I've gotten most of my memberships for next year; Loscon, Gallifrey, Nova Albion and Baycon.

The Westercon rate doesn't change until the end of May, so no rush there.

Now to figure out hotel rooms, party plans and art show stuff.

November has been kind of a crappy month for most of my friends, but I myself am doing fine and looking forward to Loscon. Hotel and travel is arranged and for a wonder I might have new art to hang.

World Fantasy was one of those conventions that re-energized me and filled me with plans and ideas, even though it came at the end of a long week. Amazingly I didn't get sick afterwards, like many folks have, and taking last weekend off to just bum around the house and get laundry and the like done was nice.

There are several things going on this weekend, including SFinSF and Writer's With Drinks that I might attend, depending on finances (that's the next item on my 'set my house in order' list), and the Last Unicorn Rave-which I seriously considered but probably won't make after all

I've also started a Google Calendar for the SF/SF events listings and adding the updates via twitter @sfsfcalendar

Fydysyfy is also back on track-this week with Stompy Boots Against Cancer.

After about ten days of mostly travelling about I am heading home. You would think I'd be glad, and I am a bit, but World Fantasy was such a good con that even in my travel worn condition I could easily have wished it to be at least one day longer.

The highlight of the con was working the Consuite, which I had been worried would take up too much of my time but ended up being a blast. I'll be doing a write up for SF/SF for both WFC and Steamcon, probably as one single piece since the contrasts and comparisons are pretty interesting.

The question for me now: which is larger, the pile of books or the pile of laundry?

 Missed my train, spent the better part of a day in Portland (books! donuts!) and made it back in time to get the last leg of the trip rerouted because of the Great Bay Bridge Disaster of Ought-Nine. 

Meeting up with my brother, who is in town for just the night. Also maybe dinner with friends. Then going home, laundering and repacking and off to San Jose for World Fantasy. 

Then I swear I am doing sweet FA until Thanksgiving.

Last night trinsf  nudged me into going to w00tstock, which I am very glad about since it was an amazingly cool show. 

Highlights; Wil Wheaton read a story with musical backup from Paul and Storm, Adam Savage did a slideshow presentation called '100 Wishes' and Kid Beyond, who I had never heard of before did some just incredible live looping beatboxing thing that made me really, really wish we were had been in a danceclub instead of a theater. And although she 

We started, and then ended the evening at Home and I went home finished packing and now me and my overfilled suitcase are just counting down the minutes until I board the train to Seattle. 

The next few months are packed. Here is my ideal convention schedule;

September 26 - From the Land Beyond
September 27 - Handcard Regatta
October 2-4 - Silicon
October 23-25 - Steamcon
October 29-Nov 1 - World Fantasy
November 27-29 - Loscon

The sure things are Silicon, World Fantasy and Loscon.

FTLB and the Handcart Regatta I would ideally do as one thing, heading up to Sacramento on Saturday then back to Santa Rosa that night, spending the night and heading back to San Francisco on Sunday. It seems to be kinda doable by train but I'll probably only go it if I can find someone to drive.

Steamcon is a "probably", dependent only on budget.

Trepidation 2009 was excellent, thanks in no small part to the awesomeness of fandom in general and of my friends in particular.

Although, now I simply cannot shake the feeling that it is a post-con Sunday XD

Overall, I personally had a very good time at Baycon but this was a weird year for a number of my friends, which prevents me from saying it was a good con.

clockworkbuddha, sinmix  and myself arrived late night Friday just in time to pick up my badge and (most exciting) my namecard for my first ever panel the next day. After that I got changed and checked out the party floor. Things were going reasonably strong and, hilariously, the entire hallway on the 3rd floor was wrapped in plastic, prompting many condom and dental dam jokes. The usual hours of running into friends and party hopping ensued.

Saturday morning I got some breakfast, and then it was time for the panel. I was nervous but it turned out to be a real hoot and it would be nice to do it again at Silicon. Afterwards I finally hung my art (no new pieces, because of printer problems) and checked out the Dealer's Room before it was time for the SF/SF staff meeting. By the time that was over I was startled to realize it was still only Saturday afternoon-it seemed like I'd been at the con for days.

After decorating the Lounge for the Saturday Night Disco-Steam barely-sekrit theme I took a nap, which helped. I changed into my evening wear which included a groovy sequined headband. I peer-pressured the other roomies into joining in (JP was already rockin' a open collared black shirt under a blue jacked) and they ended up looking fantastic. We hung in the Lounge for a bit, then got some dancing in. At some point I ended up in the Lounge for a while longer before heading up to bed. When I got there, The Magnificent Seven was on and we all watched the end of that before hitting the sack.

