2015 Nights Away From Home Meme
Travel bumped back up last year after bottoming out at a mere 43 nights gone in 2014). The generosity of the Corflu Fifty carriend me across the Pond for the first time since 2002. Escaping the horrors of last year's winter for 19 days in March and early April would have been splendid under any circumstances, but to spend those days with friends all over England was utterly divine. Thank you all so much.
A mad dash around the Midwest in July found me staying overnight in Pennsylvania, Indiana, Illinois, Minnesota, and Michigan. I passed through ten states, stayed in eight cities, was gone for 12 nights, and drove over 3,000 miles. Eep. Fun, though. Then December found me on another road trip, this time south to Virginia, delivering 14 boxes of video tapes from the Scott Imes Video Archive to be digitized before MidAmeriCon II this summer. Once I was there, I headed further south to North Carolina for an utterly lovely working mini-vacation on North Carolina's Outer Banks. I lived in North Carolina from 1974-76 and have been wanting to visit it again ever since I moved east in 2004.
In all, I was gone from Toad Woods 66 nights, or 18% of 2015, which means I was home 82% of the year. The second digits in each number flipped compared to 2014 when I was gone 12% and home 88%. But that was the low point over the 5 years I've been keeping track. As long as I'm home at least 75% of the time, I'm happy to be traveling more.
Fourteen human visitors and one canine were here for a total of 32 nights. That was grand!
FYI, I spent a few hours in the Toronto airport in both March and April as part of my Corflu Fifty travels, but neither was an overnight stay.
2015 Overnights Away From Toad Woods
England
Cambridge
Chichester
Croydon
Folkestone
Ilford
London
Newcastle-upon-Tyne
United States
Chicago, IL
Rosemont, IL
Urbana, IL
Huntingburg, IN
Boston, MA
Danvers, MA
Framingham, MA*
Middleton, MA*
Peabody, MA
Lansing, MI
Minneapolis, MN
Kill Devil Hills, NC
Iselin, NJ
Brooklyn, NY*
Bronx, NY
Yorktown Heights, NY
Portland, OR
Erie, PA
McDonald, PA
Fredricksburg, VA
In flight
YYZ-LHR (over Atlantic Ocean)
PDX-BOS (over US)
Science-fiction Conventions
2015 conventions attended: Arisia (Saturday only), Boskone, Corflu, Eastercon. IIRC, this is the fewest conventions I've attended in a year since, well, forever. For values of forever equal to about 30 years, more or less. It feels like I must have left at least one out; did I seriously attend my last convention of the year at the beginning of April?!?!? That seems so unlikely, and yet.... Then again, both Tynecon 3: the Corflu and Dysprosium were grand - a complete high point of my convention year.
2016 conventions I hope and/or expect to be at: Boskone, Vericon, Corflu, ConQuesT, MidAmeriCon II, and Smofcon.
Overnight Visitors at Toad Woods
I think 2015 brought the most overnight visitors - 14 - to stay in the Zeppelin Hangar here at Toad Woods. Friends were here for just 32 nights compared to 44 nights last year and 41 the year before (those numbers primarily due to Gavi's attendance at Smith College and various nights she spent here in conjunction with that). But most of May was filled with five guests who stayed between 4 and 18 nights in conjunction with Gavi's graduation from Smith. Between a busy senior year at Smith and her graduate studies at the Courtauld Institute in London, Gavi was here for 9 nights in 2015. That's quite a drop compared with 27 and 31 nights in the previous two years. But I'm storing a bunch of her stuff; I'm sure she'll be back! :-)
Overnight vistors who had stayed here before:
• Fred, Susan, & Gavi Levy Haskell
• Ben Yalow
• Joe Siclari & Edie Stern
• Sheila Perry
• Patrick & Teresa Nielsen Hayden
First-time overnight visitors:
• Stuart Levy & Karen M/e/d/i/n/a/ Evans Levy
• Ken & Cindy Coviak
• Lydia Nickerson
& Shine, one of Sheila's Briards.
