28 Comments on “Back From Penguicon”

1. Pretty dang cold for mid April, and snow no less! Well, I guess there’s a reason Montana isn’t known as a tropical paradise

2. AWESOME!

   My friend Roberto came and taught a workshop and a mater class and kicked our asses. In a loving yogic way. The weather was nice and the food was nicer. Ate at my favorite restaurant in town and slept in.

   And BSG kicked ass this weekend!

3. Went out and took a bunch of pictures at provincial game sanctuary on Saturday. Heard some a**holes blazing away at ducks with shotguns– out of hunting season. Still, many of the pictures turned out well.

   Also, yesterday and today were the spring’s first two smog days. Huzzah. Not.

4. Feel bad for people in Calgary Alberta when I heard they got or were expecting 20 more feet of snow… while I was basking in sunlight and temps that reached 20 digrees… SO WARM and nice.

   Bought 2 new chairs to put out the back, nice padded rockers with ottomans…

   Other then that I worked on saturday… I work in a call center taking calls from people who want to cancel their cable services… some days good, some days bad. Saturday was a good day.

   Hope you catch up on your sleep and hope we here more about penguicon….

   Cheers

5. Good. I uh, spent it the same way you did.
   Well, Saturday anyways.

   I had read the alternate history story before, but, well, your voice reads it funnier than the voice in my head.

6. I had a great weekend.

   It was really nice to meet you and Krissy in person!

7. I just came home from Romantic Times Convention. Saw your name on the Winner’s List during the Awards Luncheon and thought “Hey, is he HERE?” to accept his award? Congratulations again, Scalzi. Crazy times where I was.

8. Helped with a geocaching CITO (Cache In, Trash Out) clean up of Dead Man’s Hollow off the Youghigheny bike trail near McKeesport, PA on Saturday. Got some pictures of spring wild flowers:
   http://www.flickr.com/photos/40959049@N00/?saved=1

9. Went to NYC for my paternal aunt’s birthday and first night of passover at my maternal aunt’s house.

   The seder was excellent. Gefilte fish, matzoh ball soup, brisket and lemon jelly roll.

10. Went to a concert by Vixy and Tony. Seriously butt-kicking filk rock. (For them as don’t know, that’s not a typo, google it.) Got the new album autographed. Was asked to take pictures by Vixy herself. :) Much fun.

11. Indeed a great weekend. It was great to meet you and your wife. Hopefully Athena is feeling better.

12. I have been reading “Little Brother” by Corey Doctorow. I got the arc from PNH at Tor. Freakin’ sweet.

13. Did a brake job with my son, teaching him he can either give his hundreds of dollars to some auto repair shop or get dirty and do it himself. Great fun, actually, the weather was terrific and so was my boy. Plus my daughter came back from her first post college job for a visit. It was a kid filled weekend!

    Ya’ll just be sure and not look at the grease under my fingers, deal?

14. Celebrated Passover with neighbors. Great food and bad wine. Wonderful time had by all.

15. Meh. The high of getting to celebrate a friend’s NSF Fellowship award yesterday was counterbalanced by my fiancee falling quite ill today. Oh well. Chicken soup all around!

16. I just finished my four day dayshift rotation at the coal mine where I work so my weekend involved many tons of snow, coal dust and swearing at electricians. At east 260 tons of swearing at electricians.

17. Gennita Low:

    I won what now?

18. Wait — no one told you?

    The Last Colony won RT’s Reviewers’ Choice Award for Best Sci Fi Novel.

    I’m glad to hear you at least had other plans. I would have felt like a *real* ass if you’d been home twiddling your thumbs all weekend.

19. Stephanie:

    Well, it’s not in my mail queue — which is not to say that notification wasn’t sent. I might have accidentally deleted it. If I had known I had won the award, I’d’ve probably made the trip to Pittsburgh to receive it. But I had a fun weekend as it was.

    Also: Neat! That’s really cool. I’ve always thought Romantic Times has done a good job with reviewing SF, so to get that award is a really nice accolade.

    Is the winner’s list up somewhere? I see the nominee list on the RT site, but not the list of winners.

20. It’s probably not up yet, John. I’ll send you a link when I get it. I was wondering why you weren’t at there but figured you were busy. I had lunch with Caitlin Kittredge, whose book was featured on your Big Idea. She was still excited that Krissy loved it. Congrats again.

21. Congratulations on the awards. It was nice to see you at Penguicon. Thanks for coming.

22. Trying to catch up on sleep. Kind of fail.

23. Fantastic weekend.

    You seemed to be around for much of it.

24. Saturday day:
    Cruised around the local hills and valley’s enjoying the green scenery and great weather.

    Saturday night:
    Watched UFC 83. BBQ’d drank beers and AWSOME bloody mary’s with my friend.

    Sunday:
    Packed stuff for this weekends move.
    Because moving is soooo fun!

25. Saturday, earned myself a job-offer (which arrived today) over the phone. Began to HONESTLY fret about the fact that I need to move THIS WEEKEND, and haven’t yet figured out what city I’m moving to, much less obtained housing there.

    Sunday I did a bunch of cleaning, and HONESTLY started packing. Also took about 3 hours of walking around the city. The weather was fantastic, but by bedtime my feet were writing really unpleasant letters of complaint. I think they would have minded less if I had slept Saturday night, or Sunday morning… or some time.

    In case you’re wondering, no I didn’t accept that job offer yet. Though I’m awfully tempted to. (They don’t offer good money, and I have another interview on Wednesday, and possibly one tomorrow (I got an email requesting a phone interview, and I said “Yes, call when you’d like to.” or some time.)) I really wish this crunch of people wanting to talk to me (and offer me jobs) had happened 3 weeks ago. I was job-hunting then too… but NOOOO, nobody wants to talk to you until you’re actively considering returning to boring old America!

26. Had a blast at Comic Con NY. Met so many wonderful people, had amazing and fascinating conversations, bought way too many comics, realized that I need to bite the bullet and buy a digital camera…. details on my blog, if anyone’s interested.
    Also, congratulations, John!

27. I went to some kind of geek thing in Michigan. There were a bunch of geeky people there doing geeky stuff, plus a guy cooking an entire herd of cows in the parking lot.

    There was also a gathering of interesting folks having breakfast on Sunday morning, with much gossip and so forth. You should have been there! (Oh wait, you were.)

    It was good to see you again, and I’m glad I finally got to meet Krissy.

28. Not bad. Didn’t get a lot done, but I did get some done. The sort of weekend where I wouldn’t have minded another day or two.