Liberty-con round-up
well, i got everything done that i wanted to do for liberty-con except vaccuum. i'll do that this weekend, i suppose.
liberty-con weekend really started wednesday evening for me, doing last-minute stuff and waiting for sidial to get in, which she did at 3 ack emma in the morning. she called while she was in front of my door, which is good, because i was completely out of it on the couch. we didn't speak a lot that first night, because we were both doing the middle of the night zombie thing. we got up thurs morning around 8ish, and were on the road around 8.30ish - we're both efficient types when it comes to getting up and going in the morning. a quick stop at walmart for a binder and road food, and we were off.
sidial, understandably, slept the first hour or two of the drive, and i listened to the end of 'Guilty Pleasures'. around birmingham, that audiobook ended, and we were on to 'The Laughing Corpse'. i like to listen to audiobooks on long drives, because i hate constantly looking for a new radio station. the anita blake audio books have musical scores underneath the voice actress whenever the action gets intense, spooky, or sexy. i think the intent is to add emotional tension to the scene - the actual result is that those scenes tend to sound like bad video games. the voice actress - or the director - chose to give Jean-Claude a very obvious French accent, which is something i don't 'read' him as having. when i'm reading the books, i mentally 'hear' him as having a nearly perfect mid-west accent in his english, interrupted by non-accented (or parisian-accented) perfect french. the last thing i don't really agree with is that the anita character is the only one in the entire character set who *has* a mid-west accent. considering this takes place in st louis, that's kind of disheartening. the other characters native to st louis all vaguely sound like stereotypical new york Jewish mothers, even the guys. the midwest accent is very flat and uninflected. it's rare to hear nasal-ly sounds in the voice, and we certainly don't roll or broaden out things much.
it can be difficult to describe your own accent, but basically, when i'm listening to anita blake books, the only characters who should sound different than myself and my family are ones who have a demonstrably different ethnic background.
thursday, we got into the hotel around 4pm EST, and i made sure my reservation extended to sunday night. not driving on sunday. Sidial and i settled in to wait for Grace, and even though we both decided we needed a nap, we ended up talking for 2 hrs. hmmmm. during this time, Sidial pretty much confirmed for me that i was an Aspie. it was kind of like talking to a mirror, and both a relief and a bit weird to have someone who actually understood what i meant 90% of the time.
Sidial finally called to check on Grace - due to a family crisis of sorts, she hadn't even left yet. we offered support. Grace did not get in until 2am.
thursday evening, though, Sidial and i enjoyed Chinese food after getting directions from her blackberry. good restauraunt.
friday i was at breakfast around 8ish, and met james, nathan, and a few others in the area. Sidial was right behind me, but not quite as ready to interface with others for the day. the talk around the table was guns, and the boys were getting ready for a range trip. i decided it'd be kind of fun, especially as Mmike said the magic words '.50 caliber'. immediately, i thought 'yes, i need my semi-annual influx of testosterone this morning...' and then Mmike mentioned that he had been doing some research for a book a few months back and realized he had more guns and ammo than Barbados, so talk turned to scheduling the invasion of a small island country...
Sidial made a quick run back to the room for meds and to try to wake Grace to see if she wanted to go, but Grace was well into the second acre of tree-clearing, so we left without her.
Sidial and i rode with Wolfwalker545 to the range. i'm not sure what, if anything, Sidial got to shoot, although she said later she was more interested in the cameraderie than the actual guns, i think. i shot Mmike's antique .22 revolver, David Burkeheart's (?) 9mil and .22 pistols, and did get to shoot 1 bullet out of the .50 cal. i am officially a manly-man! (minus a shoulder, sheesh!) i did more watching and trying to 'track' the bullets to see where they landed than shooting. that's ok, because i was also there primarily for the friends and a chance to look at the cool rifles and remind myself of the sounds of the gun reports and what the action of various models was - a kind of research since i'm in a gun-heavy fandom. David shot an antique lever-action rifle - i forget which caliber. i drooled over the stock, because i am a carpenter on the side. one of the older gentlemen - Les? - shot an M16 - you know, the Viet-Nam era thing that the troops used. his rifle kept ejecting the shells pretty far off to his right.
