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[27 Nov 2009|12:29pm] |
Back from Orange County, NY. Had a great Thanksgiving with my mom's family. My cousin J. did a great Thanksgiving feast with turkey with the traditional family stuffy recipe, a sweet potato, apple and cranberry casserole, fresh homemade cranberry sauce, little mini pumpkin muffins made from pumpkins she grew, and since my other cousin J. and his son are vegans, they brought a tofurkey and J's wife N. made a really good rice and lentil dish. I tried the tofurkey. Won't be doing that again. It was like eating a tough somewhat stale rye bread.
Had a great time playing with my cousin's two standard poodles, Katie and Mason, and labradoodle, Riley. Riley is a big clumsy goofball. Katie and Mason are much more dignified. There were also 4 barn cats: Mr. Grey, Max, Fat Maggie (who has not yet started bulking up for the winter) and Lexie. Lexie was the friendliest. We also got to interact with the two horses, Val and Del, and the two ponies, Eclipse and Chip (who is a recent acquisition and needs to go on a diet). Both Val and Chip came over to the fence to wuffle at me and let me pet them, and Val tried to eat my sweater vest.
At one point while we were waiting for the turkey to finish coking, a huge flock on crows started landing in the trees and all over my cousin's front lawn (there had to be at least 3 dozen on the lawn) and cawing and making a lot of noise. So after asking permission, other cousin J. shouted "release the hounds" and let the dogs out. That quickly took care of the problem.
My cousin's son B. has had yet another growth spurt and his voice has changed. I think he's about 5' 8" now, and he's starting to get quite broadshouldered now. Given that he's only 13, I'm guessing that he's not through growing.
The drive back to the hotel was a bit creepy because none of the roads were lighted and it was really foggy.
This morning everyone took advantage of the really good breakfast buffet at the Courtyard Marriott in Middletown and then my uncle and aunt drove my mom and me home. There was no traffic and it only took about an hour and forty minutes.
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| Back from Philcon |
[22 Nov 2009|07:06pm] |
Had some success at the Capclave table this morning. Sold six memberships. Yay.
Went to the "Recommended Reading" panel, which was very entertaining. The only downside being that the audience barely outnumbered the panelists. The "Explaining Why It's Good" panel was interesting, but diverged radically from the topic, or at least it diverged from the topic as I understood it from the description.
Next year's GOH at Philcon is supposed to be Peter S. Beagle, so I will probably be going. Plus, as chair for the 2011 Capclave, I do feel obligated to go and try to sell memberships. Given my fondness for Beagle's books, I will make more of an effort to have other people do shifts at the table, assuming WSFAns will actually be there, as the number still attending appears to have dropped by quite a bit.
Drive back from Cherry Hill was uneventful, and the metro red line train arrived quickly despite the single tracking between Grosvener and Medical Center.
The apartment did not blow up or spring a leak or anything while I was gone, which is good. Of course, it also did not clean itself.
Must do laundry and then begin packing for NYC for Thanksgiving.
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| More Philcon |
[21 Nov 2009|11:44pm] |
Spent most of today sitting at the Capclave table. One benefit of having an adorable dodo puppet and a cute plush dodo is that people will come over for a closer look and then they tend to be polite and listen to your spiel now that you've sucked them in with cuteness. Gave out around 50 flyers/registration forms.
Was relieved by ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) samthereaderman mid-afternoon and went to the L.A. Banks reading which was more of a fun interactive talk with a short reading portion at the end. And that's not meant in a negative way. It was a very enjoyable hour. Later after I packed up the Capclave table I went to the "Who is Your Favorite Forgotten Author" panel, which was quite interesting. John Maberry talked about how the movie adaptations of Richard Matheson's work, even though they weren't very good, had caused an author who had been all but forgotten to become popular again, since quite a few moviegoers decided to go back to the original source material after seeing the movie.
Spent around 2 1/2 hours at parties this evening. I-Con, the Chicago in 2012 Bid and the Raleigh NASFiC all had open parties. The NASFiC had fried chicken, BBQ pork, cole slaw, sweet tea and pecan pie. It was delicious and saved me having to buy dinner. Ravencon had alcohol and was therefore a closed party. I had one of Mike Pederson's specialty drinks, which always have quite a kick, so I will probably be going to bed soon. I spent the bulk of my time at the NASFiC party and the Ravencon party, esp. since I ended up engaging in a nearly hour-long conversation with some folks from Delaware at Mike's party.
Tomorrow I want to go to the "Recommended Reading" panel in the morning and the "Explaining Why It's Good" panel in the afternoon (I'm hoping to pick up some tips that will improve my reviews for SFRevu) and I'll spend the rest of my time at the Capclave table.
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| Philcon |
[20 Nov 2009|11:49pm] |
I'm here at Philcon, in my hotel room taking advantage of the free wifi. samthereaderman very nicely gave me a ride up.
