Air temperature 46 F, wind near calm, partly cloudy. Gull flock absent -- whatever was hatching out or metamorphising into their breakfast seems to have ceased. Such is the circle of life. Should be able to get a bike ride in.
You may have heard about the Anthropic AI piracy settlement, in which (some) authors whose work was downloaded and used without permission or compensation by Anthropic will receive a cash payment in compensation for (some of) their pirated works. You may not know that the list of pirated works includes not only novels but short story anthologies.
I have over sixty published short stories, many of which have been collected in anthologies. Fortunately I keep very good records. I have been able to identify 56 published anthologies that contain at least one story of mine. Of these 48 have ISBNs, and of those 14 have copyright registration numbers and are included in the Anthropic settlement database.
My understanding is that if I file claims on these anthologies I may eventually receive a share of the settlement on those titles. Assuming the settlement goes through as I understand it and that my claims are accepted, I may eventually receive roughly a hundred bucks for each story (assuming the settlement per title is about $3000, minus 25% for the lawyers, minus 50% of the remainder for the publisher, divided by the number of authors which I'm assuming for the sake of argument is about ten).
This is in addition to the claims I'm going to file on my two novels Arabella of Mars and Arabella the Traitor of Mars, which may eventually pay off about $3000 * 0.75 * 0.50 = $1125 each. (I think the publisher's 50% in this case will go to Open Road, the current publisher, rather than Tor, the original publisher, but there are still a lot of open questions here.)
Arabella and the Battle of Venus, the middle book of the Arabella trilogy, does NOT appear in the Anthropic settlement database, and I believe this is because Macmillan failed to register the copyright for that volume. However, according to Locus, Macmillan has issued a statement that "If your work was excluded from the settlement for this reason, we will make you whole by paying you what you otherwise would have been paid under the settlement." I've already sent an email to Macmillan inquiring as to next steps.
I have over sixty published short stories, many of which have been collected in anthologies. Fortunately I keep very good records. I have been able to identify 56 published anthologies that contain at least one story of mine. Of these 48 have ISBNs, and of those 14 have copyright registration numbers and are included in the Anthropic settlement database.
My understanding is that if I file claims on these anthologies I may eventually receive a share of the settlement on those titles. Assuming the settlement goes through as I understand it and that my claims are accepted, I may eventually receive roughly a hundred bucks for each story (assuming the settlement per title is about $3000, minus 25% for the lawyers, minus 50% of the remainder for the publisher, divided by the number of authors which I'm assuming for the sake of argument is about ten).
This is in addition to the claims I'm going to file on my two novels Arabella of Mars and Arabella the Traitor of Mars, which may eventually pay off about $3000 * 0.75 * 0.50 = $1125 each. (I think the publisher's 50% in this case will go to Open Road, the current publisher, rather than Tor, the original publisher, but there are still a lot of open questions here.)
Arabella and the Battle of Venus, the middle book of the Arabella trilogy, does NOT appear in the Anthropic settlement database, and I believe this is because Macmillan failed to register the copyright for that volume. However, according to Locus, Macmillan has issued a statement that "If your work was excluded from the settlement for this reason, we will make you whole by paying you what you otherwise would have been paid under the settlement." I've already sent an email to Macmillan inquiring as to next steps.
I had two Year of Adventure meetings this week, both dedicated to teaching me how to make something new.
I met with my sister Betsy, who showed me how to make an apple pie from scratch, including the pastry. The secret, I was duly informed, is the use of lard (which makes the pastry light and flaky) and tapioca to thicken the apple filling. Okay, I will admit that the pastry cover was placed a little crookedly, but I can assure you that it was delicious.
I also got together with![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
carbonel, who invited me to her home to give me my first lesson on spinning wool into yarn. I had some experience with a drop spindle many years ago, but spinning on a spinning wheel takes a degree of coordination that I obviously did not master in the time we were working together. First, the treadle must be worked in the correct direction at a steady rate--I kept hesitating on the pedal, and the wheel would aggravatingly start turning in the wrong direction. And the hand coordination was another thing: I kept holding the rover (the combed wool) in the left hand too tightly ("hold it lightly, as if were a baby bird" carbonel kept chanting in my ear with only a hint of exasperation), and my clumsiness with the drafting (feeding the wool with the right hand) meant that the yarn kept overtwisting.
But at least I have my first effort of spun wool sitting on my dining room table, and I keep glancing at it with an interesting mix of pride and embarrassment. It is very, very bad, but at least I can now say that I have tried spinning.
This collage is not one of my favorites, being both too busy and too monochromatic, but hey, that's what I have.
