Gun Blogger Rendezvous Room Reservations

NOTE: Be sure to read ALL the posts above this one regarding room reservations. A special Thursday at half price rate has been added.

---

The contract has now been signed with Circus Circus in Reno for the Gun Blogger Rendezvous, and a block of rooms has been reserved for us. The room rate is $89.00 per night, double occupancy. This does not include the taxes, which are over 20%, between sales tax and other local taxes. There is free wireless internet available in all of the rooms, the hospitality rooms, and even at the dinner itself.

To reserve your accommodations give them a call, and be sure to quote the group code "IGBR".

Toll free number: 800-648-5010
Group Code: IGBR
Cutoff date to make reservations: Sept. 6, 2006

This is ONLY to reserve your room. You still have to register for the Rendezvous itself, which is done separately by downloading, filling in, and sending in the Rendezvous Registration from HERE.

You do not have to be a blogger to attend the Rendezvous. If you are a regular reader of the gun and Mil blogs and follow our goings on, you are also welcome to attend. On the registration form just write "Not a blogger" where it asks for your blog's name. Who knows, after attending the Rendezvous, you just might decide to start blogging yourself!

Once you make your reservations, please send me an email at

b l o g (AT) w h i d b e y (DOT) c o m

and let me know, so I can get you on the email notification/update list.

Thanks, and we'll see you in Reno!

Gun Blogger Rendezvous Registration

We've had the entire corporate staff of Completely Castle hard at work arranging all of the details for the Gun Blogger Rendezvous, with the exception of KeeWee, who's been busy in Completely Gardens, and Rocket the cat, who was smart enough to go find a quiet place to take a nap.

The rest of us (me?) have been working like crazy, and it's really starting to come together nicely. All of the details for Rendezvous registration have now been finalized.

Here's the details:

Registration for the Gun Blogger Rendezvous is $50 per person. This covers the following:

1. Use of the Circus Circus Tahoe Hospitality Room on Friday and Saturday night from 5pm to 11pm. We can bring our own beverages and munchies as we like. This will give us a common meet-n-greet/ hangout for our private use.

2. A sit-down dinner in the Private dining Mandalay rooms 4 & 5 (combined capacity 150) That's it in the picture. There will be three menu choices, Roast Prime Rib of Beef, Barbeque Salmon, or Chicken Mesquite.

3. The balance goes to covering (partially) the travel, accommodation, and dinner expenses for our Guest of Honor Dan McKown and a buddy of Dan's who will be traveling with Dan as Dan is confined to a wheel chair. Any leftover funds will be donated to Dan McKown's medical, recovery, and rehabilitation fund.

Here's the procedure for registering for the Gun Blogger Rendezvous:

1. Download and print out the registration form from HERE.

2. Make out a check for the registration amount to GUNBLOGGER RENDEZVOUS.

3. Mail the registration and check to:

Magaero Systems / GBR
P.O. Box 490
Freeland, WA. 98249

All checks will be deposited into an escrow account at Barrett Escrow in Freeland, Washington for safe-keeping until time to send it as one check to the Circus Circus.

Be sure to keep a copy of the registration for your records. I will confirm receipt by email, so if you don't get confirmation within a week, drop me an email at

b l o g (at) w h i d b e y (dot) c o m

and let me know so we can track it down.

If you will not be able to attend, but would like to contribute towards Dan and his friend's transportation to and from the Rendezvous, their hotel room, and their dinner, you can note that on the Registration and send a check to help out with those expenses. As I said above, any extra funds will go to Dan's recovery fund.

I should have the information on the Circus Circus hotel room reservations for you in the next few days, so stay tuned.

Guest of Honor -Dan McKown

We've been talking for some time about lining up a guest speaker for our Saturday night dinner at the Rendezvous, but I wasn't quite comfortable with it being just a guest speaker. I really wanted someone more along the lines of a "Guest of Honor", someone who could perhaps say a few words after the dinner, but that wasn't the main reason for their attendance. Someone who, through their actions, in some way managed to make the world a better place for all of us. Someone who embodies the American spirit, the kind of a person who made America what it is today.

Once I had redefined it in this way, one name instantly came to mind. Brendan (Dan) McKown. Dan has agreed to be our Guest of Honor!

If the name rings a bell, but you just can't quite place it, Dan was the fellow who was shot five times while trying to stop the nut-case who was shooting up a mall in Tacoma, Washington. It's easy to second-guess the situation after the fact, particularly when you only have parts of the story, but the bottom line is that several people were shot, then Dan intervened, and was himself shot several times. Most importantly, no one else was injured after Dan intervened. Dan is now confined to a wheelchair.

Dan is a man of strong faith, and of many talents. He is a stand-up comedian and the founder of a comedy troupe. He has a book well underway. When the situation arose where he could have sought a safe place, or put himself at risk for the safety and protection of total strangers, he chose to take the risk. That makes Dan a hero in my book, and I'm pretty strict on definitions when it comes to something like this.

