The Mandelbear's Musings

It was a great con. I guess a lot of it was summed up in this con report "It was sad to miss pocketnaomi, but the other members of Tempered Glass, cflute and mdlbear, kicked ass."

Not having Naomi on board made for a set that wasn't nearly as good as it could have been, but I guess we did OK. It felt like a good performance, anyway.

My recording of our concert, unfortunately, does not appear to have survived -- it cuts off mysteriously after a couple of seconds. :P Clumsy bear was probably clumsy with the buttons again. I know there were several other recordings made, though, so all is not lost, though it may be a couple of days before I can get my hands on them.

Lots of catching-up with people we don't see very often, especially Roy Torley and Joan Gaustad, who we spent several hours talking with on Sunday (and whose concert also kicked serious ass).

Travel was a lot easier than I expected; having (niece-of-choice) Kaylee along helped immesurably, since it meant that we could take all the bags while Colleen scooted. Public transit from the airport to the hotel and back was cheap and smooth.

Lots and lots of links under the cut, along with the usual details.

I realize that it's rather late, but here's my schedule for the weekend.

1111 Th
  o San Jose, CA to Portland, OR Thursday, November 11, 2010	1 h 45 m 
    #680	 Depart San Jose, CA (SJC) 	1:35 PM
 	 Arrive in Portland, OR (PDX)		3:20 PM

1113 Sa
  o 1:00:pm   2:00:pm	So You Want to Produce a CD
    PNW Ballroom        Making a CD without living on the cutting edge of
			insolvency.
    Steve Dixon, Steve Savitzky, (*)Tony
  o 2:00:pm   3:00:pm	Kinderfilk
    PNW Ballroom        Music for children - Which may include a zombie song
   		    	or two 
    Frank Hayes, (*)Callie Hills, Steve Dixon, Andrew Ross, Steve Savitzky
  o 7:30:pm   8:00:pm	Concert: Tempered Glass
    PNW Ballroom        Concert: Tempered Glass
    Steve Savitzky, Callie Hills

1115 Mo
  o Portland, OR to San Jose, CA Monday, November 15, 2010	1 h 45 m 
    #1685	 Depart Portland, OR (PDX) 	6:20 PM
 	 Arrive in San Jose, CA (SJC)		8:05 PM

I will have lots of free time on Friday, Sunday, and Monday.

Oh. Right. WesterConChord. A good, mostly-relaxing weekend, which sort of surprised me. Taking a teenager (the YD's friend K) along who was paying for her room and board by taking care of Colleen made all the difference.

I did a fair amount of singing, in circles and a two-shot (where I did Rosie and Riverheart, but not all that well).

The high point was definitely the Interfilk auction, where I got a black leather jacket. After the bidding got up to $75 I asked to try it on, at which point the person bidding against me said something to the effect of "ok, it's yours". N. said this meant I must have looked "seriously hot" in it, but my little bear-like brain is having a great deal of trouble with that concept. And somebody took my picture with the wenches; I hope that shows up on LJ soon. Then you can judge for yourselves.

And the Kazoo award -- "Paper Wings" won in the "Dragons" category. Being the only nominee who actually showed up at the concert to sing their own song undoubtedly helped. Plus the fact that it's serious, hopeful, and has a pretty melody. I wouldn't have minded losing to "Gilda and the Dragon", though.

Art show. We got a lovely print of a dragon and teapot by Sue Dawe (in the auction), a fused-glass tile titled "Eye of Argus", and a Cthulhu-themed ceramic butter keeper and spoon jar that I had come close to buying at a previous con.

The hotel had free internet for the duration of the con, but it wasn't fast enough to make ssh to home a pleasant experience. I did my note-taking on a local copy and synchronized (via git) when I got home. Hence the multi-day post.

Not nearly as much talking with friends as I would have liked, of course, but I introduced a couple of new people to my music.

Colleen was having a pretty bad time of it, between leg cramps, a lot of difficulty walking and getting between the car and the scooter, and the narrowness and height of the bed. Grump. She still enjoyed the con, though. As did I; a lot more than I expected to.

Somehow I seem to be forgetting to post Thankful Thursdays on time -- hopefully I can start reversing that trend now. Here goes!

• First of all, a big huge Thank You to the Baycon 2010 committee for inviting me and Colleen to be fan guests of honor. We had a wonderful time.
• Special thanks to the faulty fire sensor in the hotel for setting off its false alarms before we went to bed.
• Thanks to the hotel restaurant, who let us order from the appetizer menu and went out and got rice pasta so I could have yummy cioppino.
• Thanks to David F. for bringing our Chaoswolf down for the weekend.
• Big thanks to hvideo for recording video of my concert and thus saving my ass when I forgot to press the record button on my Zoom.

A good day. Got involved in a couple of conversations on the way back from the art show and dealer's room, and ended up half an hour late to my panel on "how fandom is changing" (or maybe it was "how tech is changing fandom"). Fortunately there were 5 other panelists, so they were doing fine.

