Ooh! Ahh!

Just found johno's BayCon photo gallery, which has many amazing pix of farmount on the last couple of pages. And there's a couple of me in the background in my Colonel Sanders costume on page 2, from whence I gakked this icon.

odd thought de jour

So there I was, in the men's room, just sitting on the urinal minding my own business...

Baycon2006 Part I - Friday

The "Get Out Of Jail Free" card came in the form of my annual ophthalmology appointment, which was at 4 pm.  At about 4:30, with dilated eyes and two sets of dark glasses, I drove the 7 minutes or so to BayCon, and kept one pair of dark glasses on for my hike inside.

Registration was closed till 6! WTF? This meant I couldn't do much of anything - could not get into the 5:30 panels I had rushed there to get to, and couldn't even shop the dealer's room. The art show was closed due to the staff being lighting-challenged, so at least everyone shared my pain there.

The good news is I was in the hall and available for scendan and _oy_ to kidnap and take to dinner at their table of close and personal friends, including iamradar who was a hoot, especially when she started waving her meat around. No one seemed to want the last piece of flank steak she didn't have room for. But we all had rude things to say about it, and much laughter ensued.

6:10 and the line at registration was 20 people long, and not moving. I was certain I had signed up for a membership at the end of last year, so I went to one of the FLARE folken and asked if the line was for pre-registration. There were no signs telling which line was which, and the instructions which told you to fill out a form before getting in line were strategically placed on a wire hanging above the registration desk, and the text was too small and crowded to read until you were right up in front. The nice FLARE dude said I could just walk to the side of the desk, there was no one in line there. During the con, I saw some people wait for half an hour to be told to wait in the other line.
( much more to read here )

BayCon 2006 - Part IA - The Rest of the registration story

When I got home I fired up the PC, launched Quicken and did a search for Baycon. I saw my charges and checks for 2004 and 2005, but nothing for 2006.

Racked my brain, which actually did manage to stretch on demand. And remembered that I had been in line after BayCon 2005 for a 2006 membership, but the line was long, and after half an hour of not making much progress towards the cashier, I thought what a dull con it had been, no GOHs I was interested in, mostly dull panels (except for the costuming ones), filk concerts were mostly boring rehashes of the same people and groups doing the same numbers, or not doing filk at all but abusing the concerts to plug their latest non-filk CD. I also did not get to spend much time with people I only get to see at con, and except for farmount's party there wasn't much going on of interest in that area. And I was not sure if I would even be in the Bay Area in a year, what with job foo and plans for Thailand in November.

So I ditched the line, and never bought a 2006 membership.

I was set on not going to BayCon 2006 until I saw an announcement that Pournelle and Niven were the GOHs. That's a WorldCon class lineup, and I was definitely going if I could.

But there was still job foo, Thailand plans (and when I returned I was jazzed about the idea that I might be moving there permanently), and Mom's heart surgery (which kept getting put off until it was finally scheduled for two days before the Con).

Bottom line: I did owe them the full fare, after all.

Baycon2006 Part II - Saturday

Arrived at about 9:45 am, found a good spot to park only 2 miles from the main entrance. This year the Doubletree has decided to gouge for parking (it used to be free) so they directed me to free parking in the lot belonging to the property behind their massive lot. Better than nothing, but one more reason to consider moving the con elsewhere.

Made it in time for the 10 o'clock panel Collaborations: What Makes One Work? with two of my all-time favorite writers, Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. They collaborated on three books which I consider classics of Sci-Fi: Mote in God's Eye, Lucifer's Hammer and Footfall. I stopped reading their stuff when they went off the deep end into historical fantasy, which is what they were hyping at the panel, but their laurels collectively and separately are big enough to nest in, let alone rest on.

Pournelle is becoming a classic curmudgeon, helped a lot by his southern drawl and laid back delivery style. Niven gives the impression of the quiet, absent-minded professor, except his mind is anything but absent. Even with a mike, he is difficult to hear, while his buddy can roar above any crowd on a windy day.

Daugherty-Niven-Pournelle


There was a lot of good advice, and a lot of entertainment to be had, aided and abetted by moderator James Stanley Daugherty.
( Read more, see more pix... )