Image description: Center: a smiling woman (Peg) stands at a counter with a rolling pin and an unbaked apple pie. Top left: hands cut a pastry cutter through pastry dough in a bowl. Top right: hands work pastry dough in a bowl. Below that: various apple pie ingredients. Lower left: a hand holds unspun wool. Lower right: a spinning wheel. Lower center: a butterfly of (badly) spun undyed wool.
Making
Click on the links to see the 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022 and 2021 52 Card Project galleries.
I met with my sister Betsy, who showed me how to make an apple pie from scratch, including the pastry. The secret, I was duly informed, is the use of lard (which makes the pastry light and flaky) and tapioca to thicken the apple filling. Okay, I will admit that the pastry cover was placed a little crookedly, but I can assure you that it was delicious.
I also got together with
carbonel, who invited me to her home to give me my first lesson on spinning wool into yarn. I had some experience with a drop spindle many years ago, but spinning on a spinning wheel takes a degree of coordination that I obviously did not master in the time we were working together. First, the treadle must be worked in the correct direction at a steady rate--I kept hesitating on the pedal, and the wheel would aggravatingly start turning in the wrong direction. And the hand coordination was another thing: I kept holding the rover (the combed wool) in the left hand too tightly ("hold it lightly, as if were a baby bird" carbonel kept chanting in my ear with only a hint of exasperation), and my clumsiness with the drafting (feeding the wool with the right hand) meant that the yarn kept overtwisting. But at least I have my first effort of spun wool sitting on my dining room table, and I keep glancing at it with an interesting mix of pride and embarrassment. It is very, very bad, but at least I can now say that I have tried spinning.
This collage is not one of my favorites, being both too busy and too monochromatic, but hey, that's what I have.
Image description: Center: a smiling woman (Peg) stands at a counter with a rolling pin and an unbaked apple pie. Top left: hands cut a pastry cutter through pastry dough in a bowl. Top right: hands work pastry dough in a bowl. Below that: various apple pie ingredients. Lower left: a hand holds unspun wool. Lower right: a spinning wheel. Lower center: a butterfly of (badly) spun undyed wool.
Click on the links to see the 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022 and 2021 52 Card Project galleries.
Bees are having a fine old time working the asters, both in our yard and elsewhere. Keeping an eye out for unauthorized construction around the eaves -- no wasp nests allowed. Rites of Autumn aren't as exciting as Rites of Spring.
Of course now that things are underway, it only now occurs to me that I could have easily had a Gaylaxicon icon and then those of you who wanted to skim or skip would have been forewarned.
I wavered on whether or not I wanted to go to the GoH dinner last night, especially when I found out thattallgeese was not coming because he didn't feel well. The things that propelled me out the door were 1) Mason had planned to make a fancy curry dish for himself and Shawn.I tend to be the default cook when I'm home and I didn't want to come between that; and 2) I'd just been through one of these in Capclave and... frankly? Without the right people it can be fairly deadly.
We met out at Heather's in Minneapolis, a place I have never been before. They had a lovely, long table for us out on the patio. Turns out that Emma Törzs (rhymes with dirge--so, like terrge,) used to work with the Heather of Heather's, so that's kind of cool. I ended up, by accident, sitting in between KD Edwards and Emma, with Jim Johnson at the end of the table on the other side of KD (Keith.) I should have, as soon as she arrived, switched places with Emma because I was pretty good at keeping the left side of the table entertained and Emma ended up somewhat stuck in conversation with someone who was, shall we say, enthusiastic in a hyperfixated way about a singular subject about which is was unclear that Emma was similarly enthusiastic. I asked her, later, if I should have done more to rescue her, but she said it was enjoyable enough though she did appreciate Bast and my efforts when we were able to pry her back into the larger conversation. To be fair to this person? I do the same thing sometimes? We're all nerds here, So no shade.
After a very lovely dinner, where I got to watch KD Edward's shoulders visibly relax when I explained that Minnesota is a blue state and that Minneapolis/St. Paul is so blue it might as well be navy (he's living in North Carolina), we all trundled over to Dreamhaven for the reading.
I sort of thought that my herding cats portion of the evening was over, but Anton tapped me to do introductions so I jumped up to do that. I probably should have done more "here's a quick bio" of everyone and I managed to stumble over Emma's last name (terrrge! Like dirge!) which sucked, and I think, too, I should have had everyone go in the reverse order that we started with. Ending with Nghi Vo, instead of, like I ended up prompting, starting with her and ending with Jim Johnson. Especially since, unbeknowst to me, despite the fact that Jim is an author of several books, he decided instead to read the introduction to his newest Star Trek: Adventures book--which was... again, let's just say less high energy than spirit cannibals, which is what Nghi started with.
