The Mandelbear's Musings

10:33 pm - Pix from Conflikt

From this post by hsifyppah, come a couple of great pictures of cflute's concert: here and here. I don't quite recognize that old guy with the little guitar...

10:19 am - Conflikt: Sunday

Spent a lot of Sunday in conversation, and managed to miss about half of the juried one-shots. Sorry about that; the ones I heard were good, and a lot of useful advice was given.

Passed on much of the Worldcon songwriting contest, but I heard the winning entry, which deserved it. Stayed for ASH Productions' and Merav's concerts. By that time people were melting down all over the con after the announcement of Greg McMullan's tragic death. I spent much of the rest of the day and evening with pocketnaomi in full Middle Sized Bear mode. It turns out to be something I hadn't realized I was pretty good at.

I got in two songs in the dead dog Smoked Salmon: "When I Was a Lad" as a follower to tarkrai's performance of "When I was a Boy" (which used up my one poker chip), and at the very end I led the group in "The Mary Ellen Carter". I was kind of surprised it hadn't been sung earlier, but it had to be sung sometime. Missed the second verse; I had stupidly printed out my songbook rather than the complete collection (including other peoples' stuff).

The rest of the Big Green Monster's household and houseguests left well before midnight; I'd kept my room, so crawled off to pack and sleep.

07:02 am - Conflikt: Saturday

Saturday at Conflikt started with the buffet brunch. Unexciting; bacon, sausage, scrambled eggs, french toast (which I passed on because of its high glycemic index), potatoes (tasty, but I only took a little), toasted baguette with some kind of warm dip, pastries (passed on), and a few other breakfasty items I can't remember now. The con had ordered what the hotel thought was enough bacon for the number of people; they ran out. Filkers don't eat like "normal" people; for anyone on a low-carb diet the bacon and eggs were about the only things they could eat.

Every table had a couple of slips of paper with instafilk topics; ours technological, (don't remember exactly) but I was feeling uninspired. The conversation was great, though.

I skipped the role-playing singalong; putting the songs up on a screen with a projector was a good idea, though. Came in afterward to set up for recording the twofers. tibicina had the first slot; I had the second. Sang "The Toolmakers" (at pocketnaomi's request) and "The Stuff that Dreams are Made Of" (with cflute on flute). Went pretty well; cflute noted that I still need to be capo 2 on "Toolmakers"; I was bottoming out. Plink, my little Vagabond travel guitar, sounds awesome amplified. I'll definitely have to find myself a small portable amp. Or hack a preamp together and use it with my battery-powered speakers.

Skipped the songbook sing-along, and came back for the Interfilk guests' "concert". Since Steven Joel isn't a performer, this consisted of a mix of live and recorded performances by other people. Good to hear some of those old tapes again.

Went with cflute, jenkitty, pocietnaomi, and tibicina to an early dinner in the hotel restaurant.

sooj and stealthcello's concert was wonderful. I had no idea anyone made carbon-fiber cellos. The room, which would have been fine for the expected 80 members, was packed; I ended up on the right-hand end of the front row with cflute and her minions.

cflute's Toastmistress concert was next; I had a couple of pieces in the last third, and took advantage of the setup interval to tune. I sang "Cicero in the 21st Century" and "World Inside the Crystal" (probably our strongest songs), and played guitar on Harold Groot's "In Our Fathers' Footsteps" and (corrected:) Callie's "Circles of Music". We skipped "Demon Lover" because Callie's voice was weakening by that point.

Added: cflute's complete set list here.

This was followed by tarkrai's GOH concert, which was his usual high-energy amazingness. He ended by leading the group in "Many Hearts, One Voice", adding Conflikt to the Worldream chorus.

I don't recall spening any time at all in the open filking; spent most of the rest of the evening talking. I seem to do that more and more at filk cons, and I'm OK with that. Ended the night in a long, deep, wide-ranging conversation with pocketnaomi.

Current Mood: calm

09:35 am - Conflilkt - day 1 (Friday)

The convoy from the Big Green Monster arrived at Conflikt around 1:30 and unloaded. Ended up swapping my suite (the only room left in the con's room block when I made the reservation) for a double/double at the convention rate (they had me at a higher rate in spite of the fact that I'd been told I'd be getting the con rate).

The rest of the afternoon was spent recording some songs for the brunch CD ("Jabberwocky" and "Stuff that Dreams are Made Of", and getting a haircut from (Interfilk guest) France Andrews. She's a professional hairdresser and has been doing haircuts at cons in exchange for an Interfilk contribution for years. She trimmed a couple of inches off the ponytail, and trimmed my beard rather aggressively with an eye toward having it grown out to the proper length in time for the wedding at Consonance.

By the time I noticed what time it was, it was after 6pm, so I had a soup-and-appetizer dinner in the hotel restaurant. I haven't been eating much this trip, and I'm not complaining. Perhaps the low-sugar diet is starting to work.

Concerts were predictably spectacular -- cadhla's started out with technical difficulties and included what she called a cursed song, but her usual amazing stage presence allowed her to make the mayhem feel like part of the set. Wow. jhitchen's set combined music and stand-up comedy, and katyhh's was simply beautiful.