There is a good article in the Seattle P-I newspaper about Dan that you should read so you will know a little bit more about what sort of a guy Dan is. We need more people like Dan.

I will be posting more information and details as they arise.

Stay Tuned!

Latest Updates - Help Needed!

I need some help from some of you out there who either live in Reno, or visit there regularly. We need to set up an informal committee to identify activities for the attendees to the Gun Blogger Rendezvous, particularly for Saturday.

The idea is to put together a list of activities so people can plan in advance what they want to see and where they want to go. This list should not only include the local attractions, but it should also include the attractions related to shooting sports. Nearby gun ranges, good gun shops, firearms collections, firearms manufacturers, training facilities, whatever is there that sounds interesting. I'm not that familiar with what's available in the Reno area, so that's why I'm asking for your help.

If you have any good info to add to the list, please email it to me at

b l o g (at) w h i d b e y (dot) c o m

It would help if you put "Reno Attractions" in the email title.

Once we get this list together, I'll post it here on the Gunblogger Rendezvous site for everyone's use.

Thanks!!

More on Rooms, Dinner and getting there!

We are starting out with a block of 25 double occupancy rooms, but lots more are available, and we can expand that number if needed.

I have received the contract from the Circus Circus, and want to re-read it once more before signing it and sending it back, in case I can think of any questions that I should ask first. I have to pony up $500 out of my own pocket as a deposit, but once we get enough signed up for the dinner they will refund my deposit. (WHEW!)

Our dining room, hospitality room and accommodations are all in the same wing of the hotel, and there is a bar also in that wing, one floor down from our hospitality room. We can bring our own refreshments and munchies for the hospitality room.

We have reserved enough tables for the sit-down dinner on Saturday night for 150 people. That's probably more than we need, but we can reduce that without penalty as long as we do it over sixty days in advance.

KeeWee and I are planning on getting there a day early (Thursday) to make sure everything is under control and "Murphy" is locked in a closet so we don't have to deal with him!

Rivrdog is planning on driving a 12 passenger van from Portland, Oregon to Reno and back, if there are enough people interested in joining in and splitting the expenses. You can contact him directly at his blog for more info, and I'll be posting more on it too.

If you are planning on driving to the Gun Blogger Rendezvous, and would be willing to pick up a few other folks along the way to share the cost, leave info in a comment to this post, and I'll do a full post to see if we can match up drivers and riders.

That's it for now, but stay tuned!!

Latest Blogger Rendezvous News

Things are moving along nicely for the Blogger Rendezvous in Reno this Fall, although there are a zillion details to be worked out.

The way it works is that you will arrange for your accommodations directly with the Circus Circus, and there will be a group rate for the rooms. More on this procedure in the very near future.

The dinner on Saturday night, and the hospitality "Meet-and-Greet" hangout rooms on Friday and Saturday nights will be paid separately, directly to me, then I send the money to the hotel in one check to cover it.

I have made arrangements with a local escrow company to set up an escrow account for your checks for safe keeping. (That way you don't have to worry about me spending it on guns!)

It looks like the dinner menu will be a choice (you have to choose when you register) of either a full prime rib dinner, or a salmon dinner with all the usual stuff you'd expect.

It looks like the room rate will be $89 per night double occupancy, and the dinner and the hospitality rooms for two nights will run $50 per person, or thereabouts.

Gunblogger Rendezvous News

---

I've got lots of hot news on the Reno Gunblogger Rendezvous. I've been working with the nice folks at the Circus Circus hammering out the details, and although there is still a lot to be done, including signing the contract to secure the facilities we need, we've made lots of progress, and things are going smoothly.

First off, the location will be at the Circus Circus Hotel and Casino in Reno.

Second, the dates will be Friday evening, October 6th., Saturday, October 7th., and checking out on Sunday the 8th. These dates are locked in, so get them marked on your calendar right now, before you forget! We moved the dates up a few weeks, both to allow for better weather for those driving, and to get the best set of facilities for our needs.

We will have a BYOB/BYOM (bring your own munchies) hospitality room Friday night to get together and plan our activities for Saturday. The hospitality room has a great view of the Reno skyline.

Saturday night will be a sit-down dinner with several menu choices. We will also have a short after dinner talk by a speaker yet to be determined, and introduction of the bloggers in attendance.

After dinner the plan is to have the hospitality room also available for our use.

There will be some special room pricing available for the attendees.

Wireless internet will be free, and available in all the guest rooms, and most likely in the hospitality rooms too, so live event blogging will be possible.

Anyone whose cell phone rings while the speaker is speaking will be shot on the spot and their body thrown off the roof. (Not really, but I think you get the point......)

As I get more info, I'll keep you all posted.