Well, we are home and safe after Loscon 38. I had a great time, came away with lots of new information, and a few news story ideas. I had far more panels that were fun than were not fun could ask little more of a good convention.
Now I am tired and unlikely to stay up late, so there will be no Sunday Night Movie this weekened.
Happy Holidays to all.
Good morning world, Here it is Sunday Morning I;ve had my breakfast and ready to take on day three, the last, of Loscon.
So what did I do yesterday?
I started with a presentation
This was presented by Dr Jim Buby and it covered in a lot of detail, quite a bit unknown to me, the history of the early parts of the space race. Verdict: Thumbs Up
Next was
This weas presented by Michelle Evans (no realation) who has spent 30 years working on a book about the x-15, man’s first spacecraft. The X-15 was part of a program that was trying to reach space with fully reusable vehicles, but was derailed by the race to the moon. Verdict: Thumbs Up.
After that I hurried over to
Riding Rockets: The X-racer experience. This was three of the founding engineers from X-Cor, and really great space start up, and one of their test pilots Col. Rick Searfoss former shuttle astronaut. Their work on the Lynx continues, and they report about a 25 month plan to start paid trip to space very much Virgin Galactic.
The final presentation did not work for me. It was a survey of fantasy and Sf set in ordinary home environments. Unfortunately the presentation was a bit dry and so I just bounced around this final hour.
After dinner we hit the parties where I heard some good readings, met friends I had not seen in quite a while, had many good conversation and enjoyed ice scream. Sadly, my arthritis began flaring, my knees began hurting and when it got to me limping from room to room I called it an evening and retired for the night.
The drive up to Los Angeles was quick and traffic free. I’m supposing more people were out shopping thank celebrating Evacuation Day as they should have been.
We checked into hotel, registered, and had a spot of lunch at Carl’s Jr. (A fast food chain on the west coast, if you are on the East coast think Hardee’s.)
Programming I attended yesterday:
. This was supposed to be about what was going on in manned and unmanned space, but it turned into 60 minutes about the Mars Science Lab which launched this morning. Verdict: Interesting but could have been better.
This was a panel of three Fx, Make-up, and film actors talking about the biz of special effect particularly in low budge film making. Verdict: Pretty good, we saw a number of props and heard interesting behind the scenes stories.
NASA’s DAWN mission arrived at the asteroid Vesta earlier this year, after a long cruise using an ion drive. (Only the second spacecraft to use an ion drive.) This presentation was from one of my favorite peoples from JPL and very informative. Verdict: Thumbs up
: This was a presentation by scientist and author Gregory Benford bbased on his book of the same title. It’s a look back as the future as predicted by Popular Mechanics. What they got right (the Microwave) what they got wrong (Nuclear piles in the home.)and what we might have made. An interesting talk from one of my favorite authors. Verdict: Thumbs up
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I must have gotten a bit fo the con crud last weekend at World Fantasy 2011 because this week has been coughs and sore throats. However that is not going to get me down because one of the literary agents I would most like have represent my work responded Friday with a request for a partial. (What that means is after I sent him a letter explaining/pitching the novel Love and Loyalty he requested to see a sample of the novel.) Hopefully he likes the sample well enough to request a full. (The complete manuscript)
I mailed the partial off to him this morning.
here’s to crossed fingers and sincere prayers.
This past weekend here in San Diego we had a fine little SF convention named Conjecture. Our Guest Of Honor was SF Author Allen Steele. This was a rather different experience for me than other local smaller cons as I was on five panels during the three days of the convention, three on friday afternoon and two On Sunday afternoon.
I had a blast. I moderated one panel and while my lack of knowledge on the subject could have doomed the panel, I had some great panelist, including Hugo award winning author Verner Vinge, and they saved my bacon. I must say that being on a panel in many ways is much more fun than watching a panel. When the odd idea or random connections occurs to me because of the conversation of the panelists I don’t have to hold back, or hold my hand up to offer a shortened thought, now I can speak my mind. (yeah I know that is a dangerous thing.)
Today I managed to get back into the swing of writing too. Nearly 1000 words on a new short story that I had failed to launch three times before. If I can get it into shape in time this one might go to the Writers of The Future now that I am no so mad at them anymore.
So in about 25 minutes we will be hitting the road for the ten hour drive to Reno and the 2011 World Science Fiction Convention. I am excited and looking forward to the convention but this one will also have an undercurrent of sadness for me.
My friend Pat, who lived in Reno and introduced me to fanfic and Blake’s 7 passed away last year after a battle with cancer. Going to a worldocn in her town without her will be a sad affair. I will soldier on and enjoy myself, it is what she would have wanted, but ..well there it is.
Well Condor 2011 has ended and I have to say I had a pretty good time this weekend. There were plenty of interesting panels, presentations, and person throughout the convention. I have come away with any short story idea, this one is a fantasy about water nymphs and spirits and will be another experimentation for me with my new writing style,
My headache seems to have at long last subsided. I saw a specialist on Weds and he advised 2 liters of water everyday to prevent migraines. That’s what I have done and the constant headache from last Sunday finally seems to be on the way out. So there will be a Sunday Night Movie tonight.
This will not be much of an update as we are about to leave for the convention. Condor, being a local convention, is one we attend from home rather than staying at the hotel. (My sweetie-wife does like to save the money.)
There were a number of good panels yesterday and I had a blast. We covered everything from why are zombies so popular right now to classic SF cinema such as When Worlds Collide. (Which I am now noticing is a suspensive sentence.)
Off for more fun and frolic, though today in the rain.
Blogging is likely to be light this weekend as I will be attending Condor here in San Diego. From the programming looks like it will be fun.
We got back last night from Loscon 37, the Los Angeles Area SF convention. This was a good Loscon and I had a great time. There were lots of interesting panels and presentations plus Saturday night I enjoyed the parties so much I stayed out past my knees’ endurance.
I would chat more about the convention, but I’ve been headachy today and am so now. This is going to be a brief post before bed.
It does, however, look like there is a road trip in the near future. The Mojave Air and Spaceport has an open house event every third Saturday they call Plane Crazy Saturdays, and on those Saturdays Xcor — a private enterprise rocket company — hosts open-houses. Xcor is a cool company staffed by cool people and if they stay on schedule they’ll be flying their sub-orbital spaceplane next year.
Not a dropship like Spaceship one and Two, but a craft that takes off like an airplane, scoots above the atmosphere into space — briefly — and then return to the spaceport to be readied for another flight.