I never made it back to the open filking, but there was some lots of good song-swapping in the con suite. Fun!

The only major hitch was losing track of the piece of paper where I'd written _amethyst_fire_'s parents' phone number, which I'd found earlier in the week and then both neglected to type in, and misplaced. Finally found it this morning, but haven't gotten a callback yet. Combination of phone phobia and procrastination strikes again. Dumb bear.

Current Mood: awake

08:34 am - Travels with Plink and Rolly: Almost Conflikt

I'm sitting at the kitchen table of the Big Green Monster; good place. No, let me rephrase that: a Very Good Place. Lived-in. Too many stairs for the flower_cat; I'm afraid she would have had a difficult time getting around.

Long talk in the afternoon with pocketnaomi. She needs to read "Mark Elf" by Cordwainer Smith. So does anyone else who wants to understand the Mandelbear's origins as the Middle-Sized Bear.

Dinner last night at Outback with concom, guests, and friends. I had fish, like a good bear. Afterwards there was music with cflute, tibicina, and pocketnaomi (who persuaded me to stick "Toolmakers" into my twofer slot, if I get one).

Still haven't heard from _amethyst_fire_; I suspect she's busy with school; but... Should have tried last week to track her down by phone; my phone phobia really gets in the way some times.

Current Mood: calm

10:31 am - Travels with Plink and Cthulhu and Rolly, too

... or maybe that would be "Rolly II", since it's a different rolly than the one I used to travel with. See, I have this Microsoft backpack now that works better than the old rolly (holds more, stands up by itself, well-organized -- very atypical for M$). But I now have a CPAP machine, and although I *could* cram it into the backpack, it's not very convenient there. Its bag really *doesn't* fit.

Meanwhile, I have this travel guitar, and a raincoat. At the Container Store a while ago I found a great little rolly that's basically just a 2-foot deep bag on a rolling platform. The wheels fold flat, and the whole thing crams down into something that turns into a little outside pocket. The facehugger, Plink, a fleece jacket, and the raincoat all fit. Plink sticks out a little, but...

Going through security was pretty easy, though they now check your ID on the far side of the metal detector after having scrutinized it with a flashlight at the start of the line. Stupid.

Current Mood: awake

09:10 am - Getting ready for Seattle

Gradually getting ready to go; spent altogether too much time last night and this morning on lingering household computer issues, and not enough on taxes. Hopefully I'll have time to deal with them today while I'm supposed to be working during lunch. Makes sense anyway, since I ought to copy the forms before I send them.

Did a preliminary test-pack -- I'm going to need a second carry-on for things -- mostly gifts -- that are light but bulky. I'm using the flower_cat's new purple suitcase that we got at Costco last year; the second carry-on will be an ancient Hartman duffel that my parents bought in Japan 30-odd years ago for a similar purpose. It'll squish down into the suitcase for the trip home.

I'll be taking up 50 or so copies of Coffee, Computers, and Song -- hopefully there will be some dealers to take some of them off my hands when I get there.

09:36 am - Conflikt: Travel plans

Here's my itinerary for Conflikt:

    leave:  Alaska 339 SJC Thu 01-24 12:33 -> SEA 14:40	seat 23A
    return: Alaska 356 SEA Wed 01-30 17:45 -> SJC 19:54	seat 23A

... so I'll be getting in to Seattle at just before 3pm.

I'm going to be staying with cflute, et. al. in the Big Green Monster Thursday night, arriving at the hotel sometime Friday afternoon. I will also be there after the con, until sometime Wednesday afternoon.

Contact info in the next post upwhen, or see theStarport.org.

09:54 pm - Conflikt: travel plans

Have my plane tickets. It came to under $200, so I decided to just pay it and save the up-to-$500 points flights for a later occasion. Like maybe wedding guests.

Anyway, here's the itinerary:

    leave:  Alaska 339 SJC Thu 01-24 12:33 -> SEA 14:40	seat 23A
    return: Alaska 356 SEA Wed 01-30 17:45 -> SJC 19:54	seat 23A

... so I'll probably be checked in at the hotel by 5pm or so, and have the rest of Thursday evening free.

11:15 pm - Headed for Conflikt: Trip-planning post

Current plan is to fly to SeaTac for Conflikt on Thursday January 24th; I'll probably get in late afternoon. I'll look around for a rental car on Monday so I'll be relatively mobile. Probably head home on Wednesday the 30th unless somebody gives me a good reason to stay through Thursday. I'll be making my plane reservation sometime this week.

Besides the departure date, about the only other things that need deciding are what gear to take. First category is instruments: I need to decide whether to take Plink, my travel guitar, or Ruby, my usually gig guitar. I'm leaning toward Plink, since I'm flying, and she sounds really good plugged in through a direct box.

The other question is computer hardware. I'm leaning toward taking the Macbook Pro and (assuming it arrives when it's supposed to) the OLPC. I don't think I'm quite crazy enough to attempt the trip with nothing but the OLPC or even the OLPC, an external keyboard, and a massive USB hard drive. I might, however, take the OLPC instead of my songbook.

Added: Comments on this post would be a convenient place to discuss trip logistics.