Hello Everyone:

Well I have unusually returned to my hotel early – it is now 9:25 pm – and I can make at least a brief report on MidAmericon 2 here ins Kansas City MO.

The programming has been very good. From the time it starts – and the Academic Track starts at the unheard of hour of fandom of 9 am – until it ends there is nearly always something I want to attend. To make room for lunch or dinner usually requires me to jettison some programming I wanted to see. This is not me complaining, it is far better to have too much to see than too little.

The last minute change to a hotel more than a mile away has been mildly annoying. There is a free streetcar/trolley two blocks from the hotel and then two blocks from the convention center so that works out most of the time. (It was walking from the streetcar to the convention center at night where I stumbled over a but of uneven sidewalk and tumbled, spraining my wrist.) Tonight as we came out of BRGR where we have had dinner twice rain started and the trip to the hotel turned quite wet. (Thunder and lightening — yup we’re in the midwest in summer.)

I’ve seen good friends, had good times with people I primarily knew on-line, and in general I have been more social than most conventions. A good thing.

The first night here I even had a very — unique — encounter. My sweetie-wife had turned in, tired from our day of travels – and I had gone down to the hotel’s lobby to edit and work. After a while I took a brake from the editing to play a little Pokemon Go — the lobby has two Poke-Stops –. I was engrossed in play when I heard a female voice to my right say ‘Sir?’

I looked up and to my right, as I did she darted to my left side, kissed me fast on the cheek, and hurried away to her friends. She was maybe 17 or so and said ‘thank you’ as she retreated. I have no idea what was up. I assume the entire thing had been some sort of dare from her gaggle of friends. I went back to my game and eventually back to my editing.

Time to start sorting out what I want to do and attend tomorrow, I do know I will get to met an editor who bought my last story and that I am looking forward too.

I am sorry that the daily entires dropped out. but I was just too dang busy. That’s a good thing when you are at a worldcon. The previous entries had been written at breakfast, and on those days I ate breakfast alone. The last few days of the convention we discovered a chain place that was suitable to both my and my sweetie-wife’s diets. So having breakfast with my sweetie-wife took priority over blog posting.

The Con was a blast. Each day I was there at the start of panels and they carried through into the late night. The fires nearby were bad. Sadly a few firefighters were killed battling the blaze. On Friday the winds shifted and the smoke overtook downtown Spokane. By evening the air quality had degraded to ‘hazardous to all’ and everyone was advised to no go outside unless required and to wear filter masks. Luckily this condition did not last long and Saturday the winds flipped again and it became much better.

I hung out with friends, learned new things in publishing and science, played a new game, and had the wonderful reinvigorating time I needed. I am already looking forward to next year in Kansas City MO. (2017 was won by Helsinki Finland, a convention I am unlikely to attend.)

Well there was certainly a lot going on yesterday. Programing started at 10 am and for me the last panel ended at 10 pm. I did managed a short dinner with my sweetie-wife, but other than that it was panels panels panels. All of which made for a happy Bob.

I’m not going to recap all of them, there are simply too many and too much, so here are my highlights.

150 Years of Alice in Wonderland. A standing room only 10 am panel. Fun panelists, informative and well worth the time. Got a chance to introduce myself to my potential publisher as I wait for her acquisitions editor to make a call on my novel.

Pluto in the Rear-View Mirror. A standing room only panel on the recent discoveries at Pluto by the New Horizons mission. Pluto joins the list of bodies in the solar system that has produced unexpected mysteries.

From Starship Troopers to Honor Harrington, a look at Military SF. Informative and lively the discussion covered the topic well without getting bogged down in politics.

All in all things are a blast.

So here it is at the start of Day 2 and I’ll give you a recap of the previous day here the 2015 Worldcon in Spokane Washington.

First off we awoke to a weather report of warm and smokey. Wildfires near the city have turned the sky yellow/gold, casting a lovely light but everywhere is the smell of smoke. As sunset approached the sun became a fiery red blood color more suited for an alien world than the pacific northwest,

We had registered and picked up our badges the day before so we avoided the long lines at the convention. The panels were good on the first day. I started out with  the best advice I had been given on writing. Nearly all of the advice I already knew but the speakers were entertaining and I had fun.

I followed that with Understanding Contracts, a useful topic and one that I feel is going to become more and more important to me in the near future. There were just two panelists, but both were experienced from different angles (Author and Agent) and provided plenty of precautionary advice.

Next up was a spot of fun with a discussion of Hard SF films. There I learned that Connie Willis truly does not like with Interstellar. The panel could have been better, a little too much audience taking over, but I still enjoyed it.

My sweetie-wife and I then went to a panel designed to welcome Discworld fans to the WorldCon. Naturally I know quite a bit about worldcons and I am a discworld fan, but it was nice seeing the con introduced from a different perspective.

There was time for a dinner break at a local spot The Onion, it was nice but I think I liked the burger at the Irish Bar the night before better. Then back to my final panel on legends of the Northwest followed by horror film in the film festival. (Most were okay but one was a dry dull nothing happens slashers film. boring)

now onto day 2.