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The details are, as usual, in the raw notes, but I had a very good Loscon weekend.

I didn't get to any panels this year, but I got to all of the concerts on Friday and Saturday, and the filk circle Saturday night. That was very good -- small enough, maybe 4-6 performers -- to flow well but still allow time for a little conversation.

No really deep conversations, but a lot of good catching up with friends. I'll take that, though I'd prefer both.

Travel notes:

• Doing the laundry is a lot more fun if you take a guitar and a netbook.
• The little black duffel bag makes a good place for cords, chargers, and other random electronic stuff.
• Using git means being able to work locally without having to care whether you have a net connection.
• I need a bigger suitcase now that Colleen is back to using the purple one. But not as big as the one the YD has -- what a monster!
• The little rolling shopping carts are the wrong shape -- narrow and deep -- to be usable as laundry hampers. The rollycrate works, though.

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A productive day at work -- and at home, for that matter: I got my hotel reservations made for Loscon (having discovered over the weekend that they'd slipped through a crack somewhere between ConChord and OVFF). A good walk, and I scored an APC XS1500 at Fry's for about 2/3 the price of my first one, which I love (in large part because you can permanently disable the "on battery" beep).

But I spent much of the evening tired, sleepy, but restless and with a bit of a headache. At a couple of points I was wondering whether I had a mild case of the flu. Other times I wondered whether the restlessness was just missing a friend.

I had some sleep-time tea and went to bed early, at about 10:30. Some nice snuggle when Colleen joined me shortly thereafter.

 

For link sausage, Techdirt comes through with articles on music (UK Music Critic: This Is The Golden Age For Music and Yet Another (Yes, Another) Study Shows File Sharers Buy More) and the latest development in mapping software: Is Google Going Better Than Free On Navigation? Will That Set Off Antitrust Alarms?.

That one's fascinating. It links to Bill Gurley's article pointing that Google's turn-by-turn navigation software is cheaper than free -- if a manufacturer puts it on a device, they get a cut of the ad revenue. The article shows what happened to Tom-Tom's and Garmin's stock prices when Google's announcement came out. As Gurley points out elsewhere, "if a disruptive competitor can offer a product or service similar to yours for "free," and if they can make enough money to keep the lights on, then you likely have a problem."

I'm not dead, and my pants aren't bankrupt, but my shirt is badly in need of a loan. I was keeping my "to.do" file on my netbook, and the data has yet to be synced up. Maybe this evening.

OVFF was a good con for me: lots of great music, conversations, and people. Only three things could have made it better; maybe next year.

Or else not -- there's some maintenance issue, and then flight is delayed for an unknown amount of time. If I miss my connection in Denver there's no telling when I'll get in. Grump.

Meanwhile at least SJC has free wifi.

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Wow! For a day when not a whole lot happened, I sure seem to have a lot of notes. Of course, a lot of that is a partial transcript of my IM conversation with a sales droid at Nokia, finding out that the shiny new n900 Linux phone is expensive, not subsidized, and works only with T-Mobile.

Another chunk of it is my OVFF air travel itinerary. I'll be getting in around dinnertime on Thursday, and leaving Monday afternoon. I'm doing it on credit-card points, but air travel via Wells Fargo points seems to have gotten a lot more expensive.

I spent a lot of the afternoon comfort-eating for no particularly good reason, and feeling too weird and sad to get much done, while men with noisy chainsaws took out our South-side neighbors' dracena tree. I'm sad to see it go -- it made a good landmark for the house.

I had a good talk with Colleen about some of the issues that came up over the weekend, mostly around her feelings of exclusion when someone comes to visit me and not primarily her. Don't laugh -- we've been married a third of a century, and this only really started coming up a year and a half ago. One of the ways she used to deal with it was to leave the room and go do something else; that's why the fact that she's able to use the kitchen again is such a big deal.

