[Most Recent Entries] [Calendar View] [Friends]
Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
Kevin Standlee's LiveJournal:
| Thursday, May 31st, 2012 | |
| 10:10 pm | In Recovery Lisa says her foot seems to be healing pretty quickly. She's staying quiet, keeping the foot elevated a lot, soaking it and re-wrapping it several times per day. Although she feels confident that she could leave tomorrow if she wanted to do so, she's decided to wait until Saturday because she figures the traffic back to Fernley should be easier on Saturday than on Friday. Her pickup is parked in the parking garage here, so we had to remember to put the new permit (renewed with the monthly apartment rent) in the pickup this evening, and we need to remember to get it back in my van (which I've been parking out on the street while Lisa is here) before she leaves. Current Mood:  sleepy |
| Wednesday, May 30th, 2012 | |
| 9:02 pm | A Fungus Among Us I took Lisa to the podiatrist this afternoon to deal with the toenail with the severe fungus infection. ( Medical TMI; No photos, but links to photos for the morbidly curious ) All in all, the entire toe procedure went much more smoothly than I think either Lisa or I expected. Kudos to Dr. Rush at PAMF for his efficient work and cheerful manner. I think we were there less than an hour before we were on our way. Lisa is thinking she may be good to go driving again as early as Friday, and probably no later than Saturday. Current Mood:  relieved |
| Tuesday, May 29th, 2012 | |
| 9:34 pm | Appointment Made Palo Alto Medical Podiatry called me this morning. They can see Lisa Wednesday afternoon at 3 PM, and I can rearrange my work schedule around this to get Lisa over there. Her foot doesn't hurt anymore today, although I expect that after they do the necessary minor surgery on her foot (probably removing the infected toenail), she'll be off her foot for at least a day or so. Current Mood: hopeful |
| Monday, May 28th, 2012 | |
| 10:40 pm | BayCon Day 4 The fourth and final day of BayCon was the first time that Lisa and I managed to get there before Noon, which is ironic considering that this was move-out day and things were much quieter. Most of the fan tables were unstaffed or closed early. We, however, started to do business. Indeed, we ended up selling more Westercon 66 memberships in the last four hours than in the preceding three days as people took stock and determined they could afford to buy a membership and take advantage of the $5 BayCon discount. I have no doubt that the awesome party hosted by Kevin & Andy (and ThinBot) the night before had something to do with people deciding that they should go ahead and join the convention and start planning to come to Sacramento next year for Independence Day. We stuck around (excepting a break for lunch) until the hotel started taking down the fan tables, after which we both agreed we were quite tired and went back to the apartment. Both of us napped a bit, me much longer than Lisa, before we headed out to tonight's BASFA meeting, where, for a change, I stayed clear through to the end of the meeting. Commuting to the convention is much cheaper than staying in the hotel, but it clearly is a different experience, and not, in my opinion, for the better. Even being only about ten minutes away from the convention makes for a less enjoyable experience than being right there on site. BayCon itself, what I saw of it, was fun and enjoyable and there were over 1,600 people attending and having a good time. Current Mood: tired |
| Sunday, May 27th, 2012 | |
| 11:45 pm | BayCon Day 3 After our unwanted medical adventure, Lisa really wasn't up to much more than sitting at a table with her foot propped up — doctor's orders. So we spent the rest of the afternoon behind the Westercon 66 table talking to people about Sacramento and Westercon. ( Kuma Bear helps Lisa sell memberships ) The Fan Tables area had pretty good traffic, and we saw many people in costume. I was a little slow on the draw for most of them however, except for this lovely girl who stopped long enough to let me take a photo. ( Thank you, Alex ) Most of the fan tables closed out around 4:30 or 5, but Lisa and I, having little better to do, hung around until 7, after which we closed up shop. I took our stuff out to the van, and we had dinner in the bar, since you can order from the main restaurant menu from there and you can sit out in the open and socialize with people as they passed, which we did. After dinner we headed up to the "Ordinary Hotel Room" where we were seeking "Agent 66," the shadowy agent we were told had something to to with Westercon in Sacramento. There had been room party flyers up insisting that Room 336 was an "ordinary hotel room," and there Westercon 66 had the room decorated with signs reassuring everyone that "This is an ordinary hotel phone," "this