[conventions] RadCon report, and travel
Had a brilliant weekend with at RadCon. Between the vagaries of Con schedule, driving time, and our respective travel schedules, I’m behind on posting.
arrived on Thursday morning. After a tour of the bachelor squalor of Nuevo Rancho Lake, we lit out for Pasco, WA for the convention. It was an ok drive, though the trip ran into the cold dark. Had a simple, quiet evening there, then Friday morning we got in some gym and writing time before heading out in a group for the tour of the Whole Body Count Facility, a/k/a In Vivo Radioassay.
, and at lunch on the way to the Whole Body Count Facility.
Atomic pretzel at lunch
That was a fascinatingly weird piece of technology which combined a certain roughcut steampunk elegance with WWII components, the Big Science air of the 1950s, lead bricks, dentist chairs piped for liquid nitrogen, and radioactive human remains stored onsite for baselining purposes. I’ll post a photoessay with some more explanations later, but touched on it here.
at the Whole Body Count Facility
Friday evening the convention swung into gear, with my usual toastmasterly duties in play. In this case, that mostly amounts to being RadCon Bob’s shill for the annual Prank, though there were some other highly entertaining (to me, at least) moments. That was followed by a rough and tumble forty minutes of improv comedy with I won’t even try to describe, except to note that it was stunningly exhausting. And is brilliant at improv. And kissed me on stage. We had an otherwise pretty light schedule that night, so we were off to the Shimmerzine party, then wound up having a quiet evening with and in our room.
and , with twins on board
Saturday boxed up a lot harder, but we still made it to the gym and got her word count in, while I chased stuff for my reading later. We had an editorial luncheon with , and , which was delightful company with decent Mexican food, though some serious fails on getting the kind of restaurant we wanted, as well the transportation we needed. I bowled through my reading, through a dead panel on SF as a tool for social change, and through a hilarious panel with , , , and Eve Gordon on the hazards of being a beautiful woman at an SF convention. (I was Exhibit A under “Hazards”.) brought a tiara for me to wear, and filled in for me at the end when I needed to exit early to prep for my role as MC of the masquerade.
Me, being a hazard to beautiful women.
Beautiful women and .
Post-masquerade we wound up at the small press party, where poor behavior on all our parts was heavily documented on film and video. Somehow, yet again, and were involved with me and , along with , , and a rotating cast of others. Eventually we peeled out and went down to the dance, where I think I sprained my entire body.
Con Chair Laura
Bruce Taylor, Mr. Magic Realism
with Marta and the killer rabbit
Andrea of Blue Falcon Editing
Crawling from the wreckage Sunday morning, I pinch-hit for both and on the GoH interview, as they had to leave for the funeral of ‘ dad. I sat with GoHs and while they essentially interviewed themselves about how they got into (respectively) editing and writing, their backgrounds growing up, and so forth. was back in the room writing (she’s mid-novel, I’m between novels), so she missed a few bons mots.
Our departure after the interview was significantly hampered by the fact that the Genre car’s battery had died whilst it sat in the parking lot over the weekend. , who already had my undying friendship, came out in the wet, fast snowfall and jumped us. I think he earned ‘s undying friendship as well for that.
Hero of the Revolution
Despite the rough start, we had a nice drive back to Portland, during which we saw a bald eagle up very close sitting on a rock by the highway. We went to ‘s house for a family dinner, with , , her boyfriend, the Niece and mom and dad in attendance. After that back to Nuevo Rancho Lake to discover the heat had quit working sometime over the previous few days, which made Sunday night and Monday morning kind of a challenge.
Fail number three happened this morning at the airport, where ‘s plane was several hours delayed, and mine delayed about half an hour. Our scheduled departures were staggered, so I was able to keep her company almost the whole time. We saw a couple dancing very beautifully in an empty gate area, each sharing one earbud of a digital music player as they swept each other around.
Dancing couple
Somehow that silent, private footwork right in the midst of a busy airport seems an apropos metaphor for life these days — on stage with a live mic at RadCon, blogging my adventures and misadventures here, putting my words out on printed pages and glowing screens to be enjoyed and reviled.
Anyway, is back to the Bay Area, I’m on my way to Omaha, and it was one of the more delightful weekends of my life. Next Con appearance: we’ll both be at Potlatch come the end of the month. See some, all or none of you there.
Tags: Calendula, Conventions, Omaha, Portland, Travel
Posted: 5:21 pm Mon February 16 2009 |
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