The other bit of deep discussion, this morning with Naomi, involved the fact that I DO NOT LIKE the way things happen inside my head before I have a chance to think about whether I want them to. Instant reactions like snapping at people when I'm busy. Emotional responses like panic attacks. Naomi suggested training myself to pause before speaking; maybe count to 3 or take a deep breath. This will help with the automatic snapping, at least. Thinking about my emotional reactions -- basically mindfulness -- will eventually lead to thinking before I react, even if I have to start out thinking about them in retrospect.

We'll see.

Colleen took a couple of unsupported steps from the commode to the bed again. It's a start. She can make fast progress when she's determined enough -- I recognize that look now.

I should have taken cyclobenzaprine along with my naproxen -- my shoulder was hurting more in the morning.

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My half-hour concert came off without trainwrecks (and only a couple of glitches, which hopefully weren't too noticable to most of the audience. I got a couple of positive comments afterwards, including from the sound guy and GOH. I got the setlist keyed in and an unsplit ogg up on the web in record time, largely because I had nothing better to do while the laundry was running. Some good conversation, though. Not much singing outside the concert. A couple of songs by request in the con suite.

It was a very small con; well under 100 people. They don't have a date, a hotel, or guests for next year; it may well not happen. Sadness.

(ETA: Nick says that it will happen next year; we'll see.)

A good phone call to Callie, who I think needed a friendly voice about then.

It was a good day, and a good weekend.

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So, yesterday we drove down to ConChord. Despite my worries, Colleen handled the trip very well; we had to stop a little more often than usual, but she managed just fine in the public restrooms along the way. She took a spill at the hotel, going sideways along a very gentle slope, but escaped uninjured, undeterred, and cheerful. I love my turbo-snail!

It turned out to be a Forgetful Friday in a couple of ways -- Colleen left her phone at home, and I left the directions I printed. Fortunately all I had to remember was the exit: Topanga Canyon Road. It's 101 all the way down. I also realized too late that I should have packed a badge holder.

I also forgot to take my meds in the morning -- naturally I only found that out when I went to take them at night. I took the essential once/day stuff. The noteworthy thing about it was that I found this very amusing, rather than beating myself up over it. Go me.

No singing -- we crashed about 11pm after conversation in the con suite.

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A pretty good day, but a rough evening. See upstream. OSCON continues to be very useful.

The parties were a mixed bag: Sourceforge was loud and crowded; Facebook's was not quite as loud but thinly attended; I had two good conversations, one of which yielded a job lead for a friend. I should probably have stayed longer.

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It seems that during the last week I've been too busy or too wiped out or both to have posted any of my "done yesterday" posts. In some cases, like during Baycon, too busy even to make entries in the to.do file. Too busy to think, which can be a good thing at times.

If I ever schedule three concerts in one week again, somebody please beat me unconscious with a clue-bat and tell them I'm indisposed. They went pretty well, but between rehearsals and taking care of Colleen there was essentially no time for socializing. Let alone work.

Colleen continues to need a lot of care; this was complicated by the fact that the hotel's "wheelchair-accessible" room wasn't particularly. I am very glad that we had gotten another room for the kids, though.

Remind me to stay out of Hyatt hotels whenever possible. Remind me that out-of-the-area travel is simply out of the question until Colleen's condition improves.

Only two walks, neither fast enough or long enough to provide any exercise to speak of.

It doesn't feel like I've had a vacation at all. The time I've spent working from home doesn't feel as though it's been particularly productive, either. Procrastination hasn't helped; now I have the May 31st deadline for my (2008) "flexible" health-care spending account looming, with a huge pile of receipts still to be processed. Motivation? What's that?

There have been a few bright spots: time with a 5-year-old girl, one fantastic concert and two pretty damned good ones, a little quiet time with my friends. Seeing Colleen back in her element: presiding over Wednesday Open House at the Starport, in her usual place in the lobby at Baycon.

... is in less than three weeks. It looks as though both Tres Gique and Tempered Glass have concert slots, not to mention the TGl gig at Colleen's former nursing home on Thursday.

I guess I can officially start to panic now. Actually, I think I should have started to panic at least a month ago...