is an ordinary wall," and, least convincingly, "this is an ordinary bartender" next to Kevin Roche's ThinBot, a martini-mixing robot. (The name is inspired by the "Thin Man" films.) As usual with Kevin and Andy's parties, the place was packed, and while I enjoyed it (and ThinBot is really cool, even for a non-drinker like me), I had to flee across the hall to the less-crowded Fanzine Lounge. Lisa, who is more allergic to crowds than me, had already done so. We hung about for a while, talking with all comers and enjoying ourselves, but about 10:30 or we made our way out of the hotel and back to the Atrium Gardens. Once again as I approached home, we saw people in anime costumes having just disembarked from light rail at Gish Station. We gave the girls the thumbs-up sign as we passed them, although I don't know if they saw. I helped Lisa out of the van and we turned in for the night. It's a lot more work commuting to the convention, even when it's only a short distance. We'll be back over at BayCon tomorrow to help staff the table, but not necessarily very early. Current Mood: sleepy |
| 11:22 pm | Medical Time Out Lisa has had a minor infection in her foot for some time now, but last night it started getting worse. It wasn't bad enough to need a visit to the ER, but by this morning, she decided it was bad enough to require a visit to Urgent Care. ( Possible TMI warning ) Because of the time we had to spend at PAMF today, I was unable to attend my scheduled 1 PM panel at BayCon about the Future of Westercon. When we finally did get to the convention, I went and apologized to Programming and to the other panelists, but nobody faulted us for having a family medical emergency. Current Mood: tired |
| 12:32 am | Thanks for Playing Lisa and I had tickets for Saturday night's performance of Thanks for Playing the Game Show Show at the Retrodome, so we skipped Saturday night of BayCon and instead headed out to see the play. As many of you know, I was one of the on-stage contestants (five audience members participate in the play as contestants) in an early "preview" performance of the show. I was interested in seeing what adjustments they'd made to the play. Lisa was interested in seeing it for the first time, but her severe tinnitus makes her terrified of anything that makes noise, because anything can set off her ear and make things worse. She enjoyed some of the play, but indeed the sound was just enormously bad for her and basically she had to hold her hands over her ears much of the play to muffle it just enough to keep from being driven mad with sound overload. Within that severe restriction, she liked what parts she could hear. I had a good time as well, aside from my worry over Lisa's hearing. I didn't realize that they use different Match Game-style questions for each performance, as they asked the contestants different questions than the ones I had during my turn on stage. After the show, I was able to make up for missing my photo opportunity from my previous appearance, as Lisa, trying to recover her hearing, was able to snap this photo. ( With your host, Tripp MacMurray! ) Lisa, her ears vaguely returning to what passes for normal with her, took the opportunity as we left to thank the technical crew for their work making the magic happen, which in this case included co-Producer Scott Guggenheim. She did express her continued worry about our ECM-51A microphone, including the fact that the cord had tied itself in a knot during this performance. Although it's only used as a prop during this show, it is of course an important functional part of our own Match Game SF shows (which we expect to return in 2013 in Sacramento at least) and we want it to return in working order. It's very sad that Lisa's hearing makes it really difficult or impossible for her to really enjoy these shows as much as she would like to do. We both appreciated the acting and hard work that went into making this show a fun evening for all concerned. Lead Sharon Guggenheim said at the end of the show that next weekend's performance is the last of what they're calling the "workshop" stage, and that they intend to retool it and bring it back for another run later this year. I look forward to seeing it a third time, which will make only the second stage production I've seen more than twice live on stage. (The other is 1776.) Current Mood: happy |
| Saturday, May 26th, 2012 | |
| 11:58 pm | BayCon Day 2 Lisa and I were late getting going on Saturday morning and did not get over to BayCon until early afternoon. We sat at the Westercon 66 table, or rather mostly Lisa sat at the table while I dealt with my two panels, which were a panel about technology and changes in fandom (sparsely attended) and a much more lively panel reviewing this year's Hugo Awards ballot. To my amazement, we managed to go through the entire fifteen-category ballot in the 75 minutes allotted to the panel, including many diversions along the way. After my second panel, we couldn't hang around, because we needed to get dinner before heading off to see Thanks for Playing the Game Show Show</em. about which more in my next post. Current Mood: tired |
