Category Archives: fandom

fandom, Geek Stuff, General, golf, science fiction, travel

The Scottish Trip

I have created a Web Gallery of some of the pictures I took on my recent trip to Scotland. You can find it here.

I am still experimenting with what I can do with Web Gallery Mate and I haven’t scanned in all the photos yet. So, if you find a link that has no pictures, just go back and try another. I tried to keep the ‘big’ pictures to less than 100 kB i.e they aren’t as big as I could have made them. If you would like a bigger copy of a particular photo, let me know and I can scan in the negative at 2400 dpi. (That’s big, ~ 1 MB per photo.)

fandom, General, Media, Reviews, science fiction

BLOC for RUT #2

Sharee Carton, an Australian fan, left a copy of her latest fanzine with Avedon. Right Up There #2, published 20 years after #1. Sharee had never met Avedon but a Letter of Comment (LOC) from Avedon on #1 had a big influence on the next issue. Avedon suggested that a fanzine should have staples. (Evidently #1 was a one sheet.) Given the current state of the fanzine world and Ansible, I don’t think that is a truism any more. Although it may be argued that Dave is just distributing a very thick fanzine one page at a time just to avoid stapling.

I read RUT#2 and Sharee covered her fannish life and what she has been doing for the past 20 years. Working trawlers out of Cairns; not for me.

Sharee and I knew a lot of fans in common from long ago but never met. We even didn’t meet at the 1984 LACON. She went to Corflu #1 and #2; I went to #3. She was a West Coast, Canadian fan; I hung out on the East Coast, until she had gone back to Australia.

Music was a big influence on her life and for RUT #2 she asked a number of correspondents to give a “Desert Island Disks” compilation of what music they would want to have on a desert island. 10 Disks. And, to some extent, how have the choices changed in 20 years.

This got me to thinking of my own musical influences and what my DID would be. I was traveling with my entire record/CD collection on an iRiver device. What would I take if I had to pare down the 3900 songs (450+ albums) already on the player?
Continue reading BLOC for RUT #2 →

fandom, General, travel

On to London

It was a dark and stormy day that day I left St Andrews. This was the St Andrews I had feared to face. The Force 3 gale winds, rain, and a links course. Fortunately, I was in a cab heading for the train station. One of the train bridges to Edinburgh was under repair that week so a bus was coming by to ferry the train passengers to Edinburgh. That didn’t seem to put a crimp into my travel plans so I hopped aboard and tootled on.
Continue reading On to London →

fandom, science fiction

The Scottish Trip

Heading off to the Worldcon in Glasgow in a few months. I am flying direct from Denver to Glasgow (OK, with a change of planes in Chicago) and, from there, go to St. Andrews for a week. (I’m bringing my golf clubs with me:-)

After St. Andrews, I had planned to go to Precursor, a small fannish convention that would allow us foreigners to meet some Brit fans who wouldn’t be able to make it to Glasgow. And after Precursor, a short trip to London to visit friends before heading back to Glasgow and the actual convention. (I plan on leaving my clubs in left luggage somewhere and pick them on the way back.) After the Worldcon, I will be visiting the Edinburgh Folk Festival for a few days before heading back.

But now I find out that Precursor has been cancelled, throwing my plans into disarray. Precursor was going to be held in Walsall, which I think is an industrial suburb of Manchester. I thought of visiting an interesting area in England that I haven’t been to before, but can’t think of any place like that at the moment. Maybe I should try Carnoustie?

Since I am moving around by train while in-country and I wasn’t planning on renting a car, getting around for two or three extra days could be difficult. I suppose I could stay in St. Andrews for the weekend.

fandom, General, Reviews, science fiction

COSine Was a Success

This past weekend we had our second annual SF convention in Colorado Springs, COSine 2005. We had Joe Haldeman as GOH (Guest of Honor) and it was a very good weekend.

Our attendance ran slightly above our anticipated 100 fans . The Consuite was well attended and much discussion ensued. The panels were well attended and the panelists interacted well together. I had a chance to interview Joe for the GOH Interview and it went off very well. We had favorable coverage from the local newspaper and a couple of the local TV stations. (Made the 5:30 News Saturday night.) The Art Show went well and there were a reasonable number of artists on display for the size of the convention. I think they did well in the silent auction, also.