Checking into the room went very smoothly. Picking up my badge at registration went very smoothly. Nothing else did. The hotel may or may not have had Philcon's set up period doublebooked with another function. End result, nothing was really set up at 5pm except the dealers room (and by nothing was set up, I mean function space didn't have chairs and stuff). Also, the program books and the pocket program had not yet arrived, which meant that the information desk people were working overtime sitting at the table with a laptop looking up panel locations for people who knew in advance what panels they wanted to go to.
Have thus far not bought anything in the dealers' room. I suspect that tomorrow I will succumb and buy the Hanukah themed t-shirt with the yarmulka wearing dragon playing with a dreidel while lighting the menorah by breathing fire on it.
Went to a very good copyright lecture by Cory Doctorow at the PSFS meeting.
Hopefully tomorrow the art show will be fully set up. Will probably attend the midnight reading of the Eye of Argon.
Tomorrow I will be spending most of the day sitting at my half of a fan table attempting to sell Capclave memberships and the Harry Turtledove book Reincarnations while the majority of congoers walk by ignoring me. At least I'll be in good company with the Chicago in 2012 bid, the Raleigh NASFiC and the Reno Worldcon.
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| October reading |
[15 Nov 2009|03:59pm] |
158. Turning the Tables by Rita Rudner
159. Love, Love, and Love by Sandra Bernhard
160. Damage Control by J.A. Jance
161. Turn Coat by Jim Butcher
162. She Came by the Book by Mary Wings
163. Mean Streets by Jim Butcher, Simon R. Green, Kat Richardson, and Thomas E. Sniegoski
164. The Grass-Cutting Sword by Catherynne Valente
165. Death of a Witch by M.C. Beaton
166. Quidditch Through the Ages by Kennilworthy Whisp
167. Reincarnations by Harry Turtledove
168. Sea Glass by Maria V. Snyder
169. Slay and Rescue by John Moore
I'm a big fan of Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden books, which are getting progressively darker, so I enjoyed Turn Coat and Butcher's entry in the Mean Streets anthology. However, my favorite entry in Mean Streets was Kat Richardson's "The Third Death of the Little Clay Dog," which I liked enough that i will probably go out and read the rest of the Greywalker series (just what I need, another series to follow).
The Grass-Cutting Sword was, like much of Catherynne Valente's ouevre, deeply weird. Slay and Rescue was another light-hearted comic take on fairy tales by John Moore. I think at this point I have read all of his novels to date, which is too bad, as he's always good for a laugh.
Reincarnations was the collection of Turtledove short stories published by the WSFA Press in conjunction with turtledove being the GoH at this year's SF convention, Capclave (http://www.capclave.org). I had not read many of his short stories before and this collection of one original story plus a number of never before reprinted stories gives a nice overview of his work. You can buy a copy here: http://www.wsfapressbooks.org
Given all the last minute stuff that needed to get done for Capclave, among other things, I did not have a lot of time for reading in October.
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| WFC |
[14 Nov 2009|10:59pm] |
And once again I'm posting a con report well after the con. I got sick. So sue me. (And no, I didn't pick up con crud or swine flu, both of which seem to have been circulating at the con, judging by various people's post con reports. I managed to pick up a cold on the flight out to California. Stupid recycled air.)
One of the things I like about World Fantasy is the readings. Highlights for me were readings by Kij Johnson and N. K. Jemisin (liked her reading enough to snag an ARC of The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms to review for SFRevu). I went to several other readings, some of people I was unfamiliar with, and others of authors I have passing familiarity with, like Jay Lake.
I thought the Google Books settlement panel was quite good. The only downside was the ex Google employee in the audience who kept interrupting to insist that the panelists were all mischaracterizing Google which was entering into the project with absolutely no profit motive whatsoever. Yeah, let's all call shenanigans on that one. Even if Google's original intention was simply to create the electronic equivalent of the Library at Alexandria, even a cursory look at the filings and various writings on what Google was actually proposing, make it very clear that Google wants to make money off the project while paying authors as little as possible.
The Vandermeer on Vandermeer GOH talk where Ann and Jeff Vandermeer interviewed each other was a lot of fun. The Garth Nix GOH talk was quite good as well. The art show was smaller than I expected, but quite good. There was a Lela Dowling watercolor I was tempted to bid on, but it quickly went out of my price range.
I did not end up buying many books in the dealers room, in part because a couple of books I was interested in were OOP and out of my price range and also a bit in part due to the fact that the person in charge of getting the freebies for the goodie bag did a truly spectacular job in getting lots of very good free books. So one of the few things I ended up buying was a really beautiful moss agate necklace. And yay to the concomm for working out an arrangement with USPS where on Saturday and Sunday a mini P.O. was opened at the con for people to either send books home priority mail flat rate or in plain boxes via media mail. I opted for priority mail flat rate and the freebies took up 3 of the second smallest size boxes.