BUT! The event was super well attended. Dreamhaven ran out of chairs and, really, room. (That bookstore is what you find when you look up cramped and byzantine in the dictionary.) I don't have even an unofficial count, but if I had to guess I'd say over 30. We ended up even getting an on the spot sponsor-level membership for the convention out of the deal. It was by almost all measures a success.
So yay!
Now, before I head outside to do a little more painting on the fence, I need to time one of my stories. There's a woman in-town, Cole, who runs SciFi Reading Hour at the Bryant-Lake Bowl and she's looking for an emergency replacement for their November 2nd show. I don't know that she's considering me for that slot, but she did ask me to time one of my stories when read aloud. So, I need to do that for her in case it will work out.
Then, it's off to the convention this afternoon.
I wavered on whether or not I wanted to go to the GoH dinner last night, especially when I found out that
tallgeese was not coming because he didn't feel well. The things that propelled me out the door were 1) Mason had planned to make a fancy curry dish for himself and Shawn.I tend to be the default cook when I'm home and I didn't want to come between that; and 2) I'd just been through one of these in Capclave and... frankly? Without the right people it can be fairly deadly.We met out at Heather's in Minneapolis, a place I have never been before. They had a lovely, long table for us out on the patio. Turns out that Emma Törzs (rhymes with dirge--so, like terrge,) used to work with the Heather of Heather's, so that's kind of cool. I ended up, by accident, sitting in between KD Edwards and Emma, with Jim Johnson at the end of the table on the other side of KD (Keith.) I should have, as soon as she arrived, switched places with Emma because I was pretty good at keeping the left side of the table entertained and Emma ended up somewhat stuck in conversation with someone who was, shall we say, enthusiastic in a hyperfixated way about a singular subject about which is was unclear that Emma was similarly enthusiastic. I asked her, later, if I should have done more to rescue her, but she said it was enjoyable enough though she did appreciate Bast and my efforts when we were able to pry her back into the larger conversation. To be fair to this person? I do the same thing sometimes? We're all nerds here, So no shade.
After a very lovely dinner, where I got to watch KD Edward's shoulders visibly relax when I explained that Minnesota is a blue state and that Minneapolis/St. Paul is so blue it might as well be navy (he's living in North Carolina), we all trundled over to Dreamhaven for the reading.
I sort of thought that my herding cats portion of the evening was over, but Anton tapped me to do introductions so I jumped up to do that. I probably should have done more "here's a quick bio" of everyone and I managed to stumble over Emma's last name (terrrge! Like dirge!) which sucked, and I think, too, I should have had everyone go in the reverse order that we started with. Ending with Nghi Vo, instead of, like I ended up prompting, starting with her and ending with Jim Johnson. Especially since, unbeknowst to me, despite the fact that Jim is an author of several books, he decided instead to read the introduction to his newest Star Trek: Adventures book--which was... again, let's just say less high energy than spirit cannibals, which is what Nghi started with.
BUT! The event was super well attended. Dreamhaven ran out of chairs and, really, room. (That bookstore is what you find when you look up cramped and byzantine in the dictionary.) I don't have even an unofficial count, but if I had to guess I'd say over 30. We ended up even getting an on the spot sponsor-level membership for the convention out of the deal. It was by almost all measures a success.
So yay!
Now, before I head outside to do a little more painting on the fence, I need to time one of my stories. There's a woman in-town, Cole, who runs SciFi Reading Hour at the Bryant-Lake Bowl and she's looking for an emergency replacement for their November 2nd show. I don't know that she's considering me for that slot, but she did ask me to time one of my stories when read aloud. So, I need to do that for her in case it will work out.
Then, it's off to the convention this afternoon.
Tags:
Air temperature 37 F, wind near calm, the sun also rises. Trash out, fulfilling half of my obligations to society for the day. The other half will be to bring the empty bin back to the garage if and when the truck collects the contents. May try for a bike ride later if we warm up.
That attack in England reminds us (if we are willing to see) that murderous antisemitism still simmers just below the surface of many "enlightened" societies.
Filled out the forms to claim a pittance from that AI copyright lawsuit settlement, for the four novels of mine that show up in their search. I don't know how many claimants will sign on, but my expectations are that the pot will be split into portions small enough that they won't pay for the postage . . .
We've seen a couple of turkey vultures cruising in slow spirals, heading south-ish. They don't hang around here except in migration, spring and fall. And I'll check on houses on my walk route that I know are summer residents. Many of them time their arrivals and exits according to tax law, as Florida treats some kinds of income differently than Maine does.
