Sweet Dreams Are Made of This
Posted on January 24, 2016 Posted by John Scalzi 31 Comments
It’s been a long day.
In other news, Krissy and I are back from ConFusion, the science fiction convention in the Detroit area that we attend annually. We had a fabulous time, as we usually do, hanging out with friends and fans. We’re probably going to crash early, because we’ve been up late all weekend. And then, back to the work week. Wheee!
How was your weekend?
The scamperbeasts appear to have had a great time to. Wine and appetizers at PetCon perhaps? haha
Hope you didn’t drink the water up there! :-D
I’m crashing early, too! Also with a sort of kitten — he’s 3 years old, but the whole “adult” thing seems to have got right past him.
We live in the DC suburbs, so our weekend consisted of shoveling what seemed like roughly enough snow to fill the Superdome. It looked like Ragnarok around here this weekend; I expected to see roving bands of frost giants.
My weekend has been very snowy. I’m on Long Island, in NY, and we got about 2 feet of snow saturday. Today I shoveled about half the paths I need; I’ll finish tomorrow with the coolest snow tool/toy ever — the snow bully manual snow plow. It’s about 28″wide and works beautifully to help clear snow. I wouldn’t recommend it for your land, you’ve got too much of it, but someone on a small enough lot/with just a driveway to clear would do well with this thing. I couldn’t do today’s with it, though, because I had to shovel a path across our new deck so that I could get to the garage where the snow bully is.
Weekend was great (no blizzards here ;) ). ConFusion is one of the cons I really need to get to. Seems like a lot of fun.
We had snow. In Florida. I built a snowman’s eyebrow.
I turned 44 yesterday (1/23). Had dinner out with hubby and his best friend on Friday, then hubby and I saw The Force Awakens. Most of our friends liked it; we were unimpressed. Don’t get me wrong, it was okay, but we disagree with the folx who feel that it “really captured the flavor of the original.” I’ll be interested to see Abrams’ future movies, but not interested enough to see them in the theatre.
Had dinner with hubby, my parents and my maternal grandmother last night. I’m disabled, and I’ve put on some weight over the years. I’ve attended several conventions relating to my disability, where I’ve picked up some commemorative tshirts. They no longer fit, and I hated to just throw them away, so my mother, who’s an expert quilter, presented me with a quilt she made out of the convention tshirts. I
I’ve slept like crap all weekend (4-5 hrs/night), so I just woke up from a three hour nap. It’s a little after 8pm CST. I typically go to bed between midnight and one, I hope I can sleep better tonight.
Just missed the snow here. Besides football today, binge-watching David Cross in The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret. Hilarious but uncomfortable. Welcome home. Hit the crash couch and get some rest!
Elizabeth McFadden basically summed it up. (I’m in the Maryland suburbs of DC). Besides lots of shoveling, spent the weekend watching a mix of college basketball, NFC and AFC championships, and knocking a few things off the DVR. Also made a crockpot full of turkey chili.
Our cat Nova has spent most of the weekend napping on the sofa in our computer room.
(Apologies … slightly off-topic, perhaps.)
Gary … how much did you get? My unscientific yardstick measure was a pretty consistent 29″ all over our yard.
So glad to see that the Scamperbeasts are demonstrating sisterly solidarity in assisting Krissy with her nap; that kind of support is important. And I’m glad you had fun at the convention, of course, too.
Weekend here was pretty quiet, delightfully so, in fact. Got a bit of housecleaning done, the shopping done, and read The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons by Sam Kean – quite good. Played with cats, did a bit of cooking and got some serious napping done.
Y’all out there on the east coast have my sympathies as you dig out, but please be assured that you don’t need to share. We’ve lucked out so far this winter with very little snow and I’d be just pleased as punch for that to continue, so you can just keep that evil white stuff right there where it is. Good luck, be safe, and keep it to yourselves.
Wait – stuff still happens in Detroit?
I started laying laminate floor in the living room, dining room, hallway and foyer. I’m pretty sure as soon as the hallway is done I’m going to do a full risky business down in and possibly end up in the emergency room with a broken leg :)
Lot of snow here also. The excitement of the snow over the last two nights had us excited and unable to sleep. Now that we worked hard trying to dig out of this snowstorm, its time to go to bed early and snuggle with my two cats. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
Kevin Hicks: Michigan is a big state. The current water crisis (over which many of us are heartsick and outraged) is specific to the city of Flint. Tap water is fine to drink in many other places. (Nestlé or a subsidiary actually bottles and sells groundwater from Mecosta County as “Ice Mountain”–a name that’s laughable to anyone who knows the terrain; but it’s no joke that they are probably taking groundwater faster than it can be replenished.)
beenculverted: Lots of interesting things going on in Detroit and surrounding area. Vibrant music scene, for instance. Come check it out!
beenculverted – ConFusion was in a suburb of Detroit, about 20 miles west in Novi. And it was a very good time indeed. An old college friend of mine came to visit for it so we had a lot of fun catching up and going to panels.
