Heading to Boston this weekend. Hope to see a few of you there.

Do please note that I am not keeping up with reading LiveJournal. I have twice as many "friends" on Facebook and it's easier to follow people there, so that's the first (and usually only) place I skim for what people are up to.

Two years ago, I started working on a web site. I installed an online forum. Anyway the site never really went live. More recently, as I've been working on the SFContario web site, I turned on web statistics. And I discovered a lot of traffic on the site that had never been publicized.

Seems like Google or something found it. So spammers found an unmoderated forum. And they posted spam. Lots of it. To each other, as there were no real users.

This forum had a couple of thousand registered users and almost 200,000 messages. Good thing hosting is cheap, eh? I'm just idly curious if any of the spammers bought each others' products or services? It was really bizarre seeing so many people putting so much effort into logging in and posting their stuff on a forum that no one was reading.

Anyway I deleted it all this week. If I ever need this, I can recreate it. Moral of the story is if you're going to have an online community, someone should moderate it. So I'm being careful to log into http://blog.sfcontario.ca and http://committee.sfcontario.ca, just to be on the safe side. (The first is WordPress and has some built-in anti-spam functionality and the second requires users to be approved before they can do anything, so not much to worry about.) I'm also checking our Facebook group regularly, and the Google Groups list comes into my regular inbox.

In 1986, mvt and I went to Vancouver for Expo 86, the World's Fair that year. In what is now BC Place, we saw some 3-D animation in IMAX films. They were cool. Honestly I don't recall what the movies were about, but the technology was ( amazing...Collapse )

Friday, November 20

Went to the Ramada Plaza to sign the hotel contract and put down a deposit. We are now actual conrunners, not just posers. Then had dinner with marahsk, dlacey, and Catherine at El Trompo. Discussed SFContario and assorted future plans, including Midwest Construction 2013 in Windsor.

Saturday, November 21

First Annual General Meeting for the Science Fiction and Fantasy Society of Upper Canada at World's Biggest Bookstore took less than an hour. By-laws and enabling motion passed. Officers and directors re-elected by acclamation.

SFContario concom meeting following the AGM got lots done. Hotel contract announced. We have three guests so far; Diane is still working on getting an author guest. Got some good discussion about the web site. Lots of tasks assigned during the meeting. Much work to do.

Sunday, November 22

Worked on SFContario stuff. Got the committee site set up and populated the calendar.

Tuesday, November 24

Marah felt like Mexican, so she and mvt went to El Trompo again. I joined them.

Wednesday, November 25

Took sposter's design and mangled it a little in the process of getting online registration working at http://sfcontario.ca/html/register.html.

Thursday, November 26

Thanksgiving dinner: six of us (Merle, Marah, me, Cheryl, Andre, and peterjohnson had big smoked turkey sandwiches at Caplansky's.

Friday, November 27

Merle made plans for us to see her niece Rachel in December. We haven't seen Rachel in a while, so this is good.

Went to reading at the National Film Board of pilot for a new television series, Earthfall, written by Robert J. Sawyer. Five members of SFContario concom were in the audience; I didn't see any Ad Astra or Polaris people there. ;) Afterwards, I said to Rob "I assume you already have plans, but we're going for dinner, you're welcome to join us". What actually happened is that while Rob apparently had no plans, everyone had plans for Rob. More than a dozen of us ended up at the Friar and Firkin next door. No place to sit. Group broke up. Merle, Marah, Diane and I tried to go to Ho Su on Queen for dinner, but they were just closing.

We ended up at New Ho King at the north end of our Chinatown. We ordered a bunch of stuff I didn't really want. We dropped Merle off, then dropped Diane off, then I had a craving for spaghetti. Marah took me to Fran's on College.

Saturday, November 28

I worked on more convention stuff. Then Merle and I went out to see 2012. Got there just in time for 6:30 show. It was sold out. Merle suggested we go to the later show. I said we could see The Road while we were waiting (that had been one of Merle's choices). We had average-ish sandwiches (cold in the middle) in the little bar at the theatre. Quick reviews:

The Road: Yawn. Think of Mad Max done as a boring, depressing chick movie. Father and son wander around destroyed post-apocalyptic landscape looking for cans of food. Father loves son. Angsty flashbacks about dead wife/mother. Dirty bad guys occasionally show up but not much actual action follows. Even the cannibal scenes were milked for emotional content, I mean, really. Couple of naked shots (from behind) of Viggo M. for the demographic too old to get excited by New Moon. More emotional blah blah at climax. Whatever.