Tonight there will be two events for Gaylaxicon. First is the private dinner with the GoHs and the concom who have agreed to come. This will not include Nghi Vo, I presume, since she is very COVID cautious and I don't believe she is eating with others. Which is a shame because, for me, the fun part of the private GoH party is getting to see what people are like when they're not "on." But, I will get to meet her at the reading at Dreamhaven, which follows all of this at 7 pm.
Then, of course, tomorrow things kick off.
I don't know how I'm feeling. Am I ready? Am I ready for this to be over? Am I excited? I think I'm all the things at once, if I'm honest. I'm pretty sure that my family is ready for convention season to be over. Everything around here has been Gaylaxicon, Gaylaxicon, Gaylaxicon.
I had my phone chat with Ashley from AccentCare, the folks I'd be working with if I end up doing hospice volunteering. I almost missed it because my phone continues to be weird, but at about half past the hour she was meant to call I emailed her to tell her that my phone has been flakey and I am still around if she has time. I have been priming our fence to be painted, so I had nothing else going on until it was time to go fetch Shawn from work.
Ashley called less than a minute later. We had a nice chat. I was very clear with Ashley that I'm really uncertain if I have the emotional resiliance for this job as I feel things very deeply, and she had no advice for me other than to acknowledge that the work is hard and not for everyone. However, they are very aware of the emotional strain and so in-person hospice workers are only assigned at MOST two families, whom you see through their entire journey, including following up with the family after the funeral, etc. She seemed excited when I mentioned my wife in passing because they are always looking for under represented/marginalized folks to pair with like, though she did note that a lot of their patients/clients are Hmong. So, I'd be expected to be culturally sensitive, which honestly, made the job more interesting, in a way. (Though suddenly I'm looking at Duolingo wondering if I can learn a more useful language besides Japanese.) Similarly, she brought up that they also serve Jewish families, etc., as I think a lot of their volunteers do it for Jesus. (I was clear on my application that I'm not Christian.) I was glad to hear, too, that they will provide training, though it sounds like it's hours of online videos. Still, I'll take what I can get.
Next steps seems to be meeting in-person and getting started on background checks, etc. We arranged to meet at my favorite coffee shop at 9 am next Thursday. Wish me luck? (I'm still not sure I'm up for this, but I would like to see if I can do it.)
Shawn and I talked about it a bit last night. She noted that, selfishly, she's hoping that if I get some of this training it will help when the time comes for her elder brother Keven. (Who has, by the way, responded really well to treatment. There's noticible shrinkage of his cancer, but it's all, in many ways, just about extending life and quality of life.) I thought about that, too, and I've been thinking, of course, of Terry Garey who I haven't seen since she moved to the Edina place, years ago. I think I'm hoping that learning more about this will make it easier for me to just make time to see Terry. I send cards and think about her a lot, but I feel really badly that I haven't been to see her in so long. I know that Laramie has been hired to care for her, so she's not alone--but Terry was one of my writing mentors.
Ayway, that's my own stuff that I need to work out, certainly before taking on this kind of volunteering for others.
Let's see, other news.
Yeah, so I alluded to the fence above. We had a new fence put in a couple of years ago and we have needed to either seal/stain it or paint it and I am FINALLY getting around to that. It's been good, actually, to have something physical to be doing, given how anxious I get sometimes around whether everything will work out (or not!) with Gaylaxicon.
I'll try to remember to post some pictures when I'm done with it. We are painting it emerald green again. The problem is the posts. When we first got the original verson of this fence the wood was so BLAH and already painted an ugly brown. So we painted it a cheery green to spruce things up. Now that we could have a plain wooden fence, the posts are all dark green. We're sort of stuck with green unless we wanted to paint the whole thing a different color. And, part of me wants to keep the memory of our old neighbor, from 1990-whenever we were first painting it--looking across at it, not knowing I was in the yard, and muttering, "Those Micks will paint ANYTHING green!" Which. Do people still use that slur? Also, I'm Polish, Czech and English? (That last one being the direct opposite of Irish.) Shawn's family is pretty green--though, despite the whole Shawn Patricia, Keven Kerry, and Gregory Bryce (and her father being Kerry Patrick) the Rounds seem to mostly consider themselves Germans from Russia, at least in terms of the food they eat. Anyway, I still think that whole interaction was kind of funny, so I'm going to keep painting ANYTHING green. :-)
Hope you're all doing well, and maybe I'll see some of you local folks at Gaylaxicon this weekend!
I will, of course, try to do a con report, though given my schedule it may happen after the fact. I'll take copious notes, however!