someone had thoughtfully provided cold bottled water this trip, and as i was sipping mine, i got smacked in the calf with an ejected shell, and thought 'i can just see untwisting the cap on this bottle and having a shell plop into it - i gotta put that into a story! the character with the water bottle can shrug and say it's just a little mineral boost!'
we got back from range day about 2pm, and Lwj2 and katie-kat had shown up. the BFC suite was opened, so they went down to start setting things up, and i went swimming, while Sidial caught up with Grace. i had intended to swim every day, but that one swim on friday had my shoulders sore well into sunday. yes, i'm out of shape. last week my weight, which had been going steadily downward for about 2 months, had decided to start fluctuating between 260 and 264 (according to my scale), so i think i've hit that first plateau, and am planning to crack out the Wii next week and start adding it to my daily routine. as always, i need a 'workout buddy' - by which i mean, someone who reminds me at 7pm to get up and do the workout thing.
the first night in BFC, i brought down the bbq buffalo roast. it lasted all of an hour. :-D i'm not sure, but i think people liked it, hee.
i wore two corsets, purple gypsy pants, and a raccoon tail, because the barony won't let me wear the tail at events - they say my taste in clothes is frightening enough. i turned into a pumpkin around 10pm, but ended up farting around on the 'net until 1.30.
Saturday morning breakfast was a bit of a repeat - up at 8.30, meet with relevant folks, talk for a bit. saturday morning's conversation was about coffee, of which i love starbucks, and lwj2 abhors. he also drinks coffee black, and i only do lattes. i needed to do a shopping run for some extra stew stuff - carrots, onions, potatoes - and was asked to pick up some 8 o'clock (brand) coffee. so i went and just to piss lwj2 off, bought french roast and dark italian roast in addition to the 'original' version.
i got back to the suite, rinsed out my crock, and began putting my stew together. everything went okay till i was nearly done, and was cutting open the packets of elk meat. yep - i cut myself opening the second packet. katie-kat went into nurse mode, and i'm sitting there holding my index finger and thinking 'but *i'm* not supposed to be part of the stew!' soylent green, we has it.
Andrew finished the stew, and we put the liner into the heating section, and i promptly turned the it on 'warm', and didn't catch it until 1.30pm. oops. at 1.30, i turned it on high, but i knew it would need another 4-5 hrs to get ready, and wouldn't be edible early in the evening. ah, well. it turned out well, but only about half of it got eaten, because of the late start. the cut on my finger was clean and shallow - just (predictably) on the tip, which is the worst place ever to get a cut.
Saturday was spent shopping and schmoozing. i didn't find anything to buy, which kind of sucked, but saw mmike's daughter Morrigan again and bemoaned her pubescent status - she is not supposed to grow up, darnit! that said, she's totally gonna be a heart-breaker. she can already break bones, so she's gonna be fine, there. i also met an anthropology major who was spinning wool into yarn, and we had a pretty awesome discussion of craft skills and the like. i told her about stump work, and she told me about spinning. it was good.
that afternoon, in the BFC, i took the opportunity to take a few stitches on the mag7 doggies pattern that i'd brought with me. the sequence of events was: push needle thru fabric, pull thread, shoulder-pain!; push needle, pull thread, should-pain! it was kind of pathetic and funny all at the same time. the .50 cal shoulder bruise was a deep bone bruise thing, and it's just now starting to come out, 4 days later. i'm still laughing... and wincing a bit, hee.
Saturday evening, i met two new SCA friends who lived in the Chattanooga area - Lord Essex and her* ex-husband, Knee-Biter. turns out that they're old friends of katie-kat, and we also had a great time talking and reminiscing and etc. Knee-Biter gave me a shoulder-neck massage, and i told Lord Essex that i could marry him just for his hands - she returned that in that case, she wasn't going to let me near her current husband! i pimped the barfly web-board and chatroom, and also my barony and friends. i left just as the barfly bake-off judging was started.
