The Mandelbear's Musings

Yesterday was a good day. Colleen had bought a slab of lox at Costco ($20 for 1.5lb), so I went out in the morning and bought bagels for her and the YD. The Glutino gluten-free bagels, which we keep in the freezer, are the best I've tried so far; I've had some grocery-store bagels that were worse.

Colleen and I had the little bit of left-over fish for dinner, rolled up around cream cheese, onion, and capers. (There was also a salad consisting of heirloom tomatoes, half an onion, an avocado, and fresh mozzerella, with basil and oregano from our front yard.)

We went for a st/roll in the early afternoon; our usual route down around and through the Rose Garden, and back via Goodwill and Cash & Carry.

I then spent over an hour in REI looking at shoulder bags and rolling carry-ons. Found several that I liked; I may go back for the 19" rolling backpack. The sling bag... I don't know.

And I did some puttering -- mostly a matter of: see something out of place, put it where it belongs, repeat.

And finally, I'm pleased to announce that I finished splitting and uploading my concert at Baycon 2011, only two weeks after the event.

Oh, and I called Mom and, finally, my brother. Who is moving to Logan, Utah with his fiancée, which puts him close enough for the occasional visit and gives me a good excuse to go to Conduit next year.

So, yeah. Good day.

A busy, basically very good day. I foolishly signed up for both the kids' concert and the preceeding musical instrument demo -- they were an hour and a half apart, so I burned through several of my songs and much of my voice before the concert part even started. Fortunately I wasn't the only one singing. The demo had a larger and more attentive audience, almost certainly because of Moira and her harp. Moira had to leave early.

My main concert, at 7:30, went very well. (In spite of being pretty much a subset of my concert last year, something I should have thought to check on earlier.) I hit the time right on the nose, thanks to Allison Lonsdale, who came after me, having done her sound check right before me. So I could segue from the sound check right into the concert, and knew that Allison wouldn't require any set-up time to speak of. Nice.

I think my performance was good; only a couple of flubs which most people probably didn't catch, and which didn't affect the flow in any case. Did a quick swap-out of the Athena verse of QV in favor of Prince Charming, when I saw C. (who had commissioned it) walk in the door somewhere around the Amazon. (If you're baffled by all this, go read the lyrics and the notes.

I got some nice compliments after the set; Allison said my guitar playing was "awesome", which felt very nice indeed, and one person told me she had tears in her eyes during the whole set. I mean... wow.

It's pretty easy for me to accept praise for something I know I'm good at, like songwriting, fingerpicking, or programming. Something I don't realize I'm good at is a lot harder; it took me a long time to accept my role as the Middle-Sized Bear, for example.

The open filking was good, too. Colleen and I finally flaked out around 1am. Gettin' old.

But, yeah. Good day.

I moved my stuff from the large suitcase to the smaller Travelpro; it fit, except for a couple of things I really didn't need and a couple more I forgot. I am now at home after having collected the latter.

Baycon seems rather disorganized (no pocket programs!?), and the hotel sinks are dreadful as usual. But the room is huge, has a large desk/counter, and actual counter space in the bathroom, so that's a major plus. I'm not sure we got one of the accessible rooms, but it works.

Colleen got her hair re-tinted, and looks fantastic (and a decade or so younger). Almost didn't recognize her when I walked in to the hotel after work.

Blew off my 2:30 Filk 101 panel (what were they thinking?), but the 4pm "Computers: What's Next?" was a lot of fun. Chris Garcia, who works at the Computer History Museum, did a good job moderating.

The filk circle was very thinly attended, and Colleen found herself a place where she was completely hidden from the door so I didn't realize she was there the first time I poked my nose in. She found me on the party floor. I had the only guitar.

Went splat somewhere close to midnight.

Was something supposed to have happened yesterday? Oh, right. The end of the world, or something like that. Must have missed it. I got a surpising number of comments on my "Apocalypse? No" post, though.

I did read Revelation for Skeptics, thanks to a link from gridlore, who added,

You need evidence of how it was written, just realize that psychotropic mushrooms thrive on the island of Patmos, where the book was written between epic fits of giggling, runs to the local take-away lamb place, and really intense discussions about how weird your hands look when you really look at them, y'know?

I went to the Container Store and Costco with Colleen, where we spotted a lovely package of three ahi tuna steaks, which turned into sashimi for dinner. Talk about easy. There was also a caprese-type salad. Almost as easy. Yum.

I did a little practicing for Baycon; about half of my tentative setlist.

