FogCon Report
Mar. 13th, 2016 08:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hrjThursday I was still laboring under the Sinuses of Doom from whatever virus thingie I had at the beginning of the week, but fortunately by Friday morning my symptoms were reduced to a chafed spot under my nose.
Thursday I also managed to do something I've managed to just barely avoid several times in the past: I left work still wearing my computer glasses, with the bifocals still in the glasses case on my desk. (As opposed to the laptop/home-computer glasses, which have a slightly closer focal length than the work computer glasses, which were in the glasses case in my backpack.)
To some extent, my ability to not notice I'm still wearing the computer glasses speaks to my relative safety using them for driving. (Heck, I might even be able to pass a driving vision test using them, although reading unfamiliar street signs would be a problem.) But I dislike discovering I've been that inattentive. Also: I prefer to wear the bifocals at cons, since it makes it easier to recognize people at more than 8 feet away.
Since I'd volunteered to help with con suite set-up Friday morning, I figured I'd splurge on a room for Thursday evening as well (so I wouldn't have to juggle luggage while waiting for check-in time). So I got a chance to do some hanging with Karen & Chaz in the bar, as well as the opportunity to offer a night's hospitality to someone who had con errands Thursday evening but was trying to avoid picking up an extra night's cost.
My grand plan to be useful and on-the-spot as a local volunteer was stymied somewhat by delays in supply arrivals and trying to second-guess where to position myself to notice when said supplies arrived, but I was able to make myself at least a little useful, and I put in a three hour hostess shift on Saturday morning, as well as pitching a little on Sunday tear-down. So I fulfilled my goal of being an actual useful convention volunteer this year.
One thing I love about Fogcon is that the small size means I don't feel like I have to run myself ragged to get the full experience. I enjoyed several panels--interesting discussions on artificial intelligence, "perfect" languages, and other things. I wasn't on programming myself, this year, other than doing a group reading with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
klwilliams and the delightful S.B. Divya whom I bumped into Friday morning so I could get to know her before the session. Also got to spend some quality time with ritaxis and a friend of hers who had come all the way from the east coast, with whom I got to do some intense academic-takes-on-fannish-topics geeking over dinner Saturday.
I decided to be daring for my reading and do only work in progress, so I picked an excerpt from (the more revised parts of) Mother of Souls, and then read a fragment of a brand new in-progress attack short story, that has only recently informed me that it's titled "Expiration Date". (Concept: the muses are over-worked and have farmed out inspiration duties to other beings, specifically including a harpy.)
And, yeah, other fun things. But I'm kind of brain dead now. I did manage to get about 6 chapters of Mother of Souls edited during the convention, and now I should get back to entering the edits in the computer.
Thursday I also managed to do something I've managed to just barely avoid several times in the past: I left work still wearing my computer glasses, with the bifocals still in the glasses case on my desk. (As opposed to the laptop/home-computer glasses, which have a slightly closer focal length than the work computer glasses, which were in the glasses case in my backpack.)
To some extent, my ability to not notice I'm still wearing the computer glasses speaks to my relative safety using them for driving. (Heck, I might even be able to pass a driving vision test using them, although reading unfamiliar street signs would be a problem.) But I dislike discovering I've been that inattentive. Also: I prefer to wear the bifocals at cons, since it makes it easier to recognize people at more than 8 feet away.
Since I'd volunteered to help with con suite set-up Friday morning, I figured I'd splurge on a room for Thursday evening as well (so I wouldn't have to juggle luggage while waiting for check-in time). So I got a chance to do some hanging with Karen & Chaz in the bar, as well as the opportunity to offer a night's hospitality to someone who had con errands Thursday evening but was trying to avoid picking up an extra night's cost.
My grand plan to be useful and on-the-spot as a local volunteer was stymied somewhat by delays in supply arrivals and trying to second-guess where to position myself to notice when said supplies arrived, but I was able to make myself at least a little useful, and I put in a three hour hostess shift on Saturday morning, as well as pitching a little on Sunday tear-down. So I fulfilled my goal of being an actual useful convention volunteer this year.
One thing I love about Fogcon is that the small size means I don't feel like I have to run myself ragged to get the full experience. I enjoyed several panels--interesting discussions on artificial intelligence, "perfect" languages, and other things. I wasn't on programming myself, this year, other than doing a group reading with
klwilliams and the delightful S.B. Divya whom I bumped into Friday morning so I could get to know her before the session. Also got to spend some quality time with ritaxis and a friend of hers who had come all the way from the east coast, with whom I got to do some intense academic-takes-on-fannish-topics geeking over dinner Saturday.I decided to be daring for my reading and do only work in progress, so I picked an excerpt from (the more revised parts of) Mother of Souls, and then read a fragment of a brand new in-progress attack short story, that has only recently informed me that it's titled "Expiration Date". (Concept: the muses are over-worked and have farmed out inspiration duties to other beings, specifically including a harpy.)
And, yeah, other fun things. But I'm kind of brain dead now. I did manage to get about 6 chapters of Mother of Souls edited during the convention, and now I should get back to entering the edits in the computer.
