The Mandelbear's Musings

(Written Monday, 7/3) So, here we are at Westercon. I've been too cheap to buy a net connection (it runs from noon to noon; it always seems stupid to buy it when I get up around 10am, and by the time noon comes around I'm busy at the con. Anyway...

We drove down Friday afternoon, getting a late start because the chaoswolf had a final that got out around 2:30pm. Because we wanted a fast trip, we decided to take I5. Mistake. Between a two-hour jam on 152 (because of a goddamn intersection that should have had at least stop signs and preferably a light), and an accident and two or three construction projects on I5, it was a 12-hour trip. Pfft. Somewhere around 11 (about halfway through the 4-lanes-to-1 mergedown on 5), I just gave up and stopped worrying. I'd had plenty of coffee with breakfast and lunch, and more at lunch in the excellent truckstop in Buttonwillow, so I wasn't particularly sleepy. The last hour was a little more dicey, but I've been stupider sleepier and lived through it.

My concert was the second slot on Saturday (setlist to follow), and a panel on Writing Funny Filk. Sunday was a panel on Found Filk, and the Cindy McQuillin memorial circle. Today (Monday, as I write this) was a panel on Literary Filk (that mostly devolved into a discussion of literature and education, with an emphasis on the lack of poetry in today's curriculum. Still to come is the chaoswolf's 21st birthday party. She's taking over the filk room for the first hour or so. (Her actual birthday isn't until Thursday, but she's already been bought a few drinks.)

(later) The Wolfling's birthday party went well, followed by a filk circle. All the circles here are bardic, a style I'm not really crazy about, but... Actually, the first half-hour or so wasn't bardic, but rather Chaos, as in the birthday girl gets to pick the next performer (and sometimes the song). She had me do "Filksong Lullabye", which was a little surprising. (But then she always did seem to like my singing better than her sister did.)

(Wednesday, 7/6) Tuesday I actually went to a couple of panels (nolly was on the one on New Media on the Internet, which mostly turned out to be about podcasting). The dead dog filk Tuesday night was a bust -- the maximum population was 5. We were interrupted by a phone call from the super_star_girl, who found the bathroom toilet overflowing (for the second time) when she got to the room. By the time the hotel sent somebody up -- he arrived about the same time I did -- there was an inch of water in the entire room, and a waterfall in front of the Con Suite on the floor below. You can find more detail in this post by chaoswolf, who fielded most of the calls. The Younger Daughter gets the kudos for the fast action that saved our stuff, though. There was no water damage beyond some wet clothing.

They moved us, of course. This morning when we checked out, I quickly saw that they'd billed us for the night -- I had to ask them to have it comp'ed. Grumble. Don't stay in the Mission Valley Marriot in San Diego if you can avoid it. Oh, and the flower_cat and I were chased out of the Dead Dog filk by mosquitoes. The Cat said on the way home that she'd noticed a musty smell when we checked in.

The drive home was uneventful, and actually rather pleasant: it took 10:15 on US 101. We left the hotel at 10am and arrived at 8:15. That includes roughly an hour for lunch at Pea Soup Anderson's.

Party at our house next Saturday. The usual potluck bash. Filking is highly probable.

We're going to be at Westercon in San Diego, July 1-4. We'll be spending an additional day or two in the area, since it's impossible to visit San Diego and not go to the Zoo.

I'm going to be in Portland for OSCON, the O'Reilly Open Source Convention, from Tuesday, July 25 to Saturday, July 29. I'll try to arrive sometime in the early afternoon Tuesday, and leave Saturday afternoon or evening (I'd stay all day Saturday, but we have Lamplighters tickets for Sunday). The keynote is Tuesday evening and the last bit of programming ends just after noon on Friday. (Waves to cflute and randwolf.)

... and we'll be going to Worldcon August 23-27 in Los Angeles.

Interesting how things work out this year. The Younger Daughter is changing schools and school districts (long story -- I'll get to it in another post). In the San Jose district, she would have had summer school starting July 5th, and started high school the week before Worldcon. Now, she re-starts 8th grade (in a district that apparently gives a damn -- this is not a bad thing) the week after Labor Day. School will get out in the middle of July next year, which would normally destroy our travel plans for Westercon, but Westercon is in San Jose next year. Travel time about 10 minutes.