I also printed fax coversheets for a bunch of healthcare receipts, which I then totally failed to find. (Most of them turned up this afternoon, fortunately.)

On the down side, no walk. And my memory was even worse than usual -- I seemed to have the attention span of a mayfly on speed. Something about the methocarbamol? Anyway.

And I don't really like Costco much. It's crowded and noisy and tiring, and things are bulky and heavy -- I hurt my wrist manhandling the cart. The deals are worthwhile, but I'd rather let Colleen go with someone else who really enjoys it.

A pretty decent day. Could have been much worse. :)

The setlist and audio for my concert at Baycon a week ago are on the web at steve.savitzky.net/Concerts/2010/05/29-Baycon/.

That only leaves about a year's worth of catching up to do...

A good day; good end to a good con. Woke up around 9am, and made it to my 10am panel on DRM with a little time to spare (but no breakfast or coffee). Went home with the laundry, the YD, and the YD's BF. While looking for the handicapped placard in the van, I found the jewelcase for Dandelion Wine's Circles In the Grain, which has been missing for over a year. The placard itself turned up snagged on Snuggles' shoulder strap, giving me a good laugh.

I made it back in time for final packing and the closing ceremonies; Chaos and DF did most of the load-out. A little late for the 5pm late check-out, because helping Colleen in the bathroom simply takes time.

A couple of good links under the cut.

The only thing that went seriously wrong was forgetting to turn on my recorder; fortunately Harold Groot was recording video. That and the week-long series of screw-ups over the time. (Side note to non filk-con filk-track planners: if the FGOH is a filker, make their concert a separately-scheduled event so that it can go on the program as a single item rather than being lumped into a two-hour block with the other filkers.) (Side note to convention planners in general: if there are two people sharing a guest slot, don't schedule them for separate program items at the same time unless they specifically request it. Which they shouldn't and almost certainly won't)

The timing worked out perfectly; I'd had "Millennium's Dawn" in reserve, but didn't need it; the rest fit the "adventure" theme pretty well, at least using Bilbo's definition of stuff that's uncomfortable, dangerous, and makes you late for dinner. It was all stuff I know well, so I was even able to look at the audience a little. There were a couple of people there who obviously hadn't heard my stuff before, or at least my new material; I think I did well.

I was told later in the circle that the intro I gave for Rambling Silver Rose would have fit "Bound for Hacker's Heaven" even better. Kinda wish I'd thought of it.

Apart from the hotel -- don't get me started on that -- Colleen and I are having a blast as fan guests of honor at Baycon. So far we've been to the Opening Ceremonies and the MING the Guests (with the con chair dressed up as Ming the Merciless). Of course Colleen, on her scooter, couldn't get up on stage with the others, so we stayed down with the other fans.

And, probably because I bought two rolls of quarters at the bank, it naturally turns out that the hotel doesn't have laundry facilities for guests. Well, it's cheaper at home. So's the breakfast. (When I asked, they handed me a card for some laundromat that was actually further away than the house.) I am now officially worried about Westercon.

On the downside, I've had rather little guitar practice, and still need an order for the setlist. The fact that the hotel doesn't have free wi-fi (wired access is free for Baycon attendees by special arrangement) doesn't help. Except for providing one more reason to spend two hours at home with my ergonomic chair, my Model M keyboard, and my 22" monitor.

I'm still not entirely sure when my concert will be -- probably 6pm -- but our GOH interview will be at noon, and at 2pm Colleen is hosting tea in the bar while I'm on a panel on "from home recording to MP3".

I have a tentative setlist for my Baycon FGOH concert (Saturday at 5pm). It times out to considerably too long, especially allowing for sound checks and so on, so I'm going to have to cut at least one, more likely two songs. Also, the order is almost completely up in the air. Suggestions?

Steve Savitzky

    Friday
       1:30 PM - Stevens Creek - Opening Ceremonies
    Saturday
      12:00 PM - Grand Ballroom - Guest of Honor Interview: Colleen and
      	       	 Steve Savitzky (Michael Siladi will be doing your interview)
       2:00 PM - Bayshore - Panel: From Home Recording to MP3
       6:00 PM - Bayshore - Concert: Steve Savitzky
    Sunday
       4:00 PM - San Tomas - Panel: The Changing Nature of Fandom
    Monday
      10:00 AM - Lafayette - Panel: The Pros & Cons of DRM
       3:30 PM - Lafayette - Closing Ceremonies

