mdlbear | FilKONtario: Friday (Reply)

(I'm afraid that this, like most of my con reports recently, is going to be pretty sketchy. It should be possible to get a better picture of the con through other peoples' entries, as seen through my fko memory keyword. It would be better if you could AND keywords to get just 2008, and sort in reverse. Stupid LJ.)

The hotel has a good breakfast buffet -- I had berries, bacon, sausage, ham, one egg Benedict, and an omelette. The sausage and Benedict weren't so good, but the blackberries and bacon more than made up for it. I like to eat a breakfast consisting mostly of protein; after that I can easily skip lunch. Got together with ohiblather long enough to arrange a practice session for early Saturday afternoon.

It should be no surprise that Friday afternoon was almost entirely spent socializing. Colleen parked herself in one of the chairs next to the conversation pit with the piano, where a succession of con-goers including deborah_c and Interfilk guest Marilyn Miller occasionally entertained. Colleen, as usual, prodded me to sing as well. I really like taking Plink to cons; the little Vagabond is perfect for lobby, hallway, and con-suite filking.

Most of my lobby and con-suite singing involved either "Ferret Went A-Courtin'" or The River.

Tom and Sue's wedding started the evening. Lovely mostly-Celtic ceremony, with music afterward, and a desert reception. The best feature for me was, of course, not having to do anything besides show up; I wore my "Father of the Bride" costume from last month: dark red shirt under a tail coat.

The wedding was followed by opening ceremonies (which I barely arrived in time for), and the Urban Tapestry and Heather Dale concerts, both of which were a preview for next year, when UT is Filk Waif (which is what they call the Toastmaster) and Heather is GoH. I'm going, if it's at all possible budget-wise.

After that, we went up to the con suite for Vixy and Tony's release party. It was packed, but we managed to buy our four copies (one for us, one for each kid, and one for a friend). It thinned out after a while; we finally got down to the open filking around 1am, and to bed around 2:30. Since we were time-shifted three hours, this was actually pretty close to our usual bedtime.