Then, of course, tomorrow things kick off.
I don't know how I'm feeling. Am I ready? Am I ready for this to be over? Am I excited? I think I'm all the things at once, if I'm honest. I'm pretty sure that my family is ready for convention season to be over. Everything around here has been Gaylaxicon, Gaylaxicon, Gaylaxicon.
I had my phone chat with Ashley from AccentCare, the folks I'd be working with if I end up doing hospice volunteering. I almost missed it because my phone continues to be weird, but at about half past the hour she was meant to call I emailed her to tell her that my phone has been flakey and I am still around if she has time. I have been priming our fence to be painted, so I had nothing else going on until it was time to go fetch Shawn from work.
Ashley called less than a minute later. We had a nice chat. I was very clear with Ashley that I'm really uncertain if I have the emotional resiliance for this job as I feel things very deeply, and she had no advice for me other than to acknowledge that the work is hard and not for everyone. However, they are very aware of the emotional strain and so in-person hospice workers are only assigned at MOST two families, whom you see through their entire journey, including following up with the family after the funeral, etc. She seemed excited when I mentioned my wife in passing because they are always looking for under represented/marginalized folks to pair with like, though she did note that a lot of their patients/clients are Hmong. So, I'd be expected to be culturally sensitive, which honestly, made the job more interesting, in a way. (Though suddenly I'm looking at Duolingo wondering if I can learn a more useful language besides Japanese.) Similarly, she brought up that they also serve Jewish families, etc., as I think a lot of their volunteers do it for Jesus. (I was clear on my application that I'm not Christian.) I was glad to hear, too, that they will provide training, though it sounds like it's hours of online videos. Still, I'll take what I can get.
Next steps seems to be meeting in-person and getting started on background checks, etc. We arranged to meet at my favorite coffee shop at 9 am next Thursday. Wish me luck? (I'm still not sure I'm up for this, but I would like to see if I can do it.)
Shawn and I talked about it a bit last night. She noted that, selfishly, she's hoping that if I get some of this training it will help when the time comes for her elder brother Keven. (Who has, by the way, responded really well to treatment. There's noticible shrinkage of his cancer, but it's all, in many ways, just about extending life and quality of life.) I thought about that, too, and I've been thinking, of course, of Terry Garey who I haven't seen since she moved to the Edina place, years ago. I think I'm hoping that learning more about this will make it easier for me to just make time to see Terry. I send cards and think about her a lot, but I feel really badly that I haven't been to see her in so long. I know that Laramie has been hired to care for her, so she's not alone--but Terry was one of my writing mentors.
Ayway, that's my own stuff that I need to work out, certainly before taking on this kind of volunteering for others.
Let's see, other news.
Yeah, so I alluded to the fence above. We had a new fence put in a couple of years ago and we have needed to either seal/stain it or paint it and I am FINALLY getting around to that. It's been good, actually, to have something physical to be doing, given how anxious I get sometimes around whether everything will work out (or not!) with Gaylaxicon.
I'll try to remember to post some pictures when I'm done with it. We are painting it emerald green again. The problem is the posts. When we first got the original verson of this fence the wood was so BLAH and already painted an ugly brown. So we painted it a cheery green to spruce things up. Now that we could have a plain wooden fence, the posts are all dark green. We're sort of stuck with green unless we wanted to paint the whole thing a different color. And, part of me wants to keep the memory of our old neighbor, from 1990-whenever we were first painting it--looking across at it, not knowing I was in the yard, and muttering, "Those Micks will paint ANYTHING green!" Which. Do people still use that slur? Also, I'm Polish, Czech and English? (That last one being the direct opposite of Irish.) Shawn's family is pretty green--though, despite the whole Shawn Patricia, Keven Kerry, and Gregory Bryce (and her father being Kerry Patrick) the Rounds seem to mostly consider themselves Germans from Russia, at least in terms of the food they eat. Anyway, I still think that whole interaction was kind of funny, so I'm going to keep painting ANYTHING green. :-)
Hope you're all doing well, and maybe I'll see some of you local folks at Gaylaxicon this weekend!
I will, of course, try to do a con report, though given my schedule it may happen after the fact. I'll take copious notes, however!
Air temperature 34 F, wind near calm, clear sky. Frost silvering the grass as the sun touches just the top of the trees. No gulls at the moment. Maybe their funding is frozen?
You can still spend money here . . .
https://www.bangordailynews.com/2025/10/01/hancock/congress-shutdown-acadia-park/
https://www.bangordailynews.com/2025/10/01/hancock/congress-shutdown-acadia-park/
The Jane Goodall Institute confirmed her death earlier today of natural causes, she was on a speaking tour in California.