One thing WFC does really well are its receptions. The food is always excellent. So I went to the art show reception and the meet and greet/autographing orgy reception. At the mass autographing session, I somehow managed to miss Lisa Goldstein, which was annoying as she does not seem to attend conventions regularly and I really wanted to get my copy of The Red Magician signed. On the plus side, Anna Tambour had come to the con all the way from Australia, so I was able to get my copy of Spotted Lily signed, and I was able to get Jane Lindskold to sign her story in Future Washington and John Shirley to sign his entry in Newer York.
Saturday night there was an absolutely fabulous party in the form of a Victorian tea to celebrate the book launch of Soulless by Gail Carriger. I did not manage to hit all the parties Saturday night as my cold was really starting to bother me and the rather nice exotic theme drink of mostly various forms of alcohol I had at the tea pretty much finished the job and made me exhausted so I ended up calling it an early night at around 10:30pm.
Sunday I did not attend the remainder of programming at the con. Instead I loaded up on decongestants and took Caltrain from San Jose to San Francisco and then caught the N Judah Muni Metro to Cole and Carl and spent the afternoon with my brother and his family. My sister-in-law's family were up for the weekend as well. We all went to the Park chalet restaurant at Ocean Beach for lunch, then put Heidi's grandparents in a cab to the airport and then the rest of us spent a couple hours at the beach building sand forts and then went back to the house and helped my nephew put together some jigsaw puzzles and watched some dvds (a Kung-fu Panda cartoon and the America Rocks section of the Schoolhouse Rock dvd). Then we got my nephew ready for bed and read him some bedtime stories. I ended up taking a cab to the airport rather than taking the metro and BART because while it cost more, the cab ride would only take 20 minutes but going via public transportation would take at least 1 1/2 hours. I opted for spending more money since it meant I could spent more time with my relatives. I was on the same redeye flight as samthereaderman.
By the time I got home, my cold was in full bloom and was totally kicking my ass (not really being able to sleep on the flight home didn't help), so I ended up more or less taking to my bed for two days. I gave up using tissues and went through a whole roll of toilet paper blowing my nose. And when I wasn't completely congested, I was coughing up a lung. On the plus side, the total lack of appetite meant I ended up losing three pounds and after two really miserable days I felt much, much better. And since I'd sent my books priority mail, they arrived just as I was up and about and feeling better.
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[25 Oct 2009|07:26pm] |
Had a pleasant weekend. Saturday I hosted this month's meeting of the Northern Virginia Dr Who Viewing Society. We had fun playing with my Dr Who related toys (adipose plushy, talking cyberman with cybermat and wind-up dalek), ate junk food, and watched Castrovalva on dvd plus the extras. Not sure exactly what "Swap Shop" was, but the set design was hideous and rainbow colored.
Today I spent a lazy morning reading the paper and watching multiple episodes of "Mythbusters." Then in the afternoon I went to the Arlington Central Library semi-annual book sale. It was half price day. There seemed to be fewer books that in the past, but I was able to get 13 books for $14, which is pretty good deal.
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| Wow I got seriously behind in posting my reading lists |
[22 Oct 2009|11:09am] |
It appears that the last time I posted was the June list, so I'll just dump the July-September lists without any discussion of the books.
July
112. Sisters in Crime #3 ed. Marilyn Wallace
113. Magic and the Modern Girl by Mindy Klasky
114. Paint Your Dragon by Tom Holt
115. Open Sesame by Tom Holt
116. Wish You Were Here by Tom Holt
117. The Drowned Life by Jeffrey Ford
118. Kitty and the Silver Bullet by Carrie Vaughn
119. The Dain Curse by Dashiell Hammett
120. July 2009 Asimov's Magazine
121. The Indestructable Man by Simon Messingham
122. Agent to the Stars by John Scalzi
123. Finger Lickin' Fifteen by Janet Evanovich
124. Swan for the Money by Donna Andrews
125. Stay by Nichola Griffith
126. Witch Way to the Mall ed. Esther Friesner
127. Stormglass by Maria V. Snyder
128. World War Z by Max Brooks
129. Labyrinth by Catherynne Valente
130. Trilobite! Eyewitness to Evolution by Richard Fortey
131. Djinn Rummy by Tom Holt
August
132. Four and Twenty Blackbirds by Cherie Priest
133. Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett
134. August 2009 Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine
135. Sisters in Crime 5 ed. Marylin Wallace
136. A Hat Full of Sky by Terry Pratchett
137. Meet the Thradons by J.D. Austin
138. Wintersmith by Terry Pratchett
139. Sisters in Crime 4 ed. Marylin Wallace
140. The CEO of the Sofa by P.J. O'Rourke
141. Clubbed to Death by Elaine Viets
142. The Orphan's Tales: In the Night Garden by Catherynne Valente
143. The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie
144. Nation by Terry Nation
145. The Curse of the Kissing Cousins by Toni L. P. Kelner
146. Stalking the Dragon by Mike Resnick
September
147. The Fifth Elephant by Terry Pratchett
148. Carpe Jugulum by Terry Pratchett
149. Darkness Calls by Marjorie Liu
150. The Ten-Cent Plague: the Great Comic Book Scare and How it Changed America by David Hajdu
151. Noninterference by Harry Turtledove
152. On Spec Magazine Winter 2001
153. Asimov's October/November 2009 issue
154. Murder in the Sentier by Cara Black
155. In the Presence of Mine Enemies by Harry Turtledove
156. Malice Domestic #9
157. Mark of the Demon by Diana Rowland
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[30 Sep 2009|09:46pm] |
The Nats' last home game of the season ended well. Bottom of the 9th, down by 2 runs, bases loaded, 3-2 count and Maxwell hits a grand slam.