Colleen Savitzky

    Friday
       1:30 PM - Stevens Creek - Opening Ceremonies
       6:00 PM - Stevens Creek - Panel: Con Etiquette
       8:00 PM - Grand Ballroom - MING the Guests
    Saturday
      12:00 PM - Grand Ballroom - Guest of Honor Interview: Colleen and
      	       	 Steve Savitzky (Michael Siladi will be doing your interview)
       2:00 PM - Lobby Bar - Tea With Mama Colleen (This is just what it
      	      	 sounds like: a chance for you to sit in the lobby and drink
    		 tea while having pleasant conversation with attendees.)
       6:00 PM - Lafayette - Panel: SMOFing Without Licenses
    Sunday
      12:00 PM - Cypress - Panel: Fannish Daycare
       2:00 PM - Bayshore - Panel: Filk History
    Monday
       3:30 PM - Lafayette - Closing Ceremonies

A quiet day spent mostly at home, though I guess a trip to El Torito for brunch, plus taking the YD to and from her Baycon meeting did amount to an hour and a half or so of driving. On the way to brunch we stopped at LensCrafters to pick up Colleen's purple sunglasses, which are stunning.

In the evening I sang through the entire Baycon set: most of the new stuff before dinner, mainly for Mom, then the rest of it after dinner, at Naomi's urging. I went "eeep!" over the fact that it's only two weeks away; N thinks I'm quietly "freaking out" over it. I disagree, but then I already know that I don't feel emotions consciously, so she may be right.

That disconnect is still a problem.

Mom commissioned a song (topic unspecified) for her 90th birthday, which is coming up at the end of December. Eeep?

The day's links are both downloads: Sita Sings the Blues, and Christo's Log - 4 year archive project completed. Not all of the latter is free, but some is.

A pretty good day. OK, a good day -- any day that starts out with Atheist Barbie and ends with an hour or so of heavy snuggling is going to be a good one, even if it does involve paying $2700 to ransom my car in the middle.

Went to the Baycon barbecue at Michael and Ali's; tasty food (expected) and some good conversations (not really expected, but delightful). I seem to do a better job of meeting people if I go someplace without somebody I'm close to. Otherwise I'll just stick close to the people I know.

I also confirmed that I don't do well in a conversation with two or more people (unless they make a serious effort to include me, which didn't happen this time and is pretty rare in general).

Links include Wikipedia articles on Canola, rapeseed, and Olive oil, which made interesting reading. There appears to be no good evidence that canola is unhealthy, despite The Great Con-ola which I linked to a couple of days ago. Also see snopes.com: Canola Oil and Rape Seed.

It's easy for me to get lost in Wikipedia.

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...

The Tres Gique concert has been split, but not yet annotated or uploaded. Unfortunately, I've done a lot of directory re-arranging, so the old makefile-based workflow neither works nor flows as it used to. We have a termite inspection scheduled for Friday noonish, so I'll have it up for sure by then.

I have listened to it. It's good. Not pure hammered awesome, but it's been hammered pretty well, and there's a good bit of awesome sauce poured on. One thing I like is that we're starting to sound like a group that's been working together, rather than a singer-songwriter and a couple of backup musicians. Another is that we're not doing just my stuff, and I'm not always singing lead. Callie singing "Cryptographer's Anthem" solo was inspired -- the audience was suitably mind-boggled. There were a couple of songs where I don't think we were sure who was singing lead, but we're probably the only ones who'll notice.

The recording quality is pretty dubious -- I set it up too far back in the audience and too close to the door. Need to remember in the future to bring a lightweight stand to set up in the front.

A couple of big thank-you's: donsimpson came by Colleen's corner of the lobby on Monday and dropped off a small guitar amp to go with Plink (runs on a 9V battery, and small enough to pack). And hvideo came by the Starport tonight to deliver two different videos: widescreen (squished down to 4x3) and traditional. Hopefully I'll be able to get sound off them; I also need to investigate uploading to youtube. I have permission.

I also need to mention the latest version of Audacity, and give profuse thanks for its "export multiple" feature. Basically you just label each song with its filename, and it splits exports them all to whatever directory you point it at. Cool. If only it would save the export directory with the project...

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.

Friday of Baycon began with eggs and large quantities of excellent bacon for breakfast -- cflute seemed impressed that I remembered her preference for skillet over microwave. I explained that, while I don't have the flower_cat's memory for tastes, allergies, and ingredients, I do pretty well on processes.

We loaded up the Cat's van, and she and the Younger Daughter (home early from school) shipped out to the hotel. The chaoswolf and selkit headed off the bus stop at about the same time.