In the evening I fit in a little time in the filk room between conversations. Went out on QV, for septemberlilac -- I pulled her and Colleen in from the hallway so I could do it in the room. I have been remiss about noting the songs I actually performed in circles.

I spent about 3 hours/day at home doing laundry; day-tripping would have been better, especially given the hotel's iffy connectivity and the restaurant's mediocre buffet breakfast. Next year. It also worked really well for Colleen to have Kaylee as a personal gofer; it's the only thing that made it possible for me to get to my scheduled programming. I didn't get to anything else.

I'm very worried about Westercon/ConChord.

Despite ongoing confusion about scheduling, my concert went really well (at the origninally-scheduled 5pm). I came down at about 4:30 after a practice session with Kat that went badly enough -- we kept getting out of sync -- that I decided to go solo. The Wolfling was disappointed, but I think it was the right call. A couple of very minor glitches, but on the whole it was one of my better concerts. I think I surprised a few people. I set the Wolfie up as my cashier; she sold a couple of CDs and the one pre-order set I had left. It's been a pretty good weekend for sales.

Of course, after carefully replacing the batteries in my recorder and setting it up, I forgot to turn it on. Fortunately hvideo got video, so there will be audio posted.

The computer theme circle went less well -- I arrived half an hour late, minus my filk book, due to having misplaced my shoulder bag. After dashing back down to the restaurant, soothing a distraught YD (who'd been lied to about something bad happening to Colleen -- WTF?), and coming back to the room to find the bag still on my suitcase where I'd put it. Not to mention the two fire alarms during the circle?

And there was no ethernet connectivity in the room when we went up to crash. I blamed it on the fire alarms and things being improperly shut down, but it was still flaky this morning.

A pretty good day. Heck, a very good day, considering that I got a reasonable amount of work done (mostly exploring zend server, but also some design and bug-fixing), good practice including getting the Wolfling (did I mention that the Older Daughter is home for the weekend?) up to speed with drumming.

I also posted the tentative Baycon setlist. (Comments still welcome, obviously.) The convention tagline is "It's an adventure", which makes it easier to drop Cicero and Stuff from the set as being off-theme (not to mention Stuff being low-energy, and Kat's drumming on Cicero being pretty rough). Millennium's Dawn, which is long and somewhat off-theme, probably becomes the optional one.

On the down side, I didn't do any walking to speak of, and I found out that my concert had been moved to 6pm, which puts it opposite one of Colleen's panels. That'll get fixed one way or the other.

A couple of links under the cut, as usual. (composed this morning; forgot to post)

I guess the high point was discovering that I have a fan out there who I hadn't known about. The low point, well... I ended the day feeling totally depleted. I ran through the day in an IM: Probably a combination of multiple drives (two shopping trips and taking Emmy to her meeting), cooking dinner, two or three loads of laundry, a load of dishes, a couple of LJ posts, cleaning up Colleen twice, ... I've probably forgotten something... bed made, laundry started, commode cleaned, bedroom garbage bag taken out, nose watered... And ran through the intros to Millennium's Dawn and QV, in part because I've been getting sloppy, and in part to keep my callouses from deteriorating.

Not to mention posting our Baycon schedules, and buying new phones for both Colleen and the YD (the two shopping trips alluded to above). Oh, and Martin Gardner dying.

Something is deteriorating, anyway. Balance? No idea.

The usual collection of links under the cut.

A pretty good day. Took Mom to the airport after a very nice visit -- it's good to see that she's doing well. She seemed more worried about me than I am about her. She was also impressed at how cheerful Colleen is. So am I, but sometimes I don't notice things.

And an evening spent practicing for my Baycon concert (5pm Saturday) with Marty. Yay!

A very good insight about why not being conscious of my emotions bothers me. It seems a lot like diabetic neuropathy: diabetics lose sensation in their feet, and a blister can turn into an abscess into gangrene -- I have diabetic friends who've had their feet amputated. It seems as though things can be terribly wrong, and if there isn't a physical symptom (or if there is but it's not one I've learned to recognize) I don't notice until I'm in serious trouble. On the flip side, I don't know what makes me feel good, because I can't tell when I feel good.

Some good links under the cut, including a couple of distributed social network projects that might be getting close to what I'm looking for.

A reasonably productive day: a lot of puttering, some singing (just before going to bed), tasty dinner, and a lot of writing (for once!). The writing, in particular, was Colleen's and my biographies for our FGOH gig at Baycon; I decided that my standard one was too short. The results, along with my previous effort, can be found here.

Dinner was shrimp and scallops in a garlic, butter, and wine sauce, with brown basmati rice and asparagus. I figured, rather than go to an expensive restaurant... Colleen liked it, so I Win.

Still seems as though I didn't get much done, but I suppose I'm just going to have to get used to that feeling.

Oh. Right. The problem wasn't so much lack of time as lack of a decently large screen, trackball, and full-sized keyboard. Or so I tell myself.