I could have done with better weather though. It had rained before the game, and they don't wipe down the cheap seats. Fortunately, the free Nats fleece blankets they were giving out took care of that problem. Also, for some reason, it was gray and occasionally drizzling on the first base side where I was, but sunny on the third base side. It was bizarre. And annoying. And damp. On the plus side, section 320, Row A seat 1, while a nosebleed seat, had a really great view of the field.
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[29 Sep 2009|11:00pm] |
Went to the Nats game earlier tonight. It was free t-shirt Tuesday, so I am now the happy owner of a NatsTown t-shirt. The Nats finally won, 4-3. Yay! OTOH, I'm feeling a bit conflicted, as they were playing the Mets. So I guess maybe I should say Yay!?
Picked up a ticket for tomorrow afternoon's game at the box office in order to avoid the ridiculous online fees.
I like the new Nats park. It's metro accessible, easy to get around, has decent food (although ridiculously priced as with any ballpark) and unlike the new Yankee stadium in my former hometown, has affordable seats.
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[27 Sep 2009|11:09am] |
Had a pretty good Saturday. Spent the morning on the Mall at the National Book Festival with wmslawhorn and makotohanabi. Given the way the lines for book signings were organized, we decided that the lines were not our best option for the handing out of Capclave bookmarks. Instead, we put the book marks out on the tables in a number of the themed tents (e.g. Fiction & Fantasy; History & Biography). People did seem to be taking them. Whether that will result in any additional convention members remains to be seen. (We also had someone distributing bookmarks at the Baltimore Book Festival). Since we ran into a friend, K.O., who was there on break from her gig filming the Congressional Black Caucus conference at the convention center, we all went to lunch together at Harry's, which let us get out of the rain. At that point it was only a light drizzle, but I was impressed with the fact that it had not deterred anyone from coming to the book festival. The Mall was quite crowded.
In the evening I hosted a game night and spaghetti dinner. While waiting for samthereaderman to arrive, wmslawhorn and makotohanabi and I played Qwirkle Cube, where I completely screwed up what should have been my last play. Once everyone had arrived, we attempted to play Burn in Hell from Steve Jackson Games, although I think we may not have completely understood the rules. Also, I seemed to be the only one doing any stealing and burning of other players' cards (what's the point of being a lord of hell if you don't act like a jerk). Then we played a couple games of TransAmerica, which is one of my favorite games after Settlers of Catan, and I actually managed to win once.
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| Final Discworld con post |
[13 Sep 2009|11:20pm] |
And once again I finish up posting about a convention after the fact. what can I say, life gets in the way of the internet sometimes.
Saturday night I had dinner in the consuite. They had brats and kosher hot dogs with all the trimmings which were quite tasty. The Masquerade Saturday night was pretty good. There were a decent number of entries, quite a few of which were in the novice class. One of the things I've tried to do when watching a masquerade is think about the costumes from the construction viewpoint, rather than just how fancy they look. For instance, the winners had dressed up as Vimes and Sybil about to sit for their portrait. The costumes were not particularly fantastical, but would have taken quite a bit of effort to sew from scratch. I can't even shorten a pair of pants without sewing them to whatever I'm wearing, and I've never mastered invisible stitching. I am, however, a master of the visible stitch.
After the masquerade, I caught the beginning of the Soul Music animated film and then went to the Darkcon party, which had some nice signature drinks. I had something called Catnip, which was made from peach schnapps, amaretto, vodka and red cream soda. The people involved with Darkcon seemed very nice, but I can't really see flying back to Phoenix to attend a goth con.
Sunday morning I went to the "Publishing Pterry" panel. Terry's american editors Jennifer Brehl and Anne Hoppe were on the panel along with Terry's first publisher now agent Colin Smythe. Terry was also on the panel and pretty much took it over. While it would have been nice to hear more from his editors, listening to Terry talk for an hour was certainly fun.
I went to hang out in the consuite and then went to the charity auction at 1pm. The auction ran well past the two hours allotted, so I missed most of the afternoon programming (and hadn't been able to sign up for any of the kaffeklatsches anyway). The auctioneers were very funny, and a lot of the items were impressive. There were a couple copies of Once More with Footnotes auctioned off, plus a number of the British uncorrected proofs (a lot fewer proofs for review are sent out by UK publishers than US publishers), a couple portfolios of Kidby Discworld art, and a number of discworld stamps proof sheets. The bidding was kind of scary. People were dropping astronomically huge amounts of money on the various items. The auction ended up raising over $23,000 for the two designated charities (alzheimers and orangutans). I ended up bidding on and winning a couple gift certificates for See's chocolates (2 one pound certificates). I think I may have been the only person at the auction to have a winning bid that was less then the item was worth.