2012: Silly movie with less scientific rigor than The Day After Tomorrow. Lots of special effects money spent on cliche earthquakes and assorted things blowing up. Some of the car and plane bits were mildly entertaining. Acting was really good all through the movie, from Danny Glover to Blu Mankuma to Woody Harrelson (he was really fun) and a ton of other good actors. But the best thing about this was the D-Box seats. Totally worth the extra $7; these turned an otherwise average movie into an excellent roller coaster ride. Even if you see this in a regular theater, this movie is worth watching for the acting. I have to say that the song "The Kid and the Dog are with Me" was very applicable to this story.

Need sleep now. Dim sum and more convention stuff planned for Sunday. Must also plan laundry before Smofcon.

Actually I don't have much sense of how the convention went as a whole, but I saw lots of folks having a great time, and I got a lot done.

Went to the Chicago Worldcon bid party for about three hours on Friday, talking about the bid with various people.

Set up a Skype call to allow rono_60103 and Gary B. to participate in the call. It worked very well; everyone could hear Ron and Gary, they could hear almost all of what was going on, and both made comments and asked questions.

Was also happy to see marahsk re-elected to the bid board of directors. Pleased but not at all surprised to see Dave McCarty named as convention chair.

Dropped into the ISFiC book launch and got a book signed by author James Blaylock and cover artist Phil Foglio.

Got to Kathleen Meyer's poker game.

Worked hard to bring Midwest Construction back to life. Got positive input from erikvolson, netmouse, and unclevlad. Got one person to think about bidding to run the convention, subject to input from their local crowd, and told anyone interested that I'd like to bid to run the convention in Windsor or Sarnia in 2013.

Spent time with some friends I wanted to see. Not as much as I'd like, but it was still good. Spent a little time with a few Iowa fans.

Got some t-shirts and filk CD's. Also got a new computer bag that was the right size for my new laptop.

Had minimal travel drama getting to and from Chicago.

Other than being tired (got in around 3 AM Sunday night), it was all good.

( unimportant technical backgroundCollapse )

So I installed Thunderbird on the new computer, set it up for IMAP, I get an authentication error. I figure I've done something wrong. I've been using the account for years, and in fact I had the web mail open in another browser tab, so I was pretty sure I had the right password. Rather than me doing hours of research and trial-and-error, I decided to call tech support, as it's their job to answer this sort of question over and over and it should be easy for them. I call in and explain my problem. The guy puts me on hold for a minute and then comes back and says, "Weird, I've never seen anything like this before. It says your account is inactive while it's being set up." Let's keep in mind said ISP has millions of domains and millions of users,

Turns out it wasn't that unusual, they were just doing some kind of server maintenance. He told me to just try again in a couple of hours. I try to act a bit clueless since tech support people sometimes get a bit snippy; if you sound like you know their job, why would you be calling? (<lj user="marahsk> says I sometimes fail at sounding clueless, like the time we were in a hotel, I couldn't get Internet, and when I called for support I told them "I can't see anything in the ARP table".) The reality is that even if I understand the technology I don't have access to server logs so there are some issues, like this one, that can't be troubleshot by any user. Really I use similar tactics as a user as I do when providing tech support, which is to not make assumptions and to listen to information provided. In practice this means that when I actually do call for support, it usually means that either something bad has happened or something strange has happened. Anyway I had been worried that using a new client and a new protocol (to me) that I had done something wrong in setup, so I was gratified the problem wasn't on my end.

We had an SFContario meeting on Sunday. Other than the hotels we're talking to all being stupid lately, the meeting went well.

At one point, we talked about a possible guest, and we talked about an incident that happened at LACon IV. I explained my perspective of the event and people involved. A couple other people shared their perspectives about the situation and people involved.

The story itself doesn't matter; it was just fannish gossip and I don't want to cast anyone in a bad light in writing. But I realized that several of us were either on the LACon committee or close friends with someone who had been. Everyone at the table had attended at least one US Worldcon, and most of us have been staff at one or more of these Worldcons.

It's hard to put into words, but that's exactly the intangible difference between this committee and many other concoms I've been on. Not that we all agree; my flavors of fandom are different from other people on the committee. But we all share the vocabulary. In other groups, my non-local experience has made me kind of an outsider, but here it just means I have things to contribute. It's not quite like fandom in, say, Chicago or Seattle or Baltimore, where the spectrum of experience is wider. But we have a collective background that lets us talk about what has worked and what hasn't, locally and elsewhere, so we'll be able to avoid the groupthink that constricts decision-making in other groups. If I want to accomplish one thing, that's pretty much it.