But all the details and links are up there under the cut. Hopefully there will be a real Norwescon post soon, with links to the concert audio. No love for the hotel, who came in and set the clock ahead, then made us end early without our closer. What we did get to sing (everything except Landscapes and Gentle Arms of Eden) was good.

The hotel was too spread out, and the function space too crowded. Other than that I had a pretty good time. A few good conversations.

Going back in time a little, I flew up Wednesday, which gave me some time with Callie and Naomi and the kids, for rehearsals and just plain hanging out. So that was good. There aren't any PNW cons in the offing until fall, so the next visit or two will be just visits. That's a good thing.

It was a great visit, and a pretty good con, but I'm very happy to be home.

Spent most of the morning packing out of the room, except for a late breakfast with Colleen). Two trips home, for laundry and luggage, and dinner and drop-off. Then a return to the con for one last TGl rehearsal, a couple of songs, and goodbyes. And picking up the keyboard and guitar I'd lent out.

That first run home ran a lot later than expected due to the late start; I ended up missing all but the tail-end of Dave Clement's concert. Judi Miller is an absolute joy to watch. (I think the best moment, though, was seeing her joy when Callie played a brand-new flute part on one of her songs in circle. I remember that joy from when Callie joined me on World Inside the Crystal.)

But on the whole it wasn't a bad day, and it was an excellent con.

Trying to rehearse and give a concert on top of caring for Colleen and doing the laundry would have been too much. We're going to need a gofer/old-lady's-companion at Baycon.

Somewhat frazzled, with an unexpected trip home from the con (at rush hour, to pick up a couple of forgotten items that mostly turned out not to be needed).

But it's Consonance! Friends! Music!

A very good day on the whole. But my laundry is done, so I have to get back to it.

("But Consonance is tomorrow!" I hear you cry. "Isn't it a little late for planning?" Well, um...

We will be leaving Grand Central Starport for the Consonance hotel sometime Friday, probably in the early afternoon.

I know several people have asked to borrow instruments. Anything not picked up at the Starport (maps and directions at the link above) will of course be at the con. I'll be there with two guitars, so if you need one for a concert or something let me know.

Good day. Tempered Glass sang "Gentle Arms of Eden" and "The October Country" in the twofers. Tom Smith's concert rocked mightily; I can now see why Naomi wants me to learn "Rocket Ride".

Nice long talk with Runnerwolf after I left the open filking.

The thing about cons is that if I don't keep running notes, the resulting posts are going to be pretty thin. Deal.

It started out as a very stressful morning, with the YD freaking out because she couldn't find her glasses. Neither could I. The feedback loop was toxic; I didn't handle it well at all. (They evetually turned up in the bathroom, on the floor.)

Packing involved some last-minute shopping (Kaiser for a prescription, for example. All done, though, and we got to the airport nice and early. I shudder to think what a disaster it would have been if I'd kept my original tickets for 7am.) Arriving at 3pm and leaving at 5:30 gave us time enough for snacks and bathroom breaks. I love Southwest -- we couldn't have done it without the free checked bags. Boarding, with the scooter down to the plane and an aisle chair thereafter, was a piece of cake.

We took a cab -- actually a van with a wheelchair ramp in the back -- to the hotel. Wouldn't have been possible at all without a van; I'll have to look into van rentals for Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday.

Drafted a "thankful Thursday" list on the plane -- let's hear it for distributed version control.

We ended up in a suite because they didn't have an accessible room available. It needed a toilet seat booster (which they didn't know how to install properly; I was able to figure it out) but will work out fine.

And the hotel was still serving dinner when we got downstairs. Yay! Good conversations, and Colleen got to meet some new people.

I was worried, but it was a very good day after all.

I started the day with a little light hacking, preparing the YD's new desktop computer for its trip upstairs. Mostly setting up printing, and giving it a static IP address. She installed and played some of her games downstairs in the evening, a rare instance of the whole family working on our various computers within sight of one another.

Colleen and I went to the Baycon 2010 meeting, to be introduced as fan guests (not that there were many people there who don't already know Colleen, at least). We came home the long way, via Tasman, 85, and Stevens Creek.

My walk, in the general direction of the Rose Garden, was rather short because it was colder than I was dressed for. Just as well; it started drizzling just after I got home. A call from my sister-of-choice, who I'd carelessly left dangling on IM without making it clear that I was just giving her some time not to answer questions if she didn't want to. We share some problems; it still feels odd and awkward to be the one trying to give advice.

Getting home, I answered voice mail from another friend, also asking advice. I'm still rather bemused, but apparently the Middle-Sized Bear is alive and well, and living in California with the Cheshire Cat.

I seem to spend way too much time staring at my to.do file, and way too little tearing myself away from it long enough to actually do something.

I don't regret not taking the time for a hot bath, though, since it meant more time in bed for warm snuggles. I have some of my priorities straight, at least.