Sunday I was free as a bird, with no panels or other responsibilities. We missed the breakfast buffet so got lunch instead, I hit the clothes swap briefly, then a panel, and spent most of the day enjoying the process of wandering between meals and conversations that formed, split and reformed. Eventually it was time to get changed to the evening and out Weird West Travelling Medicine Wagon group costume. I had been a little frustrated with my own outfit for it, and some things I had not finished in time-but clockworkbuddha  did an awesome job with his part and we looked good as a group so it ended up being tons of fun.

The rest of the night varied from great to lousy depending on who you were and were you were standing, and I was periphally involved in parts of that. I felt like I had a very good night, but the knowledge that an unusually large number of my friends did not put a bit of a damper on things. In the end a handful of us stayed up until dawn and managed to be the first people in the restaurant at 6 a.m. when the buffet opened, which was one of those nice con-type experiences.

Monday was the usual last day of touching base with folks I didn't get to talk to except in passing, doing a last pass of the art show and dealer's room and laying plans for future mayhem with various people.

A full report to follow in SF/SF, as always.

Potlatch was casual but very fun, got to hang out and have good conversations. Bought too much stuff in the end, but there are no other conventions until BayCon in May so that's fine I think. Le Guin was great, especially during the auction.

Full report to follow in SF/SF, as always.

I'm all packed and just getting through the work day before heading down to Sunnyvale. I'm taking Caltrain, so hopefully I can skip out a little early from work  and get settled in before programming starts at 7PM.

I'll try twittering as a way of taking notes, the #gally tweets from Gallifrey One were very useful helping me reconstruct my timeline, even though I had no signal most of the time and couldn't contribute.

Aside from that I'm mostly just looking forward to a relaxing weekened at a nice hotel, I have some big (for me) expenses coming up including Montreal, so this is a sort of last indulgence for a while, getting the room to myself and all. Must be sensible after this.

Gallifrey was just brilliant, even if it did it's best to kill me at the end.

I attended more panels than in previous years, got to dance a little and more importantly got to see a dalek get it's groove on. I spent a good amount of time hanging with old friends (although never enough and not all of them) and made new ones as well, which to my mind is the sign of a truly successful convention.

A proper report will of course follow in SF/SF.

Room is booked, chose the Delta which seems nice. Was a little sad that the latest day currently listed at the con rate to check out is the 11th, I was hoping for a buffer on each end.

Now to figure out how I'm getting there :)

I can't believe it's only two weekends until Gallifrey, there was some costuming I was vaguely planning on but it looks like it will have to take a backseat to getting some art done instead.

Still, I have the togas from Loscon, which work for the Pompeii themed events.

I'm kind of glad that Potlatch isn't a comstumy con and has no art show.

So who all's going to Potlatch? I'm going and looking at reserving my room and can't decide if I'm going to be decadent and get the suite with the jacuzzi or sensible and get a 2-bed so I can get a roommate.

I should be sensible since it's right after Gallifrey.

But it's a short con, I have no prospect for a roomie currently and a jacuzzi does sound nice.

Decisions, decisions.

Just got back from spending the weekend doing the lounge thing at Anime LA, then getting back to the Bay Area in time for my first ever BASFA meeting. All in all a very good way to start off my fanac for the year, but am definitely looking forward to getting some well earned sleep since I do have to work tomorrow, alas.

Since it's going to be a couple of weeks until the next SF/SF, I figured I'd do a short Loscon report now.

The original plan was to go down late Wednesday night with sinmix  and clockworkbuddha , but unfortunately sinmix  got sick and had to bail. clockworkbuddha  was an angel though and offered to drive me down and drive back up the next day, which I guiltily agreed to. We spent Friday at my sister's house in Santa Monica and had a Thanksgiving dinner with some friends of hers, a good time was had by all.

Friday he dropped me off at the hotel and I started to get my con on almost immediatelly when I ran into Tim Powers right after checking into my hotel room, after which I unpacked and headed for the fanzine lounge to meet up with the crew. I was dissapointed to hear from johnnyeponymous  that The Lovely and Talented Linda was also feeling unwell and would not be joining us.

trinsf  had wisely arranged for us to have a room on the party floor for the fanzine lounge after dark so we set that up with some minor decor, then there was a quick run to the store for booze before getting changed into my Roman crossplay outfit for the evening, which started out as Caesar but with the addition of glittery laurels and a purse was really more Nero, frankly. The Lounge went nice and late but at some point I bailed to check out the dance, which was being DJ'd very well by Patrick Beckstead mostly with New Wave tunes, and I danced most of the rest of the night away, eventually getting to sleep around dawn.

