starmalachite and I are back from OVFF; we had a one-hour flight delay and some heavy traffic on the way home (kind of like the delays caused by people slowing to watch an ugly wreck, only in this case caused by people going to watch the latest Redskins game). The cats are in the full love-me-love-me-love-me phase of greeting their humans

Capclave went rather well. I ended up doing more of my usual routine of settling into the con suite/game room and less panels than I'd originally intended, but I had a good time introducing a few people to Kingsburg (I ended up playing three games over the weekend, making it about the only game from the traveling collection that saw any real use, if you don't count bringing the Revolution box to protect a couple prints and a sketch from the Erfworld party).

Saturday night was a bit abbreviated because starmalachite hadn't been sleeping well, so we left as soon as I acquired the aforementioned sketch (a two-part sketch, actually, part by outgoing artist Jamie Noguchi and part by incoming artist Xin Ye). On the other hand, we returned Sunday (originally, we'd been planning to make one last visit to the Maryland Ren Faire for the season, but between the mud and starmalachite not really feeling up to that long a drive, we decided to catch the rest of the con instead). That gave us a chance to see a panel on the significance of the Civil War (featuring author GoH Harry Turtledove, of course) and get in one more Kingsburg game.

The con also gave me a chance to experiment with the video camera we got last week. So far, the results look good; now I need to figure out how to do format-conversion and turn the pictures sideways. (I held the camera sideways, figuring that that would better frame a single standing person; this may have been a mistake.)

Now to get ready for OVFF (first step, review this example of How Not To Deal With Airport Security).

We got back from OVFF late last night. As usual, there was more activity at the con than I could really absorb and I hardly got to see half the folks there/ That's especially true since I have a tendency to fade into the background, a la Matt Keller's "Plateau Eyes" in A Gift From Earth. Sometimes, this comes in handy, such as the moment in the banquet buffet line when the rest of the Conterpoint core group was batting around the question of who will chair the next one. (Briefly ponders redacting the previous sentence because it's sort of self-negating when the rest of them read it; decides to step up and take his chances fair and square.)

All in all, it was a good con, and kudos to the concom for making it happen. I recall too many good things to single out any in particular, but one personal highlight was staying up for the dawn patrol and breakfast buffet with the group around Kathy Mar -- lately, I'd had a tendency to get tired more often than usual. Finally, starmalachite put her foot down and got me to have a doctor check into it; it seems to be an allergy to something or other that's causing occasional wheezing. The prescription she put me on seems to be doing the trick so far.

The bad news after the con (other than the general bad news of having to readjust to mundania) was that the furnace igniter seems to have quit; we called for a repairman who may or may not show up sometime today. Satin seemed a bit listless when we got home, which alarmed us since she's 18 going on 19; fortunately, she seems to be more or less herself today.

I'd already arranged to take today off and get some extra rest (the fact that it was still morning rather than mid-afternoon when I woke up for good, and without feline intervention to boot, surprised me a bit) and smooth the ruffled fur of the shamefully attention-deprived kitties.

I just booked flights to OVFF for me and starmalachite and double-checked that I have everything set for the rest of my con plans: TCEP this weekend, possibly day-tripping T-MODE next Saturday, Capclave (likely skipping Sunday for the last day of Maryland RenFaire), OVFF, Philcon, and Darkover.

See some of you there!

After finishing up our packing while being pestered for attention from three cats who had figured out that The Humans Are Leaving, starmalachite and I headed for the Metro station and from there to National Airport to catch the morning flight to Columbus. Fortunately, the trip went off without any interesting incidents; I mostly zoned out until we landed.

While I was watching out for the shuttle, someone else noticed starmalachite  with the luggage and asked if she was headed to the same hotel. She turned out to be a relative newcomer; we (mostly starmalachite , really) chatted about some of the people she'd heard of and described a few other items of interest and general Filk 101 pointers.

We checked in, took a brief swim in the hotel pool, and then took a nap until dinnertime. After that, the con proper got underway. As usual, the Pegasus concert went very well (I thought the brief intermission was a good idea for letting people who were still pondering their votes recharge their mental batteries). Open filk Friday went on until about 3 AM (as far as I recall); I was still awake enough to hang out and chat with partiallyclips and maverick_weirdo until the breakfast buffet opened at 6:00, (IIRC, maverick_weirdo turned in before breakfast, but jannyblue joined us at the restaurant.)

I spent about as much time wandering around as I did at the various concerts Saturday afternoon. I enjoyed the Pegasus banquet, with hearty congratulations to the winners. The Interfilk auction had one T-shirt I was briefly tempted to bid on, but before I decided to jump in the bids had gone a bit above my temptation level. As usual, open filk ran later Saturday night, with about a dozen survivors heading for the breakfast buffet when it finally wound down. (AFAIK, I was the only one who kept awake through breakfast both days. That surprised me, actually; the last few cons I've been at I conked out by 3:00 or so).

Sunday had a few events leading up to the traditional jam session, followed by a mass exodus to BD's Mongolian for a dinner run and then the dead dog party, which was still going on when I finally crashed out at about 3:30.

I got up at about 11 Monday morning; we packed up and headed for the lobby (we were lucky enough to get a room on the ground floor right near the rear lobby entrance), where we met Kathy Mar and split a cab ride to the airport. There was one disconcerting moment when we got back to Franconia/Springfield station and couldn't find our car at first; it turned out that it was around a corner from where we first looked for it. That problem solved, we headed home.

Tired now.