Once Upon July 6-8...
On A Year Of 2000 And 1 A.D....
There Was A Con Known As Gateway Scifi...
Gypsy And I Was There!
Me Too! Woooooo!Crowtus


And now, a word from our webmaster:
In July of 2000, I had the great pleasure of attending a science fiction convention which played host to the wonderful antics of Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett, and Mary Jo Pehl. I had a grand time as did everyone else and I met many outstanding people with which I am still friends. One of them was Joey Riley. Joey is a bot builder who is about my age, is quite humorous, and is your basic friend down the street. Anyway... Due to lack of funds, I was not able to attend Gateway 2001, but Joey however, was. I asked him if he would write up a con log and take pictures for a feature on my website, and he greatfully obliged. From what I've been told, it was an awesome convention, and I think Joey did an equally awesome job covering it, as I'm sure you'll feel too.
Enjoy -
Toolmaster Jeff "Jef" Zehnder, #95033
July 22, 2001



Welcome to my adventure in St Louis for Gateway 3, at the Airport Hilton. My Dad packed my Crow in some heavy duty cardboard so Crow would still be intact when we got there. We decided to fly in on Thursday to wait for Trace and Frank, just to make sure the airlines didn't screw up and ship us to Afghanistan. We got in to the St. Louis airport - Lambert Int, and got the luggage. Then we went off to the hotel and checked in.

Friday, July 6, 2001 -

On the first day of I got the passes and went upstairs to get crow all ready. Oh and the elevator, it actually moved unlike Jeff's elevator at the Henry. Sorry, I had to mention that. Jor And Mike I got my Crow and went down stairs and to the dealers room. There I found Jor, a fellow bot builder and active participant on the botbuilders egroup, and Jor's friend Mike. They took me to their room so they could fix up Crow. (Jor made my Crow and Crow was having mental problems.) Jor managed to patch Crow up so we went down stairs parading around with Crow. The Dealers Room We went back to the dealers room, which, by the way, was much smaller and more cramped than it was last year. There we found MST Anon with his Crow. Still, somewhat unaware of his actual name, we started wandering around with our Crow's, being bombarded every 5 minutes for a photograph. Other than that nothing really interesting happen on Friday except the Con Open and the open MST'ing. They showed the Gumby short and "This Island Earth". I left half way through "This Island Earth" because I couldn't take it any more. Went back to my room and about 1:00 AM or a little later the hotel announced that there was a fire in the building and said we had to evacuate. I grabbed the only thing that mattered and ran outside. So my Dad, Crow and I left the building and were surrounded by hundreds of Con goers and slightly agitated hotel attendees in their pajamas. We were let back in after the fire department came and made sure the building was not actually on fire and found out that it was one of the convention people on the 5th floor who had pulled the alarm… although Trace initially claimed responsibility.

Saturday, July 7, 2001 -

Saturday was the best day. I walked around the hotel with crow in my grubby little hands, and I saw James Doohan. Mr. Scott and Mr. Robot. My father wanted me to take a picture of him so I got my camera with Crow in my hand. Now holding both Crow and a camera was a little difficult, so one of Doohan's helpers said "here lemme hold him." The helper shoved Crow in Doohan's face so I got a picture with Crow and James Doohan looking at each other…really funny. The Mads So I waited around until it was the MST Q&A. At the Q&A Trace and Frank showed a Gypsy they had there that they were going to auction off. This con Q&A was held a little different than last years Gateway. Rather than Kevin... or say Frank, run around with a mic shoving it in peoples faces when they had questions, there was a microphone that you just went up to and stood in line to ask your question. A lot of the questions asked during this Q&A were kind of stupid, but it was still tons of fun The Mads And Me Once that was done they were signing stuff and I got Crow signed and all my other stuff (And Jeff's book), I also got back in line and took a picture with Trace and Frank. Went back to the room and set the heavy Crow down. Then I went downstairs and saw that Trace and Frank were leaving for the day, I went up to both of them and said "You guys really made it worth coming here thanks a lot for being here". Then Trace said "Oh well, your welcome where are you from?" I then said "Fairfax Virginia" and he extended his hand and we exchanged pleasantries and Trace pondered, "Wow, that's a long way to drive" I told him, "Well, we took a plane here" then Trace proceeded to make a grunting noise as he wiped his hands on his pants. It was a good laugh. Then I went back to my room and stayed there for a bit. A Regular Joe, Crow, Crow, and 'Anon'ther Temp Worker Nothing MST was planned for the rest of the day but near 11:00 I went downstairs with my Crow, and I met up with Anon. We had our pictures taken about 6500 times, and I must say, I still have a red spot on my retina from all the flashes. We were parading around with our Crows we then saw Frank in the room with the vending machines. He was attempting to get some candy out of one of them, but was having trouble getting the machine to accept his dollar bill. Anon offered him a crisp fresh new dollar (That he probably keeps just for occasions where he meets celebrities at vending machines.) and Frank said, "Oh, no thanks, It's so hot in there that all the candy bars are melted." (The hotels architects for some reason decided the vending machine room didn't need any AC whatsoever.) So Anon and I stood there talking about MST3K stuff with some other MSTies, then it was off to bed for another day.

Sunday, July 8, 2001 -

Frank putting his patented scribble on a postcard Sunday wasn't too exciting except for the second Q&A. It was done the same way as Saturday, only with much smarter questions. But I got everything I need signed and I saw Trace and Frank. I went downstairs with my crow to say good bye to everybody. We left the Hilton, boarded the plane, and went home.

- Joey Riley


More Pictures!
Joey and Crow at the Q&A Panel.
Here is Crow and a meatpuppet watching the Saturday panel. Crow is just waiting for the right moment to spring up to the stage and foil his former captors.
Frank Conniff
It's Frank from the Saturday afternoon autograph session! Yes, his hair really looks like that. (Note the sign in front of him just in case you were confused as to what his name was... (So... your Doctor Forrestor right?)
Frank and Trace signing Servo
Trace and Frank at the Saturday afternoon autograph session. Trace is inspecting Servo's areaological place to make sure all parts are present. (We wouldn't want a hemaphrobot would we?)

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Written By Joey Riley And Edited By Jeff Zehnder.
Mystery Science Theater 3000 ©1989 - 2002 Best Brains Inc.
Site Content ©2001 Joey Riley
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Gateway Scifi Con is assembles by Mary Stadler and her wonderful crew of St. Louis cronies. No misfortune, harm, of even unnessesary disgruntledness is wished upon them, in fact, we all love them dearly. Thanks for Gateway. If any party holding claim to anything on the this page would like content removed, please contact the webmaster and he will cheerfully oblige.
Don't sue us, that wouldn't be very nice.
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Email Gateway 2001 Page Chairperson - Joey Riley