After the auction I went to the video presentation about the Johnny Maxwell musical. The composer had given permission us to see a video of the workshop rehearsal and had also prepared a special introduction just for the convention, which was pretty cool.
I cheaped out and did not spend the extra $70 for the banquet, so for dinner I once again went to the consuite, which had really good fried chicken and lots of pies and cake for desert. I ended up having a slice of both cheesecake and apple pie. The consuite opened up onto a deck area, and it was nice to be outside watching the sunset while eating dinner. The only downside being that the Tempe Mission Palms was in the flight path of Sky Harbor Airport. I think around 10 Southwest Airlines planes flew overhead while I was outside.
Afterwards wandered down to the lobby an caught up with friends as well as some of the pros who were having drinks after the banquet. Eventually, I ended up in room 4009 with bnewton and foresthouse. I'm blanking on the name of the couple in 4009, but they bought some liquor and every night of the con had their room open for an informal party. As a result, I never made it to the Quirm College for Young Ladies Cotillion in the main ballroom. Instead, sometime after midnight I ended up staggering back to the Marriott to make sure I was packed an ready for checkout on Monday.
Monday morning I did a quick check of the room to make sure that I hadn't forgotten to pack anything, and went to check out and get driving directions to the airport. I had directions, but they were of the "get off 202 E, take local roads to 24th" sort, which i was pretty sure would take me through the airport, plus the directions did not say which exit to use on 202. The hotel's directions were much better. They were very specific about left and right turns and avoided the 202 loop completely, instead sending me on I-10 west to avoid going through the airport. After checking out, I put my duffle in the trunk of the rental car and went to the last day of the con.
After getting breakfast in the consuite, i spent the morning in the video room watching "Tourists Guide to Ankh Morpork" and "12 days of Hogswatch," also known as extras on the Colour of Magic and Hogfather dvds.
Then I had lunch in the consuite and went to the main ballroom where they were showing the 2 part BBC documentary "Living With Alzheimers" plus a special preview trailer for Going Postal. Then I took one last spin through the dealers room and ended up buying some discworld stamps. Then I went to the closing ceremonies, which were amusing and also involved a smaller auction, in which the guild banners decorating the the main ballroom were auctioned off, adding additional money to the amount raised at the auction the day before (I believe the toltal was over $25,000). After the clsoing ceremonies, I socialized a bit and then drove to the airport. I went to the airport early because (a) I wanted to leave time in case I still managed to get lost despite the idiot proof directions, (b) I was worried about Labor Day traffic, and (c) folks at the airport and the rental car place had warned me that Labor Day was really busy and I should get there early because of the lines. As it turned out, the directions really were idiot proof, there was no traffic, and there were no lines at the airport. In retrospect, I could have spent at least an hour at the tail of the turtle party. Instead, I got a decent turkey club with bottomless glass of soda at one of the airport restaurants and then took advantage of the free wifi for a couple hours until it was time to board my flight.
The plane actually had pretty roomy seats in coach, but as it turned out, sleep was not in the cards. The guy sitting next to me did not believe in deodorant and there were two screaming babies in the row behind me. End result being that after I finally got hoe, i was pretty groggy for the rest of the day and ended up making a pretty early night of it.
Overall, I had a really good time at the con, and if they do it again in the same location, I'll go again but won't rent a car as downtown Tempe was pedestrian friendly and the hotel was right next to a light rail stop that would make it easy to do a lot of touristy stuff in downtown Phoenix.
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| North American Discworld Convention so far |
[05 Sep 2009|06:34pm] |
Downtown Tempe turns out to be very pedestrian friendly. So I have been walking from the Courtyard Marriott where I've been staying to the Tempe Mission Palms where the convention is located. The Marriott is a nice enough hotel and the room comes with free high speed internet and a minifridge, so I'm not complaining (plus I'm earning points).
Thursday afternoon after checking into the hotel, I went to the Heard Museum. I arrived just in time for the 3pm tour. The tour of the main exhibit covered most of the southwestern tribes. The museum has an amazing Hopi katsina (kachina) collection. After the tour I went into three other galleries and saw an exhibit of works by contemporary Inuit artists, an exhibit about the Indian Boarding Schools and a small exhibit on Mexican Indian crafts. Then I went to check out the gift shop and bookstore, which is really like another gallery of the museum, as they sell pottery, jewelry and baskets made by contemporary Native artists (except that you can actually touch and pick up the items in the gift shop, although given how expensive some of the pottery was, I was not all that inclined to pick it up. I ended up buying a couple postcards (including one of the really spectacular Navajo sandpainting that was done specifically for the hogan that was part of the museum's main exhibit), a t-shirt and a couple inexpensive wooden models of katsina dolls.
