Baycon: Sunday

[mdlbear]

Sunday morning started with cflute, the flower_cat and me having a huge brunch at the El Torito about a mile from the con hotel. (Well, actually it started with LJ on the Mac, coffee in the room now that I'd brought the coffeemaker and filters from home. But you get the idea.)

El Torito's Mexican Sunday brunch is made of yum. Chile verde, chile colorado, chile rellenos, enchiladas... fresh tortillas... flan and rice pudding... Have to go back there with the kids. Often.

One reason we went out for lunch was that the hotel's coffeeshop was made of fail, especially the buffet. The bacon, as far as I could tell, was deep-fried in the same oil used for french fries and fish. Bletch. But the other reason was to give Callie and Colleen some time for conversation. If we'd gotten started a little earlier they could have gone out shopping together, but Callie needed the sleep. Still, they talk on the phone a fair amount. I need to do that more.

I ended up not having any dinner which, with a 90-minute wait for the restaurant, was a Good Thing. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The main event for the afternoon was the Recording Music panel. I was moderator, and some of the panelists were rather out-of-hand. Professional sound people, very experienced, but all of that experience was doing live sound with professional performers, big venues, and analog equipment. One or two good tips, but not as useful to a home recordist as it would have been if Jeff Bohnhoff (for example) had gotten more air time.

Callie spent much of the late afternoon and early evening in our room; a little conversation but mostly trying to get enough spoons back to play flute on a couple of songs in the evening's concerts.

Got to the first two concerts: Paul, Taunya, and Seanna; and Seanan McGuire and friends. Skipped the last one (The Roving Tars) in order to get more time in the open filk, meaning more time with Colleen and Callie. This time, the circle achieved what cflute called critical mass, and a lot of good songs got performed. Sang "Another Country", which Callie had wanted to hear, "World Inside the Crystal" (which mysticfig suggested as a follower to "Where the Magic is Real"), "Bound for Hacker's Heaven". Might have been one or two others. Got a bit sleepy between songs; somewhere in there Colleen decided to turn in, so I ran her upstairs in Igor at about 1:30.

Callie and I went out on "Demon Lover"; I finally got to bed around 2:30.

Comments

[mysticfig.livejournal.com]

I was really disappointed with the Recording Music panel. Not only did the person you mention dominate the panel to an unbelievable degree, but about half of what was said was just plain technically wrong. I had really been looking forward to that panel, I I think it would have been really useful had you and Kristoph gotten half a chance to say something. grump :-).

[mdlbear]

Grump indeed. I won't allow that to happen again, at least not with those panelists. I'll even go so far as to suggest strongly to any programming person who asks me for input that there be separate panels on "home recording" and "live sound". And explain exactly why.

[mysticfig.livejournal.com]

To be honest, I think it was a case of desire to talk completely overshadowing any sense of the subject at hand. Even in terms of live sound, what was said was pretty useless for the audience. What I heard was mostly name dropping. In pre-con panelist surveys, I have never said there was anyone I would not want to be on a panel with. I'm reconsidering that position for next year :-).

[mdlbear]

Similar things went on on the "Every OS" panel.

I've already done my reconsidering :-).

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

El Torito's brunch is ALWAYS good. Always. Everywhere. Repeat.

Wintertime around here, they add Mexican hot chocolate to the offerings. Oh very yes.

Sorry I didn't get to see you - but as with any convention, you hit - you miss - you have a good day, one way or the other. Saw plenty of evidence in ribbons walking around - but I can't say I was easy to find, bouncing between sites like I was.

I'm thinking about getting a set of small, cheap thumb drives to mail back and forth to folks - the drives are reuseable, unlike the CDs, and I can tell you to download it, reformat and send back what you will in return. Sound like a good idea?

[mdlbear]

Yeah; grump. Best way to catch me is before or after a panel I'm on. Or leave a message with Colleen -- she's always easy to find, and usually knows my schedule.

I'll be at ConChord and Loscon this year.

Thumb drives are great; SD cards don't have quite as much capacity, but they're much more mailable. Micro-SD cards, which I've seen up to 2GB, are small enough that you can send three or four taped to the leg of a carrier pigeon.

Most of the time I just use my web host for sending stuff back and forth, using directories that aren't linked to from anywhere and aren't visible to search engines. At some point I'll start using password-protected directories because I want to do musical collaboration with people I don't get to see very often.