Travels with Ruby: Packed

We're all packed for Loscon -- the flower_cat and chaoswolf are out getting bagels and lox for breakfast. It works out to about 3 items per person -- quite a large pile, but not really all that much. For the first time, the collection includes a rollycrate with my facehugger and my favorite pillow. I wasted an hour yesterday trying to find a good CPAP pillow, but there doesn't seem to be a local source. The one I have is a memory-foam neck pillow -- it has a sharp drop-off on the side so that I can hang the facehugger over the edge while the foam keeps my head relatively stable. It works quite well, but it's too big for travel unless we're driving. I may resort to tracking down one of the others we have around the house, and cutting a chunk off the side. What I'd really like is an inflatable.

Concert early Saturday afternoon. The chaoswolf and I have been practicing for the last two weeks; we both needed it. We'll have to practice more regularly from now on.

Travels with Ruby: Thursday before Loscon

So here we are at the LAX Marriott. I couldn't get the wired internet connection in the room to work; the wireless sucks rocks but it's better than nothing. I'll bug the hotel in the morning.

I've already bugged the hotel about the lack of an outlet near the bed for the facehugger: they sent up a bloke with a power strip, extension cord, and what sounded like an Aussie accent. I can haz facehuggr now. The Wofling has just put herself to bed. She very sensibly brought an air mattress this time (sharing a bed with her little sister is Right Out).

The trip, down US 101, was uneventful. It's much prettier than I5 and the traffic is consistently less (though it was heavier this year than I've seen it in the last decade of Loscons). About 7:30 including the break for lunch at Pea Soup Anderson's.

Annoyingly, I snapped off a fingernail unloading the car. Even more annoyingly, it was the right forefinger, which is what I use most for fingerpicking. And of course there's no superglue -- I forgot to pack it. Could have used it to extend the stub a fraction. I can get by, though. Won't sound quite as clear, but the difference is surprisingly slight.

The flower_cat, chaoswolf, and I had dinner with AJA and Kore; I hadn't really had much of a conversation with K before, so that was good. There was enough discussion of CD production and related matters that I figured I could treat it as a business expense. The Y.D. joined us briefly for desert; she'd already had dinner up in the Con Suite.

I should probably go to bed soon.