Still tons of work to do, but I feel good about the direction we're taking.

Haven't been to a convention for so long that I went to a meeting.

Flew to Raleigh on Friday. Barely made the flight; traffic on the QEW added hours to the drive. We got there too late to check bags, so marahsk had to abandon her shampoo and conditioner. Fortunately gate 6 in Buffalo is right next to security, so we had minutes to spare. (By which I mean they were boarding first class when we got there, it was a few minutes before we boarded, and many people got on after us.) Connected in Philadelphia; found a cheesesteak. Arrived at RDU just before 11, and got to the Sheraton Raleigh around 11:30. Taxi ride was $40; the Super Shuttle might have saved us a few dollars.

Quick note about the site: The Sheraton is kitty-corner from the convention center and next-door to the Marriott. The Marriott is across the street from the convention center and connected by an underground tunnel. None of this walking six blocks to get places. The convention center is brand new. The ballroom is more than big enough and staging areas (including dressing rooms) are masquerade-friendly. There are five other large function rooms available (we're not using the whole convention centre), plus four in the Marriott, and some in the Sheraton as well, not counting miscellaneous boardroom and office-type spaces. This is more than enough for a NASFiC, i.e. comparable to Cascadia Con, which had about two more tracks than needed. The convention center is large but not huge, and the exhibit space is more than big enough for the number of artists, dealers, fan tables, and exhibits that a NASFiC is likely to need; if anything, making the place look not empty will be a challenge. We can expect aisles in the dealer's room and art show to be more than adequate for people in mobies to get around easily. I suggested a concession area like the Mended Drum. (Kaffeeklatsches will *not* be in the exhibit hall, yay.) Overall, if one were to use the convention center and all the function space in the two hotels (which the NASFiC is not), the ballroom is big enough for a Worldcon masquerade or Hugo ceremony (seating over 3000), the exhibit space is more than big enough, and using all the function rooms in the convention center and the two hotels would be enough for a Worldcon program.

We did get to a very authentic (70-year-old) barbecue place a short walk from the Sheraton. A row of new restaurants and shops behind the hotels is currently under construction and will be finished and occupied early next year. Raleigh is a university town, which is to say there are inexpensive but interesting food places (Sydnie K took us to a mediterranean place), and of course bars. The Sheraton hotel restaurant had a decent inexpensive buffet, with an omelet station. The gift shop closed in the afternoon, which I thought was odd and something to be addressed, but the gift shop had Cherry Coke Zero and Diet Sunkist, so I was happy when they were open.

In the committee room, about a third of the people were non-local, and the same proportion is true including people who were not present. (I'm helping Mike Willmoth in programming.) Warren and his friends are young, but there were also experienced locals in the room. I didn't see a lot of drama or ego in the room; I saw a little, but nothing that rose to the level of actual conflict. Warren is quieter than most convention chairs I've known, but the meeting never got out of control. He stuck to his agenda and made his points. The Stellarcon crowd know each other and seem to assume patterns of cooperation, which I've seen before with other committees. I offered a few helpful points (mentioning the Heinlein Society and other groups that might want to hold award ceremonies here). I'm a little amazed at how prepared Sydnie Krause was as treasurer; helps that she's getting advice from Tom Veal and that she herself has many years of being around experienced conrunners, but even so she so far seems better than most convention treasurers I've known.

Given how early this was I was impressed at how organized things are at this early stage. They've been working on planning the convention for a while; some tasks require more than 12-months preparation. They do in many ways remind me of the Seattle committee, and I have no problem recommending this group as a good committee for my other friends to come and get involved with.

Dina and Sydnie were kind enough to drive us out to the airport. We stopped at the Best Buy in Cary. They got a printer; I got a multipoint Bluetooth headset to work with both of my smart phones. Dina's flight was an hour before ours, so we had plenty of time. Service in the restaurant we found was slow. We connected at Washington National airport on the way back, so we got the view. No problem getting back to Buffalo. We stopped at Wegman's for our various diet drinks and diet sodas and mvt's 0% organic yogurt, then grabbed a snack at the Mighty Taco just before midnight. Marah got me home before 2 AM, so I got to work okay on Monday

Musical pioneer Les Paul died at the age of 94 in White Plains, NY.

Paul's innovations are the electric guitar and multitrack recording. The electric guitar was the essential instrument for the genre of rock and roll, and multitrack recording is the basis for the modern music recording industry.