| Friday, May 25th, 2012 | |
| 11:54 pm | BayCon Day 1 After I got shut of work this afternoon, Lisa and I went over to BayCon, registered, and hung around the LoneStarCon Worldcon and Westercon 65 tables for a while. Lisa has been recruiting people to be on the committee for the version of Westercon 65 that will be held in Tonopah this year (in a different timeline). Lisa and I will host a party at Westercon 65 in this timeline where a little bit of Tonopah's Westercon is expected to leak through. After dinner, we went to the Meet-the-Guests event, but the music was loud, so Lisa and I had to leave. We attended and participated in a memorial service for Kathryn Daugherty, and raised a toast in her honor. Many people in Bay Area fandom were there sharing their memories of Kathryn. We also briefly visited the party floor, ending up in the Fanzine Lounge where I found myself the subject of a question that Chris Garcia was asking David Clark: How many Worldcons has Kevin Standlee attended? Dave was right within the allowed margin of error (+/-1). I had to count it up myself, and the answer is, as of right now, 24 (1984 and 1989-2011 inclusive). Lisa was feeling very tired and I'm none to great myself, plus we're commuting, so we called it a night early and headed back to the apartment. We needed a few snack-like things and walked around the corner to the 7-Eleven, where we saw standing on the corner a couple of extremely kawaii girls in anime-costumes, and there were other people inside the konbini who obviously were attending FanimeCon, which is happening in downtown San Jose this weekend. I'm glad I don't have any morning commitments. I do want to help out at the Westercon 66 table tomorrow, but I also have panels at 2 and 4:30, and Lisa and I have tickets for Thanks for Playing the Game Show Show Saturday night, so we won't be around BayCon that night. We'll be back on Sunday. Current Mood: tired |
| Thursday, May 24th, 2012 | |
| 10:49 pm | Lisa Arrived Lisa arrived in San Jose safely and was waiting for me when I got home from work. I'll expecting to work from the apartment tomorrow to make it easier to get away to BayCon in mid-afternoon. Current Mood: sleepy |
| Wednesday, May 23rd, 2012 | |
| 6:20 pm | Still Swamped I continue to be working long enough hours that I don't have as much time as I would like to post LJ updates. I have stuff about which I want to write, like the photos from my walk at Quarry Lakes last weekend to the results of my apartment's owner refunding some of my deposit, but 14-hour days aren't conducive to it. Lisa has decided to come down for BayCon (and Thanks for Playing the Game Show Show) after all, so I'm going to try backing off slightly tomorrow and Friday, turning the heat at work from incinerate to merely deep fry. Current Mood: tired |
| Sunday, May 20th, 2012 | |
| 11:24 pm | Eclipsed Lisa was ideally placed to watch today's annular eclipse, as the "sweet spot" passed right over Fernley. She created a viewing box with a pinhole in it and tells me that she was able to see the "ring of fire" during the maximum coverage (about 96%). Where I was in San Jose the maximum coverage was less, and my viewing a bit more haphazard. I improvised a pinhole viewer with a piece of cardboard salvaged from the recycle bin. When I first tried it out from my apartment, I saw that initially the sun angle in my window was right, and I projected a disc with a notch cut out of it against my wall. I then went to the lobby on my floor, where I found three kids trying to figure out how to watch the eclipse. I cautioned them repeatedly about trying to look at the sun and started to wield my impromptu pinhole board, when I realized that the way the blinds and curtains on the third floor lobby were drawn, they were forming a series of pinhole views and you could see the image of the sun projected multiple times. We watched the sun head toward the maximum coverage and I tried to impress upon the kids the rarity of this sight. I don't remember seeing a solar eclipse since (I think) 1993 in Folsom. As the angle of the sun changed, the lobby no longer had a view of the sun that worked, and I headed outside, where I searched for places where I could project the solar image as the lunar notch moved across it. Belatedly I remembered that I should try to take some pictures, and I quickly ran up to my room to get my new Sony camera that replaced the one I broke at Renovation. In my haste, I forgot to put a memory stick into it, however, and thus I only had a little bit of capacity for photos. ( A few photos from me and from Lisa ) This evening I realized that I'd gotten too much sun (including the long walk I took around Quarry Lakes earlier today, about which more later when I get a chance), because I'm sunburned. Oh, the irony. I hope the sun-relief ointment left over from my return from Australia is still effective. Current Mood: pleased |