After getting back to the hotel I went to the convention hotel and picked up my registration packet, went to see the first half of the Hogfather miniseries and then ran into bnewton and foresthouse at the pre-convention mixer and pub quiz, which had a cash bar and some nice snacks. The con suite also had a really good spread.
Friday I got up at 6:30am, filled the water bottle from the convention goodie bag with ice and water and set out at 7:15am for the Desert Botanical Garden. Because of the detour due to the Galvin Parkway being under contruction, it took me 45 minutes to get there rather than 10-15. However, the temperature was still in the mid-80s and the Garden was mostly empty at that hour (8am). It was totally worth the trip. when you're in the middle of the various trail loops, you can really forget that you're in the middle of a major metropolitan area (until a plane flies overhead) as you are surrounded by giant cacti and can't really see anything except the mountains/buttes in the distance. I did all 4 loops: the Desert Wildflower Loop Trail; the Desert Discovery Loop Trail with Quail Run path; the Sonoran Desert Loop Trail; and the Plants and People of the Sonoran Desert Loop Trail. I also checked ot the herb garden and the cactus and succulent galleries. Unfortunately, the Butterfly Pavillion was closed for the season, but I saw plenty of butterflies in the butterfly garden section of the Wildflower loop, especially the Queen Butterfly and a lot of yellow ones I can't remember the name of. I also saw a lot of the fauna in addition to the flora. In addition to bees and butterflies, I saw Mourning Doves, Gambel's Quail, Anna's Hummingbirds, Cactus Wrens, 3 rabbits which I think were cottontails not jackrabbits, a hairy antelope ground squirrel, a ton of lizards including several western whiptail lizards and a turtle. I could see the woodpecker holes in the saguaro cactus, but did not see any woodpeckers. I think my favorite plants were the red bird of paradise and the ironwood tree with the pink orchid-like blooms. My favorite plant names were the strawberry hedgehog plant and the scarlet hedgehog plant. By the time I left the Garden, the temperature was up into at least the mid-90's if not actually hitting 100, and the remaining water in my waterbottle had gotten quite warm. I had put on sunblock and was wearing a hat, so other than sweating a lot, I was okay. I'd parked the car under a tree, so it wasn't too hot and the camry has very good airconditioning.
After the Botanical Garden, I went back to the Marriott, had a quick shower and then went to the con. I went to the Harga's House of Ribs (the consuite) for lunch and then went to the opening ceremonies, which were MCed by Esther Friesner (in seamstress persona) which were very funny. There were a lot of double entenres which were so obvious they might as well have been single entendres. After the opening ceremonies, I went to the dealers room and bought a pack of Edward Gorey tarot cards which will make a really good Christmas gift for a friend and a dvd of Hogfather. Then I went to stand on line for the first autographing session, since it was the one I had a ticket for. I was #89 (out of 300). After people were handed their numbers, they could go sit in the main ballroom, and sitting and waiting is certainly nicer than standing and waiting, so that was a nice idea on the part of the concomm. After getting my copies of Nation and the Johnny Maxwell trilogy signed by Terry, I went back to the dealer's room and waited on a much smaller line to get my copies of So You Want to Be a Wizard and Deep Wizardry signed by Diane Duane. I had nice chat with the women on line in front of me. Her husband is a huge Turtledove fan, so when he came to join her, I talked up Capclave and the Turtledove book being put out in conjunction with the con. I think I may have made a sale.
In the evening, I went to the Seamstress Guild reception/party which had really good food (poached salmon) and met some very nice people. A lot a folks were in costume, and there was a photographer (photos were free for those who wanted pictures. Terry Pratchett paid for the photographer for the evening, which is a really cool thing to do). There was a guy who had a really great Death of Rats costume. After the Seamstress Guild function segued into the Holy Wood Squares game, I wandered off to the Loscon party. They had a really good spread and I had a nice chat with some locals and some folks from LA. The room had some weird sort of 1970's low hanging lamps right where the buffet table was. I did not even notice them until one really tall women got her hairdo caught on one of the lamps. Then talk turned to the oddness of the lamps and being the obnoxious little twerp I can sometimes be, I walked right under the whole row of them, and had my obnoxiousness pointed out to me, albeit in a good natured way (and I was kind of smirking as I did it). Around 11:30pm I was really beginning to fade, so I came back to my room and fell asleep watching reruns of Criminal Minds on A&E.
Today has been pretty good so far. It was pouring when I woke up, the sort of rain where you practically can't see through it and it hits the window so hard you worry about it breaking, so my trip to the post office to mail my books back to myself was delayed until around 9:30am. The post office 2 blocks from the hotel did not have Saturday hours, but the Tempe Main Post Office was a 10 minute drive away and was open 9am to 1pm, so once it stopped raining I went there and sent my books to myself using the medium sized priority mail flat rate box. That's around 5-7 pounds I won't have to lug on the plane with me on Monday. After the trip to the post office, I went to the con suite and got the remains of the breakfast spread and the start of the lunch spread for lunch and then went to the big presentation on the Art of Discword. It was a really good, interesting presentation. I had no idea that so many artists had done Discworld covers and jon Lemorond, who was giving the presentation, had actually managed to get quotes from a lot of the artists and descriptions of how the paintings had come about and a number of them sent him pdfs of the original art to use in the presentation. The Guest of Honor interview with Terry's U.S. editor interviewing him directly followed the art presentation. i was luky and had a front row seat. The interview consisted mainly of questions people had e-mailed in ahead of time, although Terry did digress somewhat on a number of the questions, but always in an interesting and amusing way.
