Labor Day weekend!
I did not end up going to WorldCon this year, despite initially having planned to do so; the educational track didn't come together as hoped, so I saved my pennies and simplified the start of the semester by not heading to Chicago for the weekend. Which is too bad, because on Sunday night new KU creative-writing prof Kij Johnson won the Hugo Award for best novella for "The Man Who Bridged the Mist"! This is the same story that also recently won the Nebula Award. That's what I call starting one's teaching career with a bang.
Instead, I had a real vacation weekend. This included writing, of course (further progress on The Adventures of Jack and Stella), tinkering with the vehicles, reading (right now it's the first book of the Harry Potter series and something called, Programming the Universe: A Quantum Computer Scientist Takes On the Cosmos), hanging out with friends, and two more events.
The first, on Saturday, was this year's Greaserama. For the first time at this punk-car-culture event (and my car's second show ever), I drove the hot-rod Newport. Friends Matt and AJ drove over with me. Here we are at the show:
Lots of photos from the show on my website (let me know if you have issues with the gallery - experimenting). At nightfall, we watched a double feature at the Boulevard Drive-in theater where the event is held: "Boulevard Nights" followed by "The Warriors," both circa 1979. Just as the first movie was about to start, everyone fired up their rods' engines and made as much noise as possible. It's not just parental pride when I say the Newport was the loudest bastard out there on Saturday. How do I know? Because not only did Matt and AJ have to back away while I revved the hell out of it, but the roar was actually painful enough that it forced me to cover my ears, and afterward I could hear nothing but a muffled hum for a while: 747s on takeoff have nothing on this beast! I felt really part of the event when one of the car-club members who runs the event, "Weirdo Harold," fell in love with it and invited us to park in their row.
A beautiful (after the rain broke) day out with good friends, awesome cars and bikes, turkey legs and corn dogs, delicious tequila at a double feature in an old-school drive-in... happy-making.
On Sunday, after getting a bunch of work done, I got together with a bunch of friends to celebrate a birthday. Said friends then headed over to the Kansas City Renaissance Festival on Monday, where we practiced archery (only Matt M hit the bullseye in 7 shots):
And tested our Mjolnir skills (I rang the bell!):
Then we went to everyone's favorite event at Faire: The Royal Smoker, where ten bucks gets you two drinks, a cigar (or soda), finger-food, and entertainment ranging from bawdy humor and music to belly-dance (courtesy chernobylred). Super-fun weekend!
Yesterday saw another cluster of meetings at work plus class, and same for today. This weekend? I'm going to get SO MUCH WRITING DONE on The Adventures of Jack and Stella, I tell you what!
What'd you do on Labor Day weekend?
Chris