Saturday I started off okay but faded as the day went on, but I was determined to stay awake until after the Scalzi Wheaton Super Happy Fun Hour, which turned out to be so totally worth it. Not only were the hosts very entertaining but it was a chance to see the Velvet Wesley up close and personal, johnnyeponymous , trinsf  and Jason Schachat were also able to get scalzi  and wilwheaton  to pose with The Scarf (which really needs it's own LJ or something, Chris)

After all that excitement I took a much needed nap to recover for the evening's festivities. I put on my greek style outfit complete with a big curly wig and headed up to the lounge. Between the big evening events and John Hertz's late night party we had less traffic in the lounge on Saturday night but it was still a lot of fun. Eventually I called it a night and left trinsf  and Schachat on duty again, I suspect they may cash those points in at some later date.

Sunday is always a little sad at a con, but since I was staying through Monday to take the train I didn't have to deal with check out at least. I spent time in the daytime lounge, wandered the art show and the dealer's room and almost accidentally found myself in a panel where David Gerrold was screening an upcoming episode of New Voyages which was unfinished but very good, and which I hope to see up for Hugo consideration.

There were the usual goodbyes and eventually I went to get my stuff packed for my early check out, checked out the Dead Dog and gravitated back to the lounge after dark room to hang with the crew and see if we could finish off the leftover booze (we couldn't) before retiring to bed far later than was wise.

Thankfully my Monday involved napping, sipping wine and eating with trinsf  on the Coast Starlight all the way home, which is the only way to wrap up a Loscon with style.

The new issue is out, Steam Powered coverage and more.

Back from Steam Powered.

The hotel was an interesting setting and worked very well in some ways (including a very nice and helpful staff) but was too small and not well suited to a weekend convention. Otherwise things seemed to go smoothly, I didn't hear about any major issues and the dealers room, programming, concert and the decor/props that the convention supplied were all good to great. There were some very nice touches and the crowd was well dressed and enthusiastic. The vibe was a very good all weekend and I had a great time, spent too much money, drank just enough alcohol and danced only a little less than I would have liked.

I am exhausted, satisfied with my weekend experience and wishing I could sleep for the next 48 hours.

Proper report to follow.

This past weekend, and this week, have been all about getting ready for Steam Powered. Over the weekend sinmix , clockworkbuddha  and self hit Scrap, which was a little overwhelming but tons of fun. Cliff's Variety, Costume Party, Goodwill, etc. have all contributed to the piles of costume bits that I now have all over the damned place. Sometime in the next month or two I'm definitely ordering new storage furniture of some type.

I still don't have anything near a completed outfit, of course, although I have like ninetyzillion partial concepts.

On Sunday I went to a going away party for my friend Ian, who is going back to Peru after visiting for a few months. It was a nice party at a place across the street from where I used to live on Fell Street, he has an eclectic group of friends so it;s always interesting hanging out with him. It was also much nicer to be able to actually say hasta luego this time.

In other news, Chris Garcia's Drink Tank just ended it's quite entertaining Fandom on Infitine Earth's series and I provided the cover for #185. I'm not done reading them all, but I looked at all the purty pictures!

Also, over at Huffpo I found this fascinating piece on clean tagging
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trinsf reports from the Doubletree:

The Coffee Garden has been replaced by something called Sprigs, which is open for breakfast and lunch but not dinner. A dinner menu is available at Spencer's and the Sushi bar I guess.

Con staff is reporting that it will be open for dinner during the con, but Sprigs staff has said not so.

More details as they come in.

EDIT: I'm told the booths are gone, or redesigned or something and "more downscale" ... eep!

EDIT 2: Posted over in siliconventions  and am told they are supposed to be serving dinner Friday and Saturday and hours are unknown but probably until nine or ten.

EDIT 3: Called the hotel, they have no idea, the gal on the phone seemed to be trying her best to make me happy with an answer and it sounded like the restaurant is new enough that they're not completely certain of the schedule, but basically said "Sprigs is open from 6AM until 2PM, any change to that schedule is usually shared with the hotel and we haven't heard anything as of yet".  So I guess we'll see. The hold music informed me that room service is now handled by Spencer's.