If there were any negatives, one was that the dealers didn’t do as well as they hoped. I don’t know what can be done there. We had 5 dealers selling a variety of books, jewelry, and costumes. The fans didn’t seem to be buying this time around. The other negative was the weather. It was sunny and in the 70’s. Why would anyone want to stay in on a day like that.?

fandom, Geek Stuff, General

New Updated Trip Report

I ran across a bunch of pictures I scanned in 5 years ago, of our trip to Australia. Originally, I had created a really nice web site where I had thumbnails of each image next to a comment, in a table, and the whole site told a story of our trip. Unfortunately, the site was lost many years ago and I couldn’t find the local copies of the web pages, so it went away. I just downloaded the images into some album maker and put them out for people’s perusal.

I find that I am not happy with the Linux HTML tools I have at hand. Admittedly, it took several weeks to put together the old web site, but it had cascading styles and continuity. I was able to put this one together in several hours but it doesn’t have the look or feel I want it to have. I can’t imagine a web page builder that doesn’t allow you to insert a background color! It’s probably there, just not documented.

Anyway, the pictures are there to look at. We saw some beautiful and interesting sights in Australia, and we caught a few on film. The link should be on the side menu bar.

fandom

MileHi Con

MileHiCon was a pleasant weekend. I was there promoting a small SF con we have in Colorado Springs, COSine. We have a bit of a SNAFU with our dates this year but I think we recovered in time. Our GOH, Joe Haldeman, was available for the follwing week and I only heard of one potential attendee that couldn’t make it on our new weekend.

Our Saturday party went on until 3 AM and ended with a discussion on the inappropriateness/inconsistencies of overloaded operators in C. I happen to like overloaded operators, but was starting to zone out at the time so didn’t contribute to the discussion.

fandom

Noreascon Four

Noreascon Four

Noreascon 4 was a nice convention. I worked in the Con Suite and I thought it worked very well. Always difficult to provide a hospitality suite for 5000 fans but we managed quite well.

There was a clause in the hotel contract that the hotel (Sheraton) would keep our function rooms, including the Con Suite, stocked with Coke products and the fans really scarfed them up. It was also nice to wander into the movie or anime rooms and grab a drink.

The Concourse in the convention center had a pub, the Mended Drum, that served a good variety of ales, ciders and beers. And the food services folks were providing a Pratchett themed menu. They also hosted the literary Bheers where fans could sit and drink with their favorite authors. (As opposed to the KoffeeKlatches in the Consuite with just Coffee)

What I really liked about the MD was that they telecast the Hugos and Masquerade to the bar so you could sit down and enjoy the show.

Boston was very pleasant that week, Mostly Sunny. I had a chance to pick up a game at Fenway on Wednesday and Boston won. The rest of weekend was a whirlwind of meeting old friends and wondering where the ones you knew were there were.

Unfortunately, American Airlines changed my return flight to 8 AM from 10 AM on Tuesday, forcing me to actually get up and leave the hotel at 6 AM. and it left me with a 4 hour layover in Raleigh Durham. Fortunately, I used the Intenet lounge to recheck my travel plans and found the change.

fandom, science fiction

Torcon 3

Toronto has faded into the mist. Actually it was a pretty clear day as we departed Toronto. We could see the Tower from the Airport, which we didn’t on arrival, on account of darkness. Elaine and I spent the morning packing up and visiting the Royal Ontario Museum. It’s a lot bigger on the inside that the outside. Fortunately, or un, the ROM didn’t open until 10 AM, giving us plenty of time to pack and organize our return. The unfortunate part is the we only had 2.5 hours at the ROM before returning for our bus. The ROM was under renovation and several exhibit areas were closed. We did get to see the South Asian, Indian and Chinese Art exhibits as well as a ‘history of decorative drawing rooms from the 1500’s to present’ exhibit. What we totally avoided was the Natural history on second floor. Just ran out of time.
Continue reading Torcon 3 →