He was also a well-known jazz, blues, and country music singer and performer from the 1940s to the 1970s, usually performing with his wife, Mary Ford. They performed many top-40 songs together, notably "In the Good Old Summertime", "Bye Bye Blues", "I'm Sitting on Top of the World", and "Vaya Con Dios" among others.

Wikipedia entry
Les Paul web site

Following is my schedule for Anticipation. Looks like I'll be busy, but I'll be pretty easy to find.

I believe our hotel room is 2819 at the Delta Centreville. All references to the "Delta" refer to our hotel room.(Hope this is readable in most browsers.)

Date	Time	Location	Event
Sat., Aug. 1	11:00 PM	Delta	arrival
Sun., Aug. 2	1:30 PM	tba	TAFF lunch
	4:00 PM	tbd	visiting in-laws
	9:00 PM	Delta	watch premiere of Defying Gravity
Mon., Aug. 3	Noon	Palais 210	Registration bag-stuffing
Tue., Aug. 4	Noon	Registration (outside Palais 210)	Registration setup
	3:00 PM		Registration opens
	6:00 PM		Registration closes
	8:00 PM	tbd	dinner
	10:00 PM	tbd	shop for non-perishables for SFContario party
Wed., Aug. 5	Noon	Registration	Registration shift
	6:00 PM		Registration closes
	8:30 PM	Restaurant Beijing	dinner (w/Capucine P.?)
Thu., Aug. 6	Noon	Registration	Registration shift
	4:00 PM	tbd	shop for SFContario party
	6:00 PM	Delta	setup for SFContario party
	9:00 PM		SFContario launch party
Fri., Aug. 7	10:00 AM	?	WSFS business meeting
	2:00 PM	Palais 511 CF	Panel: "The Obligatory Stargate Panel"
	4:00 PM	Registation	Registration shift
	8:00 PM	tbd	quick dinner
	9:00 PM	Delta	Chicago in 2012 bid party
Sat., Aug. 8	10:00 AM	Palais 524 B	Panel: "Looking Forward, Moving Backward" (moderating)
	4:00 PM	Registation	Registration shift
	8:00 PM	tbd	quick dinner
	9:00 PM	Delta	Chicago in 2012 bid party
Sun., Aug. 9	12:30 PM	Palais 524 B	Panel: "Open Source for Fannish Purposes"
	4:00 PM	Registation	Registration shift
	8:00 PM	tbd	attend Hugo ceremony?
Mon., Aug. 10	4:00 PM	tbd	shop for SFContario party
	6:00 PM	Delta	setup for SFContario party
	9:00 PM		SFContario party
Tue., Aug. 11	9:30 PM	630 boul. Rene-Levesque	work at Montreal office
	5:30 PM	Gare centrale de Montréal	quick dinner
	7:00 PM	Autoroute 40 Highway 401	return home

$2 million for Calgary Stampede = good
$400,000 for Toronto Pride = fired

...with reminders of mortality.

Not that I was a big fan, but I guess I followed Michael Jackson because we were the same age. I was five when he was five, I was eleven when he was eleven. To give him credit he's due, Jackson revolutionized modern pop music, showed how to merge music, dance, and video to lay down the foundations for what are now known as breakdancing, hip-hop, and music videos. He broke color barriers when such things still mattered. He was an investor and champion of intellectual property rights.

He wasn't great at accounting. He was the King of Pop, but if you live like a king at $3 million a month, that gets expensive after a decade or so. A lot of people rode on his gravy train. If he exhibited childlike behavior as an adult, maybe it's because he had to function as an adult since the time he was in kindergarten. He was a top-level pop star since the days when people watched the Beverly Hillbillies in prime time. The only people he could trust were people who were in the same league of celebrity and money as he had, and that was a pretty short list. His family sacrificed his interests for theirs since he was a young child, and they failed to shield him from the physical cost of the rockstar lifestyle. He was shielded from consequences of his mistakes, so he didn't have the kind of experience of right and wrong choices that most of us get growing up. He was guilty of too much innocence. He never meant anyone any harm, and didn't understand quickly enough when people weren't helping him. His small build gave him a high voice that made people take him less seriously than they would have if he'd been a tall, imposing baritone. Given his upbringing and environment it's remarkable how much he accomplished. He lived and breathed music and danced with every step. I feel sympathy for his problems, empathy for his choices, and admiration for his accomplishments.