Sunday was the day of cleaning up. we were pretty much out of the BFC suite by 12ish, and i stayed around to talk and say my good-byes as the conguests slowly left. fewer people came this year than prior years, as the economy is kind of sucky right now, but i still had a great con.
i took Grace and Sidial out to dinner at Ryan's, and we spent the rest of the evening in our hotel room, talking. it was a good wind-down for me, although i think Sidial and Grace were still pretty hyped up by the time they headed to bed. they kept complaining about all the sleep i got while they were *so* tired, but had gotten just a couple of hours the entire weekend. i pointed out that i'm on two permanent medications that are sleep regulators, and adding benedryl to that pretty much garuntees i'm gonna be out for the count for a while.
monday i was up at 1/4 to 6am getting ready and packing out. out of the hotel by 8am and on the road. decent drive back, although i had to stop a couple more times than i thought i would just to keep myself awake. Sidial offered to drive, but i declined because i knew she'd have a long drive from NOLA back to Houston. we finished 'Laughing Corpse' a couple hours out from NOLA, and spent the next two hours deconstructing Pern, fanfic, original porn, and what we did or didn't like about the audio books. it was fun.
we got into my apt at 2.30pm, and Sidial turned right around and got on the road again. she got in safe to her place around 1/4 to 9pm.
the one 'scary' thing that happened this weekend to my family is that my nephew Sam got appendicitis. they caught it early enough that it wasn't an 'emergency surgery' as such, but such things are never really schedule-able. Sam is fine - his initial reaction post-surg was a little less than optimal, so they kept him an extra night, but that's also not uncommon, and he didn't really have complications, they were just being cautious.
there also seems to be a bevy of ugly things going on in my friends' lives right now, and i'm helping as i can, but it can be a little overwhelming at times. i won't bring up details here because it's not my place to say, but be advised that i may be a bit quiet on other people's ljs in response to stressful posts. it's not y'all, i'm just conserving spoons, ok? i love y'all.
*in light of recent transgender discussions, i feel it necessary to state that these are the correct pronouns. i don't remember Essix's mundane name, but the lady is not gender-queer herself, she just has a male SCA persona, because she can't/ doesn't like to wear the dresses. i don't blame her - i'm in tunic and trews often enough myself!
-bs, the con-fried
liberty-con weekend really started wednesday evening for me, doing last-minute stuff and waiting for sidial to get in, which she did at 3 ack emma in the morning. she called while she was in front of my door, which is good, because i was completely out of it on the couch. we didn't speak a lot that first night, because we were both doing the middle of the night zombie thing. we got up thurs morning around 8ish, and were on the road around 8.30ish - we're both efficient types when it comes to getting up and going in the morning. a quick stop at walmart for a binder and road food, and we were off.
sidial, understandably, slept the first hour or two of the drive, and i listened to the end of 'Guilty Pleasures'. around birmingham, that audiobook ended, and we were on to 'The Laughing Corpse'. i like to listen to audiobooks on long drives, because i hate constantly looking for a new radio station. the anita blake audio books have musical scores underneath the voice actress whenever the action gets intense, spooky, or sexy. i think the intent is to add emotional tension to the scene - the actual result is that those scenes tend to sound like bad video games. the voice actress - or the director - chose to give Jean-Claude a very obvious French accent, which is something i don't 'read' him as having. when i'm reading the books, i mentally 'hear' him as having a nearly perfect mid-west accent in his english, interrupted by non-accented (or parisian-accented) perfect french. the last thing i don't really agree with is that the anita character is the only one in the entire character set who *has* a mid-west accent. considering this takes place in st louis, that's kind of disheartening. the other characters native to st louis all vaguely sound like stereotypical new york Jewish mothers, even the guys. the midwest accent is very flat and uninflected. it's rare to hear nasal-ly sounds in the voice, and we certainly don't roll or broaden out things much.
it can be difficult to describe your own accent, but basically, when i'm listening to anita blake books, the only characters who should sound different than myself and my family are ones who have a demonstrably different ethnic background.
thursday, we got into the hotel around 4pm EST, and i made sure my reservation extended to sunday night. not driving on sunday. Sidial and i settled in to wait for Grace, and even though we both decided we needed a nap, we ended up talking for 2 hrs. hmmmm. during this time, Sidial pretty much confirmed for me that i was an Aspie. it was kind of like talking to a mirror, and both a relief and a bit weird to have someone who actually understood what i meant 90% of the time.