The sun has come out and I'm about to hit the pool, and tonight I'm going to the Masquerade. Given the quality of the hall costumes, it should be impressive.
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| Worldcon Day 5 |
[12 Aug 2009|09:52pm] |
Despite having bought only 4 books and a pendant, my luggage seemed considerably heavier and more stuffed than when I left home. Checkout was uneventful and I checked my bag with the bell captain so I wouldn't have to drag it with me to the convention center. Got Ghost Brigades and Agent to the Stars signed by John Scalzi and then went to the Mary Robinette Kowal kaffeeklatsch. Accidentally ended up about 10 minutes late for the kaffeeklatsch because despite having been wandering around the convention center for 5 days, I still picked the wrong escalator to go up to the 5th floor and ended up what seemed like 1/4 mile from where I'd intended. In the afternoon I went to "David G. Hartwell's Sartorial Splendor Scramble" dressed in a suitably loud hawaiian shirt, then went to the exhibition hall and pre-supported Texas in 2013, and went back to the hotel to meet up with samthereaderman.
The ride to the airport was quick, the line for customs less so. but I really hit a snag with the Canadian airport screeners. First my hair gel really bothered them and 4 of them inspected it. the tube is clearly labeled "3 oz. " so I don't know what the problem was. Then they decided they didn't like the bag my liquids were packed in. no idea why. so they made me repack all the shampoo etc. in one of their bags instead. Then they found the x-ray of my duffel to be problematic (it was my alarm clock that set them off) and rather than reach in to the one corner of my bag that was lumpy as opposed to soft, they decided to literally fling all my clothes out of the bag all over the counter while insisting that "they had to do it." No, you could have just reached in and pulled it out. You dumped the bag for kicks and then got annoyed when I was holding up the line while I was repacking everything because you're a schmuck.
After getting everything repacked and finding the correct gate I hit the duty free store. I had quite a bit more cash left than I'd intended and originally calculated for, since I ended up eating most of my meals either in the con suite or at the really inexpensive chinese bakery, and the money i'd set aside for cabfare was more than I needed due to splitting the cost with samthereaderman. So I ended up purchasing more than I inteded at the dutyfree store, which is why I ended up with 2 overpriced boxes of maple sugar candy, a box of maple cream cookies and a plush beaver wearing a mountie hat. And still had enough left over for dinner at Burger King where we ran into Mindy Klasky and Covert Beach, who were also on our flight. I still ended up with about $2.67 CDN leftover. The flight sat at the gate for quite awhile before taking off. Once we were in the Washington Dc area, we flew through a very impressive thunderstorm and then had a flightpath for landing that offered a really nice view of the Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument, the Capitol and the Jefferson Memorial. Right after we landed the thunderstorm we flew through caught up with us and they announced that there would be a delay in getting checked baggage because the ramp was closed (understandable. you don't send folks out on the tarmac in lightening). However, about 5 minutes after the announcement the luggage came out and samthereaderman retreived his suitcase (I didn't check anything. I don't trust them not to lose it). Then we got to the metro station and discovered that they were single tracking the yellow line and not running the blue line and that the red line was singletracking around Takoma and silver spring as well (not the direction we were going, but guaranteed to have a cascade effect and delays up and down the line). However, despite the metro problems, the trains were not crowded and we were able to get seats. I got home to find that the mail carrier had once again put the mail hold notice in my mailbox and stuffed the mail on top of it each day rather than holding it at the station and then handing the bundle to the front desk clerk at the end of the hold as directed on the hold mail notice. I don't know why I keep bothering to submit them.
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| Worldcon Day 4 |
[12 Aug 2009|08:06pm] |
Had breakfast in the con suite. Anticipation did a great job of having real food in the con suite. I'm not one of those people who tries to eat 3 meals a day in the con suite, but this was a worldcon where a person could do that without being nutritionally deprived. Went to the "Neil Gaiman and Gary K. Wolfe in Conversation" programming item, which turned into the two of them discussing the work of Gene Wolf.