| Saturday, May 19th, 2012 | |
| 11:50 am | Good and Bad Good news: I slept for nearly twelve hours last night and feel much more human. Bad news: The bed in this micro-apartment isn't that great and my back is giving me fits for having been sleeping in that bed for twelve hours. Current Mood:  lethargic |
| Friday, May 18th, 2012 | |
| 9:13 pm | Quiet Weekend Ahead, I Hope After having discussed things with Lisa, we decided I should spend the weekend down here taking it relatively easy. Lisa is coming down for BayCon next weekend anyway. With the hours I've been working, I need to get extra rest sometime. Current Mood: sleepy |
| Wednesday, May 16th, 2012 | |
| 8:43 pm | Ballpark Express Thanks to David Gallaher for finding his original of the photo I was using as my icon here so I could return to the my-hair's-on-fire picture. Thanks also to Adrienne Foster for letting me have her tickets to last night's Giants-Rockies game. Wow, does she have good seats. It turns out I should have volunteered to my co-workers that I had a seat going unused; one of them might have been interested in coming to the game, and I could have recovered the rest of Adrienne's ticket cost. ( Photo follows ) Alas, the game did not go the way faithful Giants fans would have liked, with the Rockies winning 5-4. It very nearly went to extra innings (Giants had the tying run in scoring position in the bottom of the ninth), which would have meant I got home even more after midnight that I did manage. Because I was traveling on my own, I could get down from the upper deck, out of the stadium, and down to the Caltrain station relatively quickly. It's not easy, though, and I had only five minutes to spare before the express (skips stops to San Carlos) left. I didn't get to bed until sometime around 1 AM or so. Fortunately, I could come in a couple hours late today, although I did need to work later this evening to make things come out "evenly," you might say. Current Mood: cheerful |
| Tuesday, May 15th, 2012 | |
| 10:20 am | Bonus Ball At BASFA last night, Adrienne Foster had two tickets to tonight's Giants-Rockies game that she was not going to be able to use. Although at this point she was willing to give them away, I went ahead and offered the price of one ticket for the pair, having been in a similar position of having a ticket go completely unused. So I have rather quickly rearranged my plans to get out of here about 4:45 so I can catch one of the express trains up to the city for tonight's ball game. Current Mood: cheerful |
| 10:17 am | Bonk I forgot to mention this earlier, but since people who have seen me since Sunday have commented on it: yes, I have a nasty looking red blotch on the top of my forehead right now. ( No, I wasn't in a bar-room brawl ) While I was shoving the rear seat back into position in my van, I had the bad luck to hit my head right on the bracket at the rear center portion of the door frame where the rear doors latch. I hit it pretty hard, really; enough to where I had to stop and recover for a few minutes before we could finish the job. I'm okay, but it left a bump and scratch that, thanks to my vanishing hair, is very visible. Current Mood:  dizzy |
| Sunday, May 13th, 2012 | |
| 8:45 pm | Drive Drive Drive I got away from Fernley around 11 AM and headed west. I initially thought of stopping for a sit-down second breakfast in Reno, but everything except fast food places had queues — Mother's Day, you know — so I grabbed take-out and pushed along. It was an uneventful drive through the Sierra. I got back to San Jose sometime around 7:15 or thereabouts, with four stops along the way. Everything routine. Current Mood: tired |
| Saturday, May 12th, 2012 | |
| 10:43 pm | Paint Patrol Lisa and I got away into Reno later than we originally planned. The plan was to go have lunch at the Peppermill's buffet, but we got there after lunch closed and before dinner opened, so instead we went to the Sherwin-Williams dealer on South Virginia Street. The place was empty when we got there (although apparently we'd just missed a big rush). The guy was very nice to Lisa and me. When we explained that we were painting a porch, not just any outside woodwork, he recommended a particular type of their paint intended for such surfaces. That particular type isn't manufactured in Fernley — he showed us how to read the codes on the cans so as to find out if a given can was manufactured here — and it's more expensive than the ordinary exterior paint, but it's meant for foot traffic. We