Sidial finally called to check on Grace - due to a family crisis of sorts, she hadn't even left yet. we offered support. Grace did not get in until 2am.
thursday evening, though, Sidial and i enjoyed Chinese food after getting directions from her blackberry. good restauraunt.
friday i was at breakfast around 8ish, and met james, nathan, and a few others in the area. Sidial was right behind me, but not quite as ready to interface with others for the day. the talk around the table was guns, and the boys were getting ready for a range trip. i decided it'd be kind of fun, especially as Mmike said the magic words '.50 caliber'. immediately, i thought 'yes, i need my semi-annual influx of testosterone this morning...' and then Mmike mentioned that he had been doing some research for a book a few months back and realized he had more guns and ammo than Barbados, so talk turned to scheduling the invasion of a small island country...
Sidial made a quick run back to the room for meds and to try to wake Grace to see if she wanted to go, but Grace was well into the second acre of tree-clearing, so we left without her.
Sidial and i rode with Wolfwalker545 to the range. i'm not sure what, if anything, Sidial got to shoot, although she said later she was more interested in the cameraderie than the actual guns, i think. i shot Mmike's antique .22 revolver, David Burkeheart's (?) 9mil and .22 pistols, and did get to shoot 1 bullet out of the .50 cal. i am officially a manly-man! (minus a shoulder, sheesh!) i did more watching and trying to 'track' the bullets to see where they landed than shooting. that's ok, because i was also there primarily for the friends and a chance to look at the cool rifles and remind myself of the sounds of the gun reports and what the action of various models was - a kind of research since i'm in a gun-heavy fandom. David shot an antique lever-action rifle - i forget which caliber. i drooled over the stock, because i am a carpenter on the side. one of the older gentlemen - Les? - shot an M16 - you know, the Viet-Nam era thing that the troops used. his rifle kept ejecting the shells pretty far off to his right.
someone had thoughtfully provided cold bottled water this trip, and as i was sipping mine, i got smacked in the calf with an ejected shell, and thought 'i can just see untwisting the cap on this bottle and having a shell plop into it - i gotta put that into a story! the character with the water bottle can shrug and say it's just a little mineral boost!'
we got back from range day about 2pm, and Lwj2 and katie-kat had shown up. the BFC suite was opened, so they went down to start setting things up, and i went swimming, while Sidial caught up with Grace. i had intended to swim every day, but that one swim on friday had my shoulders sore well into sunday. yes, i'm out of shape. last week my weight, which had been going steadily downward for about 2 months, had decided to start fluctuating between 260 and 264 (according to my scale), so i think i've hit that first plateau, and am planning to crack out the Wii next week and start adding it to my daily routine. as always, i need a 'workout buddy' - by which i mean, someone who reminds me at 7pm to get up and do the workout thing.
the first night in BFC, i brought down the bbq buffalo roast. it lasted all of an hour. :-D i'm not sure, but i think people liked it, hee.
i wore two corsets, purple gypsy pants, and a raccoon tail, because the barony won't let me wear the tail at events - they say my taste in clothes is frightening enough. i turned into a pumpkin around 10pm, but ended up farting around on the 'net until 1.30.
Saturday morning breakfast was a bit of a repeat - up at 8.30, meet with relevant folks, talk for a bit. saturday morning's conversation was about coffee, of which i love starbucks, and lwj2 abhors. he also drinks coffee black, and i only do lattes. i needed to do a shopping run for some extra stew stuff - carrots, onions, potatoes - and was asked to pick up some 8 o'clock (brand) coffee. so i went and just to piss lwj2 off, bought french roast and dark italian roast in addition to the 'original' version.
i got back to the suite, rinsed out my crock, and began putting my stew together. everything went okay till i was nearly done, and was cutting open the packets of elk meat. yep - i cut myself opening the second packet. katie-kat went into nurse mode, and i'm sitting there holding my index finger and thinking 'but *i'm* not supposed to be part of the stew!' soylent green, we has it.
