Home again...

Wonder how badly I'm behind on LJ... gonna catch up, then probably a post on my trip.

A good weekend, all told

Despite the chaotic prelude, and sudden change in plans, I had a good weekend.

Thursday I drove down to KW where mycrazyhair and whynotsteve provided hospitality and entertainment. Thank you again for the use of your bedroom on short notice. Helped mycrazyhair with cataloging a few things, sorry about the illegible hand-writing on one of them, and walked away with a few things myself. And, foms, I have a box with a telephone picture on it, and I'm told some sort of computer stuff in it (I haven't looked) for you.

Friday morning, met up with redsash and took a few things away from his (former) house, then the two of us were joined by horsetraveller for a very enjoyable breakfast, with interesting discussion of community vs government and good food.

Then on the road for Troy, MI. Due to the blockade happening on the 401, I chose to take 7 west from KW, taking it accross until it ended, then following the county roads (that probably used to be highway 7) almost to Sarnia, crossing over into Michigan at Sarnia/Port Huron, then I-94 to Metro Parkway and the hotel. Driving was mostly clear and dry, with some clear and wet areas -- no problems at all.

Arrived at the convention around 3:30pm on Friday, and spent most of Friday helping rmeidaking with the green room. (Joy and Mara (sp?) also helped out.) Green room seemed to run fairly smoothly, and to work fairly well this year. I've agreed to help again next year.

After green room closed, I wandered around a few of the parties, and hugged and chatted with various people, and somehow it became 3 in the morning, and I'm not quite sure where the time went, but I had to go to bed as I had a shift starting at 10am the next day.

Saturday, got up around 9am (though was woken at 7am by the alarm clock, time inheritted from previous room occupant), and worked in the green room from 10am to 2pm. Then went to the Regency Dance workshop, and had a good time spending two hours learning, and doing, regency dances. We did 4 dances, including the ever popular "Hole in the Wall". I think I shall make the regency dance workshops/dances a regular part of my congoing. Wandered around a bit more, had dinner with zencuppa, though I didn't know at the time she was zencuppa, and then got changed for the evening. Wandered down to the dance about when it was starting (9am) and danced off and on until about 1am, when I just got technoed-out. Yes, they did a couple of sets of other music, but there was just a bit too much "club" music for me. People can go to clubs for club music, this is a con dance, we don't need very much of that music. But, it isn't easy -- I've tried DJing a bit for (a smallish, relaxicon) con, and yup, it isn't easy. In bed for about 3am, again.

Oh ya, it blizzarded on Saturday, which thoroughly encouraged me to not leave the hotel.

Sunday, got up at a more mellow 10:30 or so (and the alarm was turned off, so no 7am pain), dropped by green room to see how things were going, did a couple little things. Had a nice lunch with elizilla and all the friendly people who dropped by to chat. Unfortunately, elizilla suffered from the attack potato salad, but had other clothing to change into. (It was a con, you know, everyone packs lots of clothing, right?) Bought a couple games from the dealer's room (India Rails and Bang!) to bring home with me. Said various good byes (and missed saying a few others) then headed out for Sarnia, where I was overnighting at jeffreyab's place. Driving was mostly ok, some snow on the road accross Big Beaver/Metro Parkway, but mostly not too bad, and I-94 was mostly fine, too.

Then, Monday morning, on the road again. Met mycrazyhair for lunch in KW, where I was handed some stuff that I'm told needs to be relayed to iclysdale for some further routing that was complex enough to understand that I've already forgotten it. I feel like I'm moving email along an old-style ! path. It started snowing while I was in KW, which I did not regard with glee. The drive out of KW, was snowy and slippery, but once on the 401 things were better -- for most of the rest of the trip home the highway was clear and wet, though there were a few intermittent snow patches, but I made generally pretty good time -- I don't think I needed to drop below 90 km/h at any point.

Thank you every one I saw, spend time with, hugged, etc. I had a good weekend.

Plans for this year...

April 8-10: Ad Astra in Toronto, rooming with jeffreyab.

April 22-24: Penguicon in Novi, Michigan, rooming with jeffreyab.

June 9th & 10th: ride the Cabot Trail (Cape Breton, Nova Scotia) with elizilla. We discussed this at the con, but I didn't write anything down... I think the plans we came up with were: meet at the southern of the Maine-Nova Scotia ferries evening of Wednesday, June 8th. It crosses overnight, ride in Nova Scotia Thursday, Friday, get to ferry back to mainland on Saturday. Overnight on mainland Saturday, and head home-wards on Sunday. Sound right? ladysprite, are you likely to be around home June 7-8th, and have crash space? If so, I'd love to come down to Boston on Tuesday, and visit you before starting this trip.

June 24-26th: Apollocon in Houston, Texas. Current thought is to head to Texas by going south (through some interesting riding), then east, hopefully arriving in Dallas for Wednesday June 22nd, to visit Thomas and Stacey, then on to Austin on Thursday to visit another friend, and finally to Houston for Friday and the convention. For Sunday, will see how the day goes, either head out not-too-late, or see if kgkofmel can put me up for Sunday night, and get an early start on Monday. Figure I'll go north, then east, as I need to be back reasonably quickly, not wanting to arrive in Ottawa later than evening of Wednesday (June 29th), so that I have Thursday the 30th to get ready for...

July 1-3 (or maybe 4): annual cottage party, held at my parents cottage, in the Gatineau hills, north of Ottawa.

August: Bachanal somewhere in South-East Michigan. Few details are currently available. :)

October 7-9 Conclave in Lansing, Michigan, rooming with jeffreyab.

I'd like to make it to a Chicago convention this year, choices seem to be: Capricon February 10-13, Duckon May 6-8, or Windycon November 11-13. Capricon looks a bit too short term for planning, and both April and June already have a lot of travel making Duckon a bit iffy looking, so it might just be Windycon.

I'm thinking about Marcon May 27-29 as well, but as I said about Duckon, I may not want to travel much in May, given how busy April & June are looking.

And, I'd like to get up to Montreal a couple times to visit friends there, as well.

Tomorrow, I request lots of vacation days...