We had the hotel room an extra night, in order to fully enjoy the last day of the convention, allowing for a nice relaxed morning, an afternoon nap, and plenty of time to collect art, drop by the lounge, say copious goodbyes, etc. I napped through closing ceremonies, making this the first Worldcon in a while where I missed both opening and closing. For dinner John and I took a bus over to Villains Brewing, which had pretty good food and beer. Although it was only lightly themed, they did have a pretty nerdy sports story playing on one of …
Tag: travel
LAcon V: Day One
Yes, finally and actually the first day of the convention. John and I headed over for breafast with Lori and Kevin to Huckleberry’s, a chain which serves “Southern food with a California twist”. Not sure what the twist is, and I’m no expert in southern cooking, but it was a pretty good breakfast and there was a mechanical motion activated alligator, so as you can imagine I was delighted. Back at the convention John ran off to his first panel, and I went to the art show to prepare for my docent tour the next day. Now that all the …
LACon V: Day Minus Two
We landed at LAX Tuesday evening before the convention. The flight was less than half full, so although I did watch all of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms plus two movies, I also was able to stretch out across three empty seats and get a few hours of sleep. It also meant the lines were quick, and our suitcases didn’t take too long – we were on the Metro to Anaheim less than an hour after landing! We took the Metro from the shiny new transit center, which was still being built when we were there in 2024 for …
Back home from Worldcon
A week of Worldcon and a week of visting family and traipsing around LA is fun but exhausting, for now I’ll summarise: I did not win a Hugo, I did eat Mexican food almost every day, I beat my step goal consistently, admired art and bought some, attended panels, saw a bunch of friends old and new, danced, drank, and was merry. What I did not do is take any notes, so a trip report will follow over the next few days, but don’t expect coherence.
Conventions
Despite the dearth of posts here, its been a reasonably busy few months for me. Starting with a trip to LA in February for Gallifrey One, which was as amazing as ever, followed by a week with in Santa Monica visting family and enjoying the sunshine. Then at the end of March it was time for Levitation, the 2024 Eastercon, held at the Telford International Convention Centre. I had a really great time, really should have written a proper trip report but have fallen out of the habit really. The whole convention was great, there was some mutterings about it …
Chicago, etc
Not a proper con report, but a roundup of highlights; Arriving at 3am and losing a day of touristing due to American Airlines being trash, but still getting to ride the L because it runs all night. Good breakfasts at Wildberry and Cafecito accompanied by Alison, Liz, Steven, Garcia, and Vanessa. The artist reception (which could have been better advertised but was still a lot of fun) and seeing the Korshak Collection up close including the original Finlay colour illustration for The Ballad of Lost C’mell. Selling nine out of the ten fans I brought! The Fanzine Lounge, which was …
Burritos and pizza
With Lockdown 2 in place for November it seemed a bit silly to do a big turkey and trimmings just for us. So I made pumpkin pie, we ordered burritos with the reasoning that they are the American food most likely to give us that replete Thanksgiving feeling and we watched Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. Then on the Saturday John hosted a Zoom party for his birthday, which started at 4pm for him to play boardgames for a few hours and then proceeded to regular drinking and chatting into the night, it was good fun and there were some faces …
September
I guess September happened? We left the house a few times, to Unity for beer to go, to the Bookshop for beer to go, to the Butchers for beer to go (I sense a theme). We went to Paddle and Peel for date night – sat outside and had delicious pizza and chocolate calzones for desert. John’s friend Emma, who lives nearby now, came by for a drink and chat in the garden. Oh, I took Alice to the vet! That was a small adventure which she did not enjoy at all but was luckily a minor inconvenience and nothing …
Turkey and burritos
On the weekend of the 23rd, we had an early Thanksgiving with John’s parents, George and Kathryn. I had made two practice pumpkin pies with the Halloween jack-o-lantern and although the third attempt was with canned pumpkin I was pretty pleased with the results. John’s turkey was very good indeed, and John got to open some early birthday presents, so a good time was hopefully had by all. On Thanksgiving itself we were on a flight to San Francisco. We lucked out and had a row to ourselves, we watched the first ten minutes of Hustle, which was disappointing, How …
Treats, mostly
Hot damn, it’s almost Halloween! (Guess who forgot to post her draft!?) Inktober got rudely shoved aside so I could get art ready for World Fantasy. John helpfully worked around me as I buckled down and spent most of the month working on that, and I’m reasonably happy with the results. Next up is Novacon, which I’ll do regular 2D pieces for, as much for the variety as for the feeling that November isn’t really folding fan season. We managed to get some fun in before and after I disappeared into all-fans-all-the-time; firstly we went up to Bristol to visit John’s …