I turned fifty on Tuesday. Had dinner with a few friends at a good restaurant. On the weekend we had a party, and it was great seeing Caitlin and Alyssa, thirteen and eleven respectively, at the party. Next weekend I'm celebrating the college and high school graduations respectively of my niece and nephew, Jennifer and Johnny. At my father's wake this winter, there were some little Kluge children running around making noise. Whenever I have to think about death, I also think about the future, and about what we are doing with the present to hand on to the next generation.

So we should honor those who've gone before us, live the best life we can, and pass on what we've learned and done to those who will come after. I admire any really creative person and anyone who defines themselves and their world to be able to live the life they choose, and Michael Jackson did more of that than just about anyone you could name. In his short life he influenced more than two generations of musicians and entertainers. Good for him.

For those of you who are coming to Anticipation in Montreal in August, who would like to help but who are not yet committed to a specific job, I'm recruiting folks to work in Registration. (I think a lot of my LJ friends already have con jobs but my Facebook friends may not all be snapped up yet. :) ) We need help particularly on Wednesday and Thursday but also through the convention. It's an easy job and you'll be able to meet lots of interesting people and see most of the convention. Let me know if you're interested in helping out.

Having a birthday party on Saturday to note passage into my next half-century. Minions have not tracked down proper contact information for everyone I'd like to come. Pretty much everyone on my LiveJournal and Facebook friends lists are welcome, but to ensure a proper head count, I will only send directions to those who ask. ;)

I am spending money on this because, well, I can. Fun, food, and filking will be had. Also, well, don't want to use the word "smoffing", but discussion about conventions past and future among fannish friends will occur. The room is big enough to support different converation groups.

I do not want presents and will not be opening them here. (Now that I have a storage locker full of stuff the last thing I want is more stuff.)

My cousin Michael passed away last week from an accidental head injury. He was 54. Survived by parents William ("Bud") Farrell Jr. and Patricia Gormley Farrell, his brother William ("Will") Farrell III, sister-in-law Colleen, nephew and niece Richard and Jessica. Mike was a cook at a concession at the Daytona Speedway.

Mike had had health issues throughout his life, so he never found academic or business success like some in my family, but he had a very good life on Daytona Beach Shores, on a narrow strip of land between the Halifax River and the ocean. He had a nice car in a town where driving around and cruising for girls is still a pastime. I visited a couple times eight or nine years ago and he showed me his favorite tourist sites, which mainly included the beach and assorted hangouts, including a couple of biker bars. He had lots of friends wherever he went. Basically it seemed like his life was a perpetual March break. We weren't especially close, but I only have two first cousins, Mike and his brother Will.



There was just a very quiet service for immediate family in Florida; Will came in from California. My aunt Pat isn't up to having a lot of people around, so no other memorial is planned. My brother Paul called me with the news when I was at ConQuest in Kansas City. I wasn't really in the mood for a lot of room parties Saturday evening. marahsk was supportive as my mood would allow, and ann_totusek was as supportive as her health permitted. I was glad to see the people that I did, but I knew I would not have been good company.

I just talked to Will and Pat on the phone. I can barely imagine how hard this is on them, but they are all doing as well as can be expected.

Found C. J. Cherryh's new blog, Wave Without A Shore. Also found the LiveJournal feed cjcherryh_feed (someone else beat me into creating this in LJ). Much talk of gardening, plus a bit about the new Bren Cameron book in progress.

At Lea Farr's request, I went to Montreal to attend the Anticipation committee meetings.( quick trip eastCollapse )

Lea Farr has asked me to come to Montreal this weekend. But she hasn't given me a phone number. Anybody know where there will be Anticipation meetings tomorrow?

On Wednesday evening, mvt and I went to Cheryl's parents' place for the Passover seder.

I haven't been in a long time. There was something else going on last year and I was away the two years previously. Everybody is pretty much the same, but older. Cheryl's father has trouble seeing to read, so John (Elaine's husband) led the service.

Cheryl had the four questions finger puppets, which she brought out during that part. Later on, Merle pulled out the ten plagues finger puppets that we bought at the Filkontario Interfilk auction. Cheryl was highly amused. I kept her giggling later on by playing with them (e.g. putting on the frog puppet and going "ribbit!") when she wasn't expecting it.

marahsk picked us up around 11 PM and drove us home, then she and I continued on towards Buffalo (flight to Norwescon).

I got to FilkOntario late on Friday(  and had lots of fun.Collapse )

I have two copies of Smallville season 6, shrinkwrapped. Seems I bought the second one because I didn't realize I had the first one. Both have been around for months and I wouldn't know where receipts are. I will bring one to Ad Astra. First person to ask me here can get it from me there.