What an amazing life and career! She never attended university, instead she completed secretarial school and did odd jobs in London until she visited a friend's family farm in Kenya in 1956. While there, she met archeologist Louis Leakey, who hired her as an assistant and secretary. He had been interested in sending a researcher to study wild chimpanzees in Tanzania and assigned Jane the task in 1960.
Three months into her observations, she saw one "stick a long grass stem into a termite mound, withdraw it, and eat what he’d pulled out.
“It was so obvious that he was actually using a grass stem as a tool,” Goodall wrote.
When she cabled Leakey about the discovery, he famously wrote back: “Now we must redefine ‘tool,’ redefine ‘man,’ or accept chimpanzees as humans.”
Because of this and other significant findings, she was admitted into the doctoral program at Cambridge in 1961 despite not having an undergraduate degree.
Amongst her honors were "the National Geographic Society’s Hubbard Medal and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 2003, Queen Elizabeth II appointed her a dame of the British empire."
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/jane-goodall-dead-obituary-1235439125/
What an amazing life and career! She never attended university, instead she completed secretarial school and did odd jobs in London until she visited a friend's family farm in Kenya in 1956. While there, she met archeologist Louis Leakey, who hired her as an assistant and secretary. He had been interested in sending a researcher to study wild chimpanzees in Tanzania and assigned Jane the task in 1960.
Three months into her observations, she saw one "stick a long grass stem into a termite mound, withdraw it, and eat what he’d pulled out.
“It was so obvious that he was actually using a grass stem as a tool,” Goodall wrote.
When she cabled Leakey about the discovery, he famously wrote back: “Now we must redefine ‘tool,’ redefine ‘man,’ or accept chimpanzees as humans.”
Because of this and other significant findings, she was admitted into the doctoral program at Cambridge in 1961 despite not having an undergraduate degree.
Amongst her honors were "the National Geographic Society’s Hubbard Medal and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 2003, Queen Elizabeth II appointed her a dame of the British empire."
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/jane-goodall-dead-obituary-1235439125/
Tags:
Last night was a comedy of errors.
I had really wanted to go to the badge party for Gaylaxicon because I had made a whole bunch of stickers for program participants to have their schedules on the back of their badges. I figured that since I made them, I could help put them on. But, I could not figure out what the plan was supposed to be. The information I got was "we will me back at Don's place after the hotel walk-through, oh, and here's a link to the concom Zoom meeting at 6 pm." Upon reading this, my brain went through these steps. Imagine this as one of those decision trees.
Okay, they aren't likely to have the Zoom meeting at the hotel, will they? (Yes/No. I choose the No path). So then, probably the plan is to have the people meet in-person that can and Zoom in the rest. (Yes/No. I choose the Yes path) So best guess is that the tour will be done by 6 pm and so meeting everyone at Don's house will work out.
I still dont' know the right answer to some of these questions, but at some point I definitely went down the wrong tree, as it were.
Because I showed up at Don's at 6 pm and found no one there. Hopping on to Discord showed that Andrew didn't know where to meet people at the hotel and so then it dawned on me that, oh, okay, maybe the tour is at 6 pm despite the fact that's when the Zoom meeting is? But, since Andrew was also confused, I decided to download Zoom onto my phone so that I could jump on to the meeting at 6 pm. That seemed like a smart bet since the Zoom meeting was DEFINITELY scheduled for 6 pm. Only, when I finally got online, I discovered only two other people there, neither of them were Don and neither of them knew anything about where people were supposed to be or even WHEN we were supposed to be there.
Then, I thought, I'm being dumb. I'll just text Don directly. He confirmed that the tour was happening at six. Now, here's where I could have solved this by driving to the hotel and trying to meet everyone there. Instead, I thought, "Well, by the time I get there, the tour will be over and they'll be headed back here." So, I let Don know that I was going to hangout at a Starbucks and, if he could be so kind, I'd wait for a text on when to come over.
Then the true comedy hit.
Randomly and quite suddenly, my phone decided it didn't want to accept any data, including messages.
At least I managed to hear fromtallgeese who noted that I could come hang out at his place until the text came through. At this point, since I got his message, I was unaware that my phone had decided to temporarily bork itself. So we hung out and chatted about life, the universe, and everything. That was quite lovely. I finally got to meet his two dogs in person, having seen them a bunch on Zoom during our Star Trek: Adventures games. No text came, however. I was, for reasons known only to my phone, able to go to Discord and noticed that someone was franically posting on all channels that "the Zoom meeting has started!" so, I hung out a tiny bit longer, and made my way back to Don's... only to still find no one at home. So, who knows where they were Zooming from?
