) by Daniel Libeskind.
\nAfternoon means more choices: the History Colorado Center
\non the southeast edge of Civic Center OR the Denver Botanic
\nGardens in the Capitol Hill gayborhood. History Colorado\u2019s
\nnew home is a 200,000-square-foot LEED-certified building
\ncompleted in April 2012 at a cost of $110 million. It\u2019s a great
\nplace to learn about Denver\u2019s and Colorado\u2019s Wild West past!
\nThe gardens are ranked in the top-5
\nmost visited in the country. Shofu-en,
\nthe recently expanded Japanese Garden, includes a new Bonsai
\nPavilion (open, but still in development). This year\u2019s special
\nexhibit, Kizuna: West Meets East, features large site-specific
\nbamboo works by installation artists Tetsunori Kawana and
\nStephen Talasnik. Bring $15 cash for combination group rate
\n($2 off) and roundtrip bus fare.
\nThe LYCI\/IFA Annual Meeting will take place 4:00\u20136:00 p.m.
\nin the Hospitality Suite. Then it\u2019s time for the Grand Banquet
\nand our headliner entertainment, comedian Dat Phan, winner
\nof NBC\u2019s original \u201cLast Comic Standing\u201d (2003). Born in Saigon
\nand raised in San Diego, Dat Phan lampoons stereotypes in his
\ncomedy, and shares his experience of being a regular American
\nguy with a Vietnamese heritage, and we understand that he is
\nlooking forward to playing to a gay audience.
\nMonday, September 3
\nAnd ifCON Denver 2012 concludes with a
\nFarewell Luncheon at Fogo de Chao Brazilian
\nSteakhouse. Conference Chair Alan Esler
\nreports that the Latino waiters are as outstanding as the food!
\nOdds \u2018n\u2019 Ends
\nIf you wish to share a room at the hotel, go to the ifCONDENVER2012
\nFacebook page and let others know. For those staying an extra day,
\nsome of us will be doing the tour of the U.S. Mint at 8:00 a.m. Tues.,
\nSept. 4; to sign up: www.usmint.gov (click \u201cTours\u201d & \u201cDenver Mint\u201d).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hotel and Registration Deadlines, Plus Information about Individual Activities DENVER, CO, AUGUST 8, 2012 \u2014<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/afchicago.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/afchicago.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/afchicago.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/afchicago.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/afchicago.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1343"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/afchicago.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1343\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1345,"href":"https:\/\/afchicago.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1343\/revisions\/1345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/afchicago.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/afchicago.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/afchicago.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}