tigertoy

So, given that I was Fan Guest of Honor, I guess I owe the world a con report.

Chamabanacon was this past weekend, sent into exile by high school football. The Marriott in Normal is a very nice hotel. The only thing wrong with it is that it's not in Champaign. I remembered enough from getting lost last year to find the hotel without trouble this year, and got checked in and settled in without incident. Attendance was down this year because it's been a rough year for a lot of folks, but the people who were there were happy and welcoming. After Opening Ceremonies, headed a couple blocks down to Maggie Miley's, the local Irish pub. Just a little expensive but the food is quite good. Returned in good time for my Guest of Honor concert, which went well enough despite my not having prepared as well as I should have for it. Filking Friday night went well, though we didn't last much past midnight.

Saturday I got to a panel with toastmaster Adam Seltzer, who's an amazingly interesting person (as well as an amazingly warped songwriter). I spent some time in the dealer's room with my display of tiger stuff and memorabilia from my trip to Ecuador in 2005. At the Never Ending Filk Panel we determined that the filk record producers are becoming less record labels and more independent producers. Survived an hour in the Wolfe's Lair with Golden Guest of honor Gene Wolfe, and then got to hear some of GoH Alex Bledsoe's reading before running off to change and scribble a few lines of notes for my Guest of Honor speech. The food at the banquet was pretty good, and I guess my speech was OK, at least no one threw any tomatoes at me. I managed to play a couple of games of Dominion and then heard most of Adam's concert. Open filking went well for a couple of hours, but we were done before 1. We're all so old.

Sunday was conversations and goodbyes. I stayed for the dead dog, but it was very low key, with only a few folks staying.

There will be a Chambanacon next year. Our good friend P.J. Ralph succumbed to cancer this year, and he left his art, games, and books to the con, which raised a nice amount of money. Next year we have Seanan McGuire as our guest of honor and lots of wonderful stuff, so I'm sure all you people who couldn't make it this year will be there next year.

So I am safely home from MFF. It was a fun weekend, but a lot less fun than it could have been for me. The convention has just gotten too big. It started sometime last Spring when I learned that the Hyatt was already sold out, before I'd learned that the room block was open. So it was the first year that I've been in someone else's room, and because they didn't want to stay over Sunday night, I didn't either. We ended up in the Hyatt Thursday night and then at the Hilton Friday and Saturday, which meant (a) having to move hotels, (b) having to figure out where to park for Friday and Saturday, and (c) having the room very inconveniently far from the con.

We left town on Thursday at 4, picking up the fourth passenger at Parkland on the way out of town. The trip to the hotel was uneventful. I went to make myself a sandwich and discovered that I'd forgotten my mustard, which made my dinner much less appealing. I picked up my badge and signed up as a gopher. I went to the Art Show, thinking I would be helping to set up, to find that they were packing up for the evening. So I went back to ops and asked where I could help set up, and they sent me to Con Suite, where I did things for 15 minutes, and then spent most of the rest of an hour waiting for someone in charge to tell me what I needed to do, and then they said they were done for the evening. I decided I was through volunteering for the evening and went to the game room, where I played a couple of games of magic before they closed the room at midnight.

Friday, we managed to check in early at the Hilton, so we were able to move our stuff directly from one room to the other. We went to the Fashion Mall food court for lunch, and I snagged a handful of mustard packets from the pretzel stand (I bought some cinnamon pretzel bits, so I wasn't just mooching) so I could make edible sandwiches. I moved the car into the convention center parking across the driveway from the Hyatt parking. I hit the dealer's and got a couple of books and a couple of shirts. Went to the concert, which was headlined by Amadhia, backed up by Fox Amoore and Pepper Coyote. I liked the music, despite the make-your-ears-bleed volume which was not appropriate to their music. Other than that, I hung around in the game room a lot.