At this point, I gave up.
I left the badge stickers underneath a FedEx package outside Don's door. Then, I left him a message on Discord explaining what I'd done, and headed home. It was 8 pm by the time I got home.
What a night!
I am only a little concerned that the stickers are going to remain AWOL. But, worst case scenario (and one I am planning on) I will bring a second set to the convention early and stick them on badges myself.
In other news, there are a couple of previous items I wanted to update you all on. Remember how I speculated that people might be filming the exhibits at the National Africian-American History & Cultural Museum (Smithsonian) in order to preserve them? Well, my friend John spotted this: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/citizen-historians-document-smithsonian-exhibits-under-white-house-scrutiny It turns out, I was right!
Likewise, remember when I was talking about how stressful it was to leave a voice mail "tip" for The Racket? Well, they ran a story about us, which I found out about thanks tomagenta : https://racketmn.com/gaylaxicon-wits-returns-oktoberfests-this-weeks-best-events !!!! They got some of the information wrong? Dungeons, Dragons & Drinks isn't running our D&D one-shots (though they will be one of our community tablers), Tower Games is doing our games. But, hey, The Racket listed us as one of this week's best events, so I'LL TAKE IT. I have zero idea if this will actually result in people signing up, but, you know, I feel like I gave this whole publicity thing a real try and 'nothing ventured, nothing gained.'
I honestly kind of enjoyed the stress of the voice mail? I've been thinking about offering my services to other geek venues. (Personally, I think they should hire me to be their geek on the street!) THIS would be a fun job for me. Instead, today I applied to work as an impound lot customer service attendant. Fun times.
Today, too, at 2 pm, I'm going to be getting a call about volunteering to be a hospice worker. I will have to be honest that I'm currently looking for work and so might not be able to be as available as I normally would be. And, I know they're going to ask me why I want to do this work, and I don't have a very good answer for them. No one really likes the job of sitting with people at a time like that, but (and this is the part I have to work out how to articulate) the world is spiralling into chaos thanks to the current presidental administration and I don't know what I can DO to stop it. However, one thing I can do is sit with someone, talk about the weather, hold a hand, read a book, or otherwise offer comfort. Fascism wants us to devalue certain lives and this is one way for me to say NO.
Can I say that in an interview? I don't know, but it's the truth.
I had really wanted to go to the badge party for Gaylaxicon because I had made a whole bunch of stickers for program participants to have their schedules on the back of their badges. I figured that since I made them, I could help put them on. But, I could not figure out what the plan was supposed to be. The information I got was "we will me back at Don's place after the hotel walk-through, oh, and here's a link to the concom Zoom meeting at 6 pm." Upon reading this, my brain went through these steps. Imagine this as one of those decision trees.
Okay, they aren't likely to have the Zoom meeting at the hotel, will they? (Yes/No. I choose the No path). So then, probably the plan is to have the people meet in-person that can and Zoom in the rest. (Yes/No. I choose the Yes path) So best guess is that the tour will be done by 6 pm and so meeting everyone at Don's house will work out.
I still dont' know the right answer to some of these questions, but at some point I definitely went down the wrong tree, as it were.
Because I showed up at Don's at 6 pm and found no one there. Hopping on to Discord showed that Andrew didn't know where to meet people at the hotel and so then it dawned on me that, oh, okay, maybe the tour is at 6 pm despite the fact that's when the Zoom meeting is? But, since Andrew was also confused, I decided to download Zoom onto my phone so that I could jump on to the meeting at 6 pm. That seemed like a smart bet since the Zoom meeting was DEFINITELY scheduled for 6 pm. Only, when I finally got online, I discovered only two other people there, neither of them were Don and neither of them knew anything about where people were supposed to be or even WHEN we were supposed to be there.
Then, I thought, I'm being dumb. I'll just text Don directly. He confirmed that the tour was happening at six. Now, here's where I could have solved this by driving to the hotel and trying to meet everyone there. Instead, I thought, "Well, by the time I get there, the tour will be over and they'll be headed back here." So, I let Don know that I was going to hangout at a Starbucks and, if he could be so kind, I'd wait for a text on when to come over.
Then the true comedy hit.
Randomly and quite suddenly, my phone decided it didn't want to accept any data, including messages.