>How was your weekend?
Very feline, was cat-sitting. Or rather carrying, fetching, feeding and cleaning up. Plus opening doors and windows for him.
But his fur is really soft and he’s *so* strokable.
>Hope you didn’t drink the water up there! :-D
Given the revelations (http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jan/22/water-lead-content-tests-us-authorities-distorting-flint-crisis) I’d be wary about drinking water in many US cities and towns.
Snowy. Here in DC the gummint is still closed, the buses won’t have even limited service until noon, and the side streets are impassible even to foot traffic.Our front walk and steps are cleared, but to get across the street you have to climb over a wall of plowed snow. No power outages, though, and we have plenty of food. Marcia is canceling doctor and dentist appointments through Wednesday; we can’t even get to the car to dig it out, and melt/refreeze has made even cleared sidewalks treacherous for someone with titanium knees and a pinched sciatic nerve. But we’re snug and the cats are happy to have us here.
Who am I to disagree?
(Very disappointed that it’s been a whole day and no one else has made this comment yet. People, you’re off your game.)
Also in DC suburbs, shoveling, shoveling, shoveling. I didn’t measure, Elizabeth McFadden, but it does look to be about 2 feet.
VERY relieved that we never lost power. When I wasn’t shoveling, I was enjoying “Uprooted” by Naomi Novik. I highly recommend it! A very engaging fantasy inspired by folk tales. Lots of magic – scary magic, funny magic, even sexy magic. So glad I finally got around to reading it.
Good weekend. Took the kids to Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry and finished reading The End of All Things.
A nice and uneventful weekend. Daughter had a friend over all day Saturday, then had dance rehearsal for several hours on Sunday, so I had an unusual amount of time with her out of my hair. There was no snow at all at my house; I think we were literally six miles north of the northern edge of the big snowstorm, but in the Boston area, it was just an ordinary everyday snowfall, not a freakishly huge one.
Susie, the problem of lead pipes is apparently more widespread than most people realize, too. There was an article in the Austin Statesman that says, although most cities stopped installing lead pipes in the 1930’s, there are still 6.5 million in use today. (The article didn’t give a unit, so I don’t know if that means 6.5 million feet of lead pipe, or 6.5 million, I dunno, pipes.)
I have to wonder if that has any influence on the current Presidential politics.
Food poisoning this weekend, meaning I got it, not that I’m some murdering gourmand. Two days with all the typical symptoms except throwing up. I was miserable, but my amazing wife got me fluids and kept a close eye. She’s the best.
I may just cook at home more after this. So awful.
That is a beautiful photograph. :-)
My weekend was busy and productive and yet I feel like nothing got done. :-(
I was at Confusion as well. Saw you there, didn’t say hello because, while I know how you are, you don’t know me, so it would feel weird. Yeah, you’re probably used to that interaction mode, but I am not. I did have a good time at Confusion, and at Arisia, the weekend before.
Made a big pot of soup to freeze so I’ll have quick and easy eats when I come home from my second hip replacement surgery. Went to a very well-attended memorial for somebody I used to work with — probably 250 people there, even folks he went to high school with 50 years ago! Everybody said wonderful things about him. He would’ve hated it.
@Susie — Nestle’s been taking California water too, and selling it back to us in those nasty plastic bottles. And we’re still technically in drought conditions, in spite of having a wet winter this year (which doesn’t make up for 3-4 dry years) so we really don’t have water to be giving away.
Another stalker who observed OGH from a distance at Confusion. (What was I going to say: “Hi, I have four of your books on my e-reader and I’m sure I’ll get around to them some day?”) OGH’s interview of Ann Leckie, which was about 75% of the reason I came to the con, came off very well. Other program highlights were a panel discussion of the Ancillary books, a discussion of the state of the classics of SF, and Robert Jackson Bennett’s late-night slide show about social media (much of which was snapped for Twitter by the audience). I slightly regret wimping out on the “Hamilton” sing-along because I didn’t want to devote the entire evening to it.
I turned 63 and drank a lot of beer while at ConFusion so, all-in-all, it was a good weekend.
And the scamper beasts are growing up….
Confusion is always a good convention. I’ve been going for about 30 years – it was actually my first convention (froze my butt off at that one). The hotel is quite nice but a little pricey. Facilities are very nice. The interview with Ann Leckie was extremely interesting. The consuite was one of the nicest I’ve ever been in. I have family living about 15 minutes from the hotel so got to have dinner with them Saturday night. I was able to find a lot of interesting panels. This is a convention I recommend to everyone.