Saturday, I watched the fursuit parade, checked out the art show, which is shrinking in size and awesomeness even as the rest of the con grows -- it seems like art shows are just not working as ways for artists to reach their audience, even in the furry fandom where art is huge. I texted a few people about dinner but couldn't find any takers. Was planning to hit the Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind show, when Sci texted me that he was planning to see the Pepper Coyote and Fox Amoore concert at the same time which I'd missed on the schedule. I'm glad I went, because Pepper hadn't impressed me in the Friday concert, but Saturday he got to show off some beatboxing and looping skills. I wandered around the convention area a lot, wondering why I found so few people I knew, and spent some more hours in the game room. Ended the night by stopping by the dance to see what it was like -- the light show was impressive and and the big ballroom was moderately full of furs, mostly at least kind of dancing, but I was weighed down by my backpack and not much in the mood to do what dancing I do.

Sunday, got up in time to shower and leave the room at noon, then watched the dance competition, and we headed home.

The combination of my room being a half-mile walk from the con and my having packed much more than I should in the backpack I wanted to carry with me really weighed me down. I definitely shouldn't have brought Dominion with me -- it's just too much of an anchor. Of course, even if I'd been in the main hotel, if I'd been stuck on a high floor, my room would have been almost as inaccessible, because they were running elevator control -- MFF attendees could only get on the elevator on the main floor, which meant that the traffic jam around the escalators was even more phenomenal than last year -- and you had to line up and wait to get on. If I go next year -- which, for the first time ever I'm not completely sure I will -- I will really want to have a room in the Hyatt on a walkable floor. And I want to tell myself now that having a good con experience will depend on having some things planned in advance, because the con has gotten too big to just bump into people I know and tag along with them.

Back from Capricon.  Had a good time.  What limited how good a time I had was mostly me and not the con.

I went into the con tired and banged up from a fall on Thursday.  Getting to the con was uneventful, though there was a bit of winter so it took a bit longer than I expected.  Got to the room and discovered that I'd managed to leave behind a small box of medicine, which meant that I didn't have my nasal spray.  This made me cranky.  Missed most of tollers' Cafe set, because (a) I hadn't checked the schedule to know I needed to be there, and (b) the plan was to be there by then, but the plan didn't survive contact with the enemy.  Ended up going to dinner in the hotel restaurant with janmagic, Nick, their niece Suzanne, and birder2, because the weather was icky and we didn't want to take a long time.  The restaurant, Saranello's, is a pricey Italian place, but the pasta dishes were not that crushingly expensive.  The food was good.  The high point of the con was the Cheshire Moon concert.  I had a little trouble hearing the lyrics, but both lizziecrowe's voice and ericcoleman's instruments sounded beautiful.  Unfortunately, I went up to the room planning to get my guitar for open filk, and realized that I was already so tired that I couldn't enjoy anything, so I didn't go back down.  Worse, thanks to the aforementioned lack of nasal spray, I didn't sleep well.

Got up Saturday, ate food I'd brought, checked out the dealer's room, where I bought a couple of Magic things at sale prices and just one book, because as far as I saw none of the other paperbacks I'm waiting for were there, and I have so many books to read already that I'm trying to avoid buying much.  harperjen and sweetmusic_27 had cafe sets which were nice.  I skipped out on most of Dave Perry to see the art show, which turned out not to have much that I really lusted for.  We headed out for dinner, adding Cathy and Pat to the party.  We first stopped at Walgreen's and I nipped in and got a nasal spray, and then headed on down the road to Hackney's, our selected restaurant where we've eaten the last couple of years -- only to discover that it was closed.  So we wandered down Milwaukee Ave. until we found the first likely-looking restaurant, which turned out to be Golden Chef Chinese.  The food was plentiful and OK.  I had Kung Pao beef, which was was quite bland despite my having ordered it "very very spicy".  We got back in time for the last few songs in the Toyboat concert.  Despite being "unplugged" they were still loud enough I needed earplugs.  They were followed by Il Troubadore in Klingon garb, who gave us a very fine show.  The open filk took a while to get started, but we had a pretty good circle for a few hours.  I got very tired around 1, and just as I was starting to wake up at 2, decided that I needed to pack it in if I wanted to get to the Toast and Jam session in the morning.  Slept better than Friday night, but still not enough; got up 9:30-ish, which gave time to eat breakfast, pack, get everything other than my filk stuff into the car, and get to the cafe by 11, where Il Troubadore and sweetmusic_27 made the musical center of a really good jam up until 1:00, when there was supposed to be a reading.  The author never arrived to claim the stage, but the jam seemed to have run out of steam as people needed to leave.  We were hanging around, and I decided that it didn't look like like the music would come back and I was only going to get tireder, so it seemed sensible to leave, which we did after some time for hugs and saying goodbye.