Hope you'll all come back soon, and often, too. It's sheer delight sharing the Zeppelin Hangar with you!
Links to past meme reports
2014
2013
2012
2011
A mad dash around the Midwest in July found me staying overnight in Pennsylvania, Indiana, Illinois, Minnesota, and Michigan. I passed through ten states, stayed in eight cities, was gone for 12 nights, and drove over 3,000 miles. Eep. Fun, though. Then December found me on another road trip, this time south to Virginia, delivering 14 boxes of video tapes from the Scott Imes Video Archive to be digitized before MidAmeriCon II this summer. Once I was there, I headed further south to North Carolina for an utterly lovely working mini-vacation on North Carolina's Outer Banks. I lived in North Carolina from 1974-76 and have been wanting to visit it again ever since I moved east in 2004.
In all, I was gone from Toad Woods 66 nights, or 18% of 2015, which means I was home 82% of the year. The second digits in each number flipped compared to 2014 when I was gone 12% and home 88%. But that was the low point over the 5 years I've been keeping track. As long as I'm home at least 75% of the time, I'm happy to be traveling more.
Fourteen human visitors and one canine were here for a total of 32 nights. That was grand!
FYI, I spent a few hours in the Toronto airport in both March and April as part of my Corflu Fifty travels, but neither was an overnight stay.
2015 Overnights Away From Toad Woods
England
Cambridge
Chichester
Croydon
Folkestone
Ilford
London
Newcastle-upon-Tyne
United States
Chicago, IL
Rosemont, IL
Urbana, IL
Huntingburg, IN
Boston, MA
Danvers, MA
Framingham, MA*
Middleton, MA*
Peabody, MA
Lansing, MI
Minneapolis, MN
Kill Devil Hills, NC
Iselin, NJ
Brooklyn, NY*
Bronx, NY
Yorktown Heights, NY
Portland, OR
Erie, PA
McDonald, PA
Fredricksburg, VA
In flight
YYZ-LHR (over Atlantic Ocean)
PDX-BOS (over US)
Science-fiction Conventions
2015 conventions attended: Arisia (Saturday only), Boskone, Corflu, Eastercon. IIRC, this is the fewest conventions I've attended in a year since, well, forever. For values of forever equal to about 30 years, more or less. It feels like I must have left at least one out; did I seriously attend my last convention of the year at the beginning of April?!?!? That seems so unlikely, and yet.... Then again, both Tynecon 3: the Corflu and Dysprosium were grand - a complete high point of my convention year.
2016 conventions I hope and/or expect to be at: Boskone, Vericon, Corflu, ConQuesT, MidAmeriCon II, and Smofcon.
Overnight Visitors at Toad Woods
I think 2015 brought the most overnight visitors - 14 - to stay in the Zeppelin Hangar here at Toad Woods. Friends were here for just 32 nights compared to 44 nights last year and 41 the year before (those numbers primarily due to Gavi's attendance at Smith College and various nights she spent here in conjunction with that). But most of May was filled with five guests who stayed between 4 and 18 nights in conjunction with Gavi's graduation from Smith. Between a busy senior year at Smith and her graduate studies at the Courtauld Institute in London, Gavi was here for 9 nights in 2015. That's quite a drop compared with 27 and 31 nights in the previous two years. But I'm storing a bunch of her stuff; I'm sure she'll be back! :-)
Overnight vistors who had stayed here before:
• Fred, Susan, & Gavi Levy Haskell
• Ben Yalow
• Joe Siclari & Edie Stern
• Sheila Perry
• Patrick & Teresa Nielsen Hayden
First-time overnight visitors:
• Stuart Levy & Karen M/e/d/i/n/a/ Evans Levy
• Ken & Cindy Coviak
• Lydia Nickerson
& Shine, one of Sheila's Briards.
Hope you'll all come back soon, and often, too. It's sheer delight sharing the Zeppelin Hangar with you!
Links to past meme reports
2014
2013
2012
2011