Then I played hooky from the convention and took myself off on the metro to Pie IX and the Botanic Gardens, Insectarium, and BioDome. Trying to purchase the ticket in French turned out rather badly. Mostly, my attempts at speaking French had been only semi-successful in the sense of getting out a badly mangled sentence or two which indicted that I was making the effort to speak French but didn't really speak the language, and people would generally switch to English, if only to stop me from mangling their beautiful language. While waiting on line to buy a ticket at the Botanic Gardens, I had enough time to practice asking for the #2 package and all the words I needed were up on the sign over the ticket booth. As a result, I actually put together a proper sentence, said at proper speed with the proper accent. Which resulted in a very rapid fire response in French of which i only understood the words "second package" and "Quebec." I attempted a halting reply and then gave up and said (in french) that I id not understand and did not speak french. Then the person in the booth explained in english that the way the second package worked, the ticket for the Biodome was good for 30 days, but the rest of the ticket was for today only, and that there was a discount if I was from Quebec. I noted jokingly that my disastrous attempt at purchasing the ticket had conclusively proved I was not from Quebec and thanked her for the explanation.
The gardens were amazing. There was a huge rose garden, a japanese garden with a pond full of ducks and koi so big I expected them to eat the ducks, a chinese garden, a First Nations garden, an alpine garden and an area called "flowery brook with irises" which was just gorgeous. I could have stayed in that part of the garden all day. The insectarium was interesting but overrun with small noisy children. Most of the live scorpions and spiders appeared to be curled up in fetal position in the corners of their cages, which would probably be my response too if I had to spend all day in glass box with children shouting and tapping on the glass. The insectarium also had a monarch butterfly enclosure. About half of them appeared to busy having sex. Having spent 3 1/2 hours walking around the botanic gardens, and then walking the quarter mile to the Biodome, I did not spend as much time in the biodome as I might have otherwise, because my feet and ankles were beginning to hurt. As a result, I spent a lot less time in the tropical enclosure than it deserved, but a lot of time in the antarctic and maritime parts because they had seats. Also, penguins and puffins are always fun to watch, and the giant prehistoric-looking fish were pretty neat. They also had some visiting lemurs from Madagascar which were fun to watch, especially the mother and infant. Then I limped back to the metro, went back to the hotel and went for a dip in the pool.
Afterwards I showered and got ready for the Hugos, went back to the convention center to see if I'd won the items I was bidding on in the auction (successful bid on one of the three necklaces I'd bid on), met up with samthereaderman, arranged to share a cab to the airport with him since we were going to be on the same AirCanada flight and went to the Hugos with him. Cheryl Morgan winning fan writer was deserved but unexpected. Similarly, I did not expect Weird Tales and Electric Velocipede to win semiprozine and fanzine respectively, but it did show that semiprozine really isn't the Locus category. Of the novels, I thought Graveyard Book was the best, so I'm happy it won. I thought there was a good chance that Little Brother, which I thought was crap, might win, since everyone else on the planet has been singing its praises and nominating it for sainthood.
After the Hugos I went back to the Delta Centre Ville and went to the various parties. Bought my Reno in 2011 membership at their party. Stayed later at the parties than I'd intended, talking to people, then went back to my room to finish packing and soak my feet.
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| Worldcon day 3 |
[12 Aug 2009|03:30pm] |
Yeah, my time got away from me while at the convention, so I'm doing the remaining worldcon posts after the fact. So sue me.
Ended up not getting much sleep the night before and as a result didn't pull myself together in the morning soon enough to get to the 9am reading I'd intended to go to. :(
Went to the "Abby Normal: Comedy and SF" panel on funny SF/F/H films with panelists John Scalzi, Joe Pearce and James Zavaglia. Then got my copy of Future Washington signed by James Alan Gardner. Took a break from the con and wandered off to Chinatown to the Harmonie Bakery for lunch. Got a roast pork bun and a soft red bean bun and a lychee soda.
Kicked the afternoon off with the John Scalzi kaffeeklatsch. This was the first worldcon where I was actually able to sign up for kaffeeklatsches, largely, I think, due to the fact that the concomm put the sign up sheets out on a rolling basis throughout each day of the con, which meant it was not just a question of have been one of the first 50 people to show up at 8:30 in the morning each day. The kaffeeklatsch was a great deal of fun, as it was participatory and Scalzi held forth on a wide range of subjects while being his usual amusing self.
After the kaffeeklatsch I went to the Mary Robinette Kowal puppetry demonstration. It was an absolutely fascinating 1 1/2 hour demonstration and storytelling session. She worked various types of puppets and also explained how she made various types of puppets and told a number of very funny marionette disaster stories. I had never thought about the fact that the set for a marionette performance really needs to be designed so that there wouldn't be anything for the marionette strings to catch on, since if the strings can't be easily freed they need to be cut (and goodbye movement of whichever puppet bodypart was attached to the string).
Went to the Masquerade. It was fun, but owing to the lack of sleep the night before, I'm, pretty sure I fell asleep once or twice and missed a couple of the acts.
Went to the Saturday night parties. Brotherhood without Banners had their usual specialty drink "Blood of the Kraken," which is made of vodka, blue curacao and sprite. They fill the glass with ice first, so there's usually not that much in the glass. I would have been fine with my two glasses of blood of the kraken, but then i went to the Gaylaxians' party and they had an absolutely killer drink - lychee, cranberry and vodka, which while tasty was probably 80% vodka and had quite a kick.
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