The trip home was trouble free, but I was already feeling very very tired, so it's just as well I didn't try to linger.

I have returned from MuseCon.  It was a good experience.  The principal reason it was less than ideal is not the fault of the con at all -- for the days before the con, particularly Wednesday night, I slept very badly, so I arrived Friday afternoon already in the state of fatigue that should be reserved for Sunday afternoon at a con.

( too many details )

Next year?  Well, a year is a long time for me right now.  This is a somewhat awkward time of year for me -- because I did go to this, and I'm going to iFC next week, I'm probably going to skip Irishfest, because 3 weekends out of town in a row is too many.  Next year, if I want to do both iFC and Irishfest, I may have to skip MuseCon.  But that would make me sad.

I have returned from InConJunction.  I made the mistake of reading my friends page before posting my report, which has not improved my mood or my outlook on fandom, but I'll try to keep this post about the con that I went to this weekend.

In brief, it was a good con; I didn't have a terribly good weekend, but it's not the con's fault.

( the long version )

I am back from Marcon.  I want to say, publicly, thanks to everyone who worked to put on the con, and thanks to everyone who put up with me.  To all the people I should know by name but don't because I just don't retain names, I'm sorry and thanks for putting up with me anyway.  To all the people I shared too much with because I'm not capable of just ritually replying "fine, thanks" to the ritual question of "how are you", thanks for not pouring your drinks on my head.  To the people who shared music with me, I love you, and triply the ones who actually let me know you enjoyed the music I made.

Special shouts to filkertom, for spending at least half an hour in a one on one conversation that must have been uncomfortable, because he's a genuinely good person and I needed it, to writer William Levy for a personal pep talk, even though we scarcely know each other well enough to be called acquaintances, and to amazing artist Laura Reynolds for spending a lot of time with me as I gushed over her stuff, even though I only bought one small piece.  Other people probably deserve mention by name for hugs and conversation, but *hangs head* I can't remember most of your names, and I can't clearly recall the whole weekend anyway.

If I hurt anyone's feelings, or was oblivious to social signals you expected me to recognize, or I otherwise dropped the ball or missed a chance to connect, please talk to me about it.  Or, if you need a hand or a hug or a shoulder to cry on, ask me; I'd generally like to help but I'm usually too oblivious to notice and too inhibited to volunteer.

I figure I should say a few words about my GAFilk experience before it all fades away.

( long and dull )

I'm going to attempt to remember the weekend in order.  This will probably be long, not too coherent, and less interesting than the other 37 conreps that you've already found on your friends page.

( click here if you dare )

This past weekend was Winter War 36.  Winter War is a small gaming convention in Chambana which I have been attending most years since back in the late 70s when it was run by the U of I wargaming club on campus.  The U of I club folded up a long time ago, and Don and Sue McKinney have been running the convention for 20 years or so in regular private facilities.  Since the demise of the Chancellor, they've been at the Hawthorn Suites in Champaign, so this year was pretty much the usual.  There are enough events at the convention that all the function space at the hotel is totally full and there is very little space free for pick-up games and just hanging out, but there seem to be enough attendees to support the events and it works out fairly well.

( the games I played )

I recommend Winter War to anyone who's interested in playing a bunch of board games.  Just be proactive and sign up early.  Winter War also offers role-playing and miniatures events; I don't mean to disparage those in praising the board games; lots of people seem to be having a great time in those events too.

I have returned from Windycon.  Because of my cold, I kept things to a lower key than I might otherwise have, but I had a good time.  It was good to spend some time with friends.  I hope I didn't give anyone else my cold.

( the longer version )