Andrew finished the stew, and we put the liner into the heating section, and i promptly turned the it on 'warm', and didn't catch it until 1.30pm. oops. at 1.30, i turned it on high, but i knew it would need another 4-5 hrs to get ready, and wouldn't be edible early in the evening. ah, well. it turned out well, but only about half of it got eaten, because of the late start. the cut on my finger was clean and shallow - just (predictably) on the tip, which is the worst place ever to get a cut.
Saturday was spent shopping and schmoozing. i didn't find anything to buy, which kind of sucked, but saw mmike's daughter Morrigan again and bemoaned her pubescent status - she is not supposed to grow up, darnit! that said, she's totally gonna be a heart-breaker. she can already break bones, so she's gonna be fine, there. i also met an anthropology major who was spinning wool into yarn, and we had a pretty awesome discussion of craft skills and the like. i told her about stump work, and she told me about spinning. it was good.
that afternoon, in the BFC, i took the opportunity to take a few stitches on the mag7 doggies pattern that i'd brought with me. the sequence of events was: push needle thru fabric, pull thread, shoulder-pain!; push needle, pull thread, should-pain! it was kind of pathetic and funny all at the same time. the .50 cal shoulder bruise was a deep bone bruise thing, and it's just now starting to come out, 4 days later. i'm still laughing... and wincing a bit, hee.
Saturday evening, i met two new SCA friends who lived in the Chattanooga area - Lord Essex and her* ex-husband, Knee-Biter. turns out that they're old friends of katie-kat, and we also had a great time talking and reminiscing and etc. Knee-Biter gave me a shoulder-neck massage, and i told Lord Essex that i could marry him just for his hands - she returned that in that case, she wasn't going to let me near her current husband! i pimped the barfly web-board and chatroom, and also my barony and friends. i left just as the barfly bake-off judging was started.
Sunday was the day of cleaning up. we were pretty much out of the BFC suite by 12ish, and i stayed around to talk and say my good-byes as the conguests slowly left. fewer people came this year than prior years, as the economy is kind of sucky right now, but i still had a great con.
i took Grace and Sidial out to dinner at Ryan's, and we spent the rest of the evening in our hotel room, talking. it was a good wind-down for me, although i think Sidial and Grace were still pretty hyped up by the time they headed to bed. they kept complaining about all the sleep i got while they were *so* tired, but had gotten just a couple of hours the entire weekend. i pointed out that i'm on two permanent medications that are sleep regulators, and adding benedryl to that pretty much garuntees i'm gonna be out for the count for a while.
monday i was up at 1/4 to 6am getting ready and packing out. out of the hotel by 8am and on the road. decent drive back, although i had to stop a couple more times than i thought i would just to keep myself awake. Sidial offered to drive, but i declined because i knew she'd have a long drive from NOLA back to Houston. we finished 'Laughing Corpse' a couple hours out from NOLA, and spent the next two hours deconstructing Pern, fanfic, original porn, and what we did or didn't like about the audio books. it was fun.
we got into my apt at 2.30pm, and Sidial turned right around and got on the road again. she got in safe to her place around 1/4 to 9pm.
the one 'scary' thing that happened this weekend to my family is that my nephew Sam got appendicitis. they caught it early enough that it wasn't an 'emergency surgery' as such, but such things are never really schedule-able. Sam is fine - his initial reaction post-surg was a little less than optimal, so they kept him an extra night, but that's also not uncommon, and he didn't really have complications, they were just being cautious.
there also seems to be a bevy of ugly things going on in my friends' lives right now, and i'm helping as i can, but it can be a little overwhelming at times. i won't bring up details here because it's not my place to say, but be advised that i may be a bit quiet on other people's ljs in response to stressful posts. it's not y'all, i'm just conserving spoons, ok? i love y'all.
*in light of recent transgender discussions, i feel it necessary to state that these are the correct pronouns. i don't remember Essix's mundane name, but the lady is not gender-queer herself, she just has a male SCA persona, because she can't/ doesn't like to wear the dresses. i don't blame her - i'm in tunic and trews often enough myself!
-bs, the con-fried