There followed a late morning and early afternoon of delightful catch-up conversation with cflute, punctuated by a trip out to Michael's and CommuKnity in an unsuccessful search for what turned out to be a Japanese braiding device. Many thanks to the woman at CommuKnity who positively ID'ed the device from the description, though I'd been pretty sure that's what it had to be based on descriptions I'd seen.

It seems Callie and I had a lot of catching up to do. Probably still do -- we really haven't had an extended conversation since, what? OSCon nearly two years ago? About right. My recent changes may have had something to do with it.

We'd planned on meeting the Ugglas for a rehearsal at 4pm, but they hadn't arrived by then, and cflute was tired, so she had a nap instead. We finally got it together around 7pm IIRC, and ran through most of the set -- at least enough on the older ones to make sure we were still solid and make last-minute adjustments.

We followed the Bohnhoffs (with vixyish), who set the bar pretty high, but I don't recall a mass exodus, so it must have gone OK. That's a bit of an understatement, actually -- we got some positive feedback from a few people in the audience, and I don't think the audience noticed the flubs. Probably wouldn't have noticed the biggest one at all if Callie hadn't called their attention to the fact that I'd left the capo off on "The Stuff That Dreams are Made Of". But if that was the worst flub, we did pretty well.

Set list here

A little open filking, and turned in around 1:30.

... so instead of taking the flower_cat's sensible advice around 4am, rolling over, putting on my facehugger, and going back to sleep, I decided to go for the snuggle. Seemed like a good idea at the time. So here I am reading LJ at some ridiculous hour in the morning after altogether too little sleep the first night of Baycon. Clever bear!

The Tres Gique concert last night went very well -- a couple of glitches, but I don't think the audience heard many of them. More on that later.

Went to Dave and Joyce's for a Tres Gique rehearsal tonight, with the chaoswolf and flower_cat in tow. Yes, Tres Gique has two drummers: Kat and Jordan. Kat does occasional vocals. Not every gig, of course.

Getting there, but I'm sleepy. Possibly an effect of the Zyrtec I took ~3:30pm to ensure that my throat didn't dry out. It didn't; but whether because of the zyrtec or the extra nose-watering is hard to tell. I'm not sure it was worth it; I was noticeably drowsy on parts of the drive home.

Tres Gique's concert at Baycon will be Friday, May 23^rd at 10pm. We are now taking suggestions for a set list. What will you kill us if we don't perform? What will you kill us if we do perform?

("Desolation Row" is already off the list. "The River" is on. All of the songs from my concert at FKO are on except for "Bigger on the Inside".)

No, not the album -- that's still very much under construction. But the album's web page is, at long last, finally up. My concert 7pm tomorrow night at Baycon will feature many songs from the album. And stick around for the Steve and Callie Show, bridging between our concerts.

So, due to someone else dropping out, I now have a concert at Baycon. I was offered the slot on Friday at 7:00pm, which is immediately before cflute's. Naturally, I took it. (Waves to cflute) Since there are five songs we do together, it will make a great transition. Hmm.

Woke at 5:30 in the middle of a strange dream about living in zero gravity (more like Larry Niven's Integral Trees than space colonies, though it was never explained what was holding the air in -- it seemed to bother me somehow), which somehow morphed into zero-gravity blogging and thinking about how to add blogging to my sprawling websites using make, WebDAV, and code stolen from blosxom and nanoblogger. Maybe it's just as well I don't normally remember my dreams.

The flower_cat and I went to two holiday parties yesterday: the Baycon staff party at Chef Chu's at 1:00 (with me going as the tag-along spouse), and the Ricoh party at the Flea Street Cafe in the evening (with roles reversed). The Ricoh dinner was followed by a fantastic chocolate tasting -- eight milk chocolates (I only sampled one), eight darks, four 80% or more (YUM!!) and three astoundingly different kinds of unprocessed nibs.

Both of us tried hard not to eat too much; the Cat skipped the chocolate entirely (poor thing!). She blew a number of people away with how good she's looking these days; a gorgeous green dress with a sparkly jacket helped, but most of the effect was the weight loss. Last year she weighed a lot more, and was in pretty bad health besides.

In between we went to Fry's for a little Christmas shopping. At least I did; the Cat stayed in the car to let her back recover from the restaurant seating. We took surface streets home (Foothill Expressway, Homestead, Newhall, and Park) to look at the lights.

[edits for clarity 12/11]