Current location:	Office, but I did get fresh air today.
Current mood:	sick
Current music:	none at present (gasp)
Entry tags:	conventions

Penguicon!
Until someone more famous, like Scalzi or Howard Tayler comments, you'll have to make do with mine.

On the whole a great con. I arrived Friday evening and met Howard in the lobby, busy sketching. The kids at once found anime and Steve Jackson's Chaos Machine. Had I known they were MSTing "Starship Bloopers," I would have been there, because no amount of heaping contempt can properly consign that POS and Verhoeven to the depths of slime they belong in. (Yes, I just ended a sentence with a preposition. Deal with it.)

I said hi to the writer's workshop and tried not to talk, since I'm still recovering from something nasty.

We cornered R Milholland, him of http://www.somethingpositive.net and had my kids scream "DADDY!!" while attacking him. Rather than being shocked, he looked amused and resigned. Still good photos, though.

Late Friday, Space Ox Logistics delivered me a package. It says something about cons in general, Penguicon and me, that when a furry ox in a coverall walks up to me with a package and a clipboard, I sign for the package and accept delivery. It was a delightful gift I'll have uploaded to my site soon. A bottle of mouthwash. Specifically, "SCOPE of Justice!" Bravo, Tron Guy.

Saturday, I woke up and got sick. I have no idea what was wrong with me the last couple of weeks, but it involved bacteria, fungus, ears, nose, throat, eyes and antibiotics, antifungals, cough syrup, painkillers and almost no food. I was barely back to shape for the weekend, and thought a hot morning shower would help my nose and throat. Not sure, because I choked, gagged and then hacked up something that looked like tofu or stir-fried chicken. Revolting, but I could breathe and swallow afterwards.

Got to the hotel and panels started. There was a mixup between "authors in the wild" and "Charlie Stross reading." I enjoyed his reading, and wasn't going to cut in, even though I'd also been scheduled according to some versions of the schedule. So I enjoyed it. I met up with one of the writers from the workshop and critiqued his story (Straightforward and workable), scenery (pretty and mood-building), conflict (present) and emotional grab and character motivation (non-existent). It was readable and did have potential, though.

Also Saturday, the con did its best to keep us fed. There were cold cuts in con suite and Green Room, and fresh fruit and juice and cheese and cookies in Green Room, and instant liquid nitrogen ice cream as always, and Howard cooked some Chupaquesos, and a Brazilian named Eduardo grilled Brazilian style steak (Eduardo's meat was pretty damned good), and there was a sushi rolling, and some party had pizza, and there were meatballs, and some other party had cold cuts and chocolate. Great touch for a con.

Went swimming. My daughter CAN swim, but has this confidence and coordination problem that gets in the way. But she can now swim on her back comfortably. Progress!

I pimped up in my Highwayman garb/tux and posed for several photos, and joined the Tron MST just in time for all the red states to flop to blue states...doh!

Nathan scored a room Sat night (Actually, Fri night for Sat, after a cancellation) saving us a drive. The kids also watched some Toon Network, since we don't have cable, played more Chaos Machine, and helped me get photos of a variety of photos of this stuff http://reasonablyclever.com/lego.html . It was awesome to see the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster in Lego up close. I stayed up a bit talking politics with Steve Jackson and a couple of friends. Disparate beliefs, but we all agree that governments suck, except that they're needful.


Sunday, Morrigan signed model prints of her PSA and her Milk and Cookies and Rifles photo for Howard and Steve Jackson respectively. With a long drive ahead, I bailed as soon as the writer's workshop Sunday session was over.