At least I managed to hear from
tallgeese who noted that I could come hang out at his place until the text came through. At this point, since I got his message, I was unaware that my phone had decided to temporarily bork itself. So we hung out and chatted about life, the universe, and everything. That was quite lovely. I finally got to meet his two dogs in person, having seen them a bunch on Zoom during our Star Trek: Adventures games. No text came, however. I was, for reasons known only to my phone, able to go to Discord and noticed that someone was franically posting on all channels that "the Zoom meeting has started!" so, I hung out a tiny bit longer, and made my way back to Don's... only to still find no one at home. So, who knows where they were Zooming from? At this point, I gave up.
I left the badge stickers underneath a FedEx package outside Don's door. Then, I left him a message on Discord explaining what I'd done, and headed home. It was 8 pm by the time I got home.
What a night!
I am only a little concerned that the stickers are going to remain AWOL. But, worst case scenario (and one I am planning on) I will bring a second set to the convention early and stick them on badges myself.
In other news, there are a couple of previous items I wanted to update you all on. Remember how I speculated that people might be filming the exhibits at the National Africian-American History & Cultural Museum (Smithsonian) in order to preserve them? Well, my friend John spotted this: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/citizen-historians-document-smithsonian-exhibits-under-white-house-scrutiny It turns out, I was right!
Likewise, remember when I was talking about how stressful it was to leave a voice mail "tip" for The Racket? Well, they ran a story about us, which I found out about thanks to
magenta : https://racketmn.com/gaylaxicon-wits-returns-oktoberfests-this-weeks-best-events !!!! They got some of the information wrong? Dungeons, Dragons & Drinks isn't running our D&D one-shots (though they will be one of our community tablers), Tower Games is doing our games. But, hey, The Racket listed us as one of this week's best events, so I'LL TAKE IT. I have zero idea if this will actually result in people signing up, but, you know, I feel like I gave this whole publicity thing a real try and 'nothing ventured, nothing gained.' I honestly kind of enjoyed the stress of the voice mail? I've been thinking about offering my services to other geek venues. (Personally, I think they should hire me to be their geek on the street!) THIS would be a fun job for me. Instead, today I applied to work as an impound lot customer service attendant. Fun times.
Today, too, at 2 pm, I'm going to be getting a call about volunteering to be a hospice worker. I will have to be honest that I'm currently looking for work and so might not be able to be as available as I normally would be. And, I know they're going to ask me why I want to do this work, and I don't have a very good answer for them. No one really likes the job of sitting with people at a time like that, but (and this is the part I have to work out how to articulate) the world is spiralling into chaos thanks to the current presidental administration and I don't know what I can DO to stop it. However, one thing I can do is sit with someone, talk about the weather, hold a hand, read a book, or otherwise offer comfort. Fascism wants us to devalue certain lives and this is one way for me to say NO.
Can I say that in an interview? I don't know, but it's the truth.
Tags:
Air temperature 39 F, wind north about 1 mph, clear sky. Frost advisory for tonight. Again. I'll warn our rose bush. Foraging morning, walk afternoon.
Mixed flock of maybe four dozen out at the cemetery this morning. Guess they found out that segregation is now illegal. Only the geese seemed to be grazing out among the graves, while both geese and ducks were hanging out around the pond.
One roadkill porcupine on the other side of the road at about mile five on my route, smear of green guck across the asphalt at about mile nine. The latter was probably porcupine stomach contents left when the corpse went elsewhere. Both locations are known porcupine death zones.
Asters blooming in profusion along with the other usuals. Most of the red maples have dropped their leaves in the bog while the upland trees have barely started to turn. Touch of yellow on some of the tamaracks.
Got out on the bike when the temperature reached 60 F, up to the country club and over to the road through the bog and home. Not a lot of wind, comfortable biking weather. Did not die.
15.33 miles, 1:28:43
One roadkill porcupine on the other side of the road at about mile five on my route, smear of green guck across the asphalt at about mile nine. The latter was probably porcupine stomach contents left when the corpse went elsewhere. Both locations are known porcupine death zones.
Asters blooming in profusion along with the other usuals. Most of the red maples have dropped their leaves in the bog while the upland trees have barely started to turn. Touch of yellow on some of the tamaracks.
Got out on the bike when the temperature reached 60 F, up to the country club and over to the road through the bog and home. Not a lot of wind, comfortable biking weather. Did not die.
15.33 miles, 1:28:43
The Emperor is required to provide enough bread and circuses to keep the masses from open rebellion. It's right there in the rules.
Air temperature 50 F, wind near calm, sunny if the sun ever bothers to rise. A few gulls patrol the far side of the park, but whatever draws them seems to be on the wane. Plan to snatch a bike ride from the jaws of advancing winter once the world warms up a bit. Any one of those may be the last of the year . . .
"The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there."
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