FKO and other travels
So, I'm finally back home for long enough to sit down and write about all the things I've been up to. Mid-march to mid-April tends to be a very heavy travel season for me. This year, FilKONtario was the start of a 10-day trip, since there didn't seem to be much point in going back to Boston between FKO and when I needed to be at my parents for Passover.
As we have in recent years, we left home Thursday after work and drove until I was too tired to continue safely. For the second year in a row, we didn't make it out of Massachusetts, but even trimming 2 hours off the Friday drive, really helps.
As usual, I had a great time at FKO. The only thing that would have made it better is if I hadn't had to spend all weekend dealing with homework. I caught a break when it turned out that you could actually connect to the free WiFi in the hotel lobby from one side of the main filk room. I had expected that I would have to miss some of the concerts to go online; but instead, I was able to do my homework and listen to terrific live music at the same time. Heather Dale and Ben Deschamps were wonderful as always and Urban Tapestry was in fine form. One of the highlights of the weekend was the Suburban Travesty performance which can be seen on YouTube:
I mostly lurked in the back corners of the open filk rooms this year and the pesky homework stuff kept in my room for a couple of hours on Friday night, when I would have much rather been filking. I'm not sure if it's because I'm getting old, or because concentrating on homework was fairly draining; but I went to bed far earlier than usual both Friday and Saturday nights. I'm used to being part of the filk to dawn and then get breakfast contingent, but I haven't managed that at any con in a couple of years now. (Though, I did wind up gaming until dawn at Balticon a 2 years ago.)
As usual, there was a lot of good music at the dead penguin filk Sunday night. This has become so well attended that it really feels more like part of the convention than the after party.
I'm looking forward to the year that I arrive at FKO without having to deal with work for class or work for work during the weekend. That hasn't happened in a very long time. There's a better chance it will next year, since I'm finally finishing my Master's degree this semester. But since that doesn't mean I'll stop taking classes, it may not make a difference. (One of the best fringe benefits of working for Harvard is the ability to take classes as no or substantially reduced cost.)
My original plan had been to head for Ithaca, NY on Monday and spend Tuesday playing tourist on the Cornell campus before spending Tuesday evening in class (The class has a distance ed. option), and then Wednesday morning head for Long Island. When I was a kid, my family lived in the dorms there for six weeks while my Dad was taking a summer class so it would have been fun to walk around campus and see how its changed. I got my first introduction to video games playing Asteroids in the student union there. However, since it was snowing, we opted to skip the side trip and split the drive from Toronto to Long Island into two stages and get to my parents place on Tuesday afternoon in time for me to "attend" class from their place. The Ithaca visit will have to wait for another year.
As we have in recent years, we left home Thursday after work and drove until I was too tired to continue safely. For the second year in a row, we didn't make it out of Massachusetts, but even trimming 2 hours off the Friday drive, really helps.
As usual, I had a great time at FKO. The only thing that would have made it better is if I hadn't had to spend all weekend dealing with homework. I caught a break when it turned out that you could actually connect to the free WiFi in the hotel lobby from one side of the main filk room. I had expected that I would have to miss some of the concerts to go online; but instead, I was able to do my homework and listen to terrific live music at the same time. Heather Dale and Ben Deschamps were wonderful as always and Urban Tapestry was in fine form. One of the highlights of the weekend was the Suburban Travesty performance which can be seen on YouTube:
Click to viewI mostly lurked in the back corners of the open filk rooms this year and the pesky homework stuff kept in my room for a couple of hours on Friday night, when I would have much rather been filking. I'm not sure if it's because I'm getting old, or because concentrating on homework was fairly draining; but I went to bed far earlier than usual both Friday and Saturday nights. I'm used to being part of the filk to dawn and then get breakfast contingent, but I haven't managed that at any con in a couple of years now. (Though, I did wind up gaming until dawn at Balticon a 2 years ago.)
As usual, there was a lot of good music at the dead penguin filk Sunday night. This has become so well attended that it really feels more like part of the convention than the after party.
I'm looking forward to the year that I arrive at FKO without having to deal with work for class or work for work during the weekend. That hasn't happened in a very long time. There's a better chance it will next year, since I'm finally finishing my Master's degree this semester. But since that doesn't mean I'll stop taking classes, it may not make a difference. (One of the best fringe benefits of working for Harvard is the ability to take classes as no or substantially reduced cost.)
My original plan had been to head for Ithaca, NY on Monday and spend Tuesday playing tourist on the Cornell campus before spending Tuesday evening in class (The class has a distance ed. option), and then Wednesday morning head for Long Island. When I was a kid, my family lived in the dorms there for six weeks while my Dad was taking a summer class so it would have been fun to walk around campus and see how its changed. I got my first introduction to video games playing Asteroids in the student union there. However, since it was snowing, we opted to skip the side trip and split the drive from Toronto to Long Island into two stages and get to my parents place on Tuesday afternoon in time for me to "attend" class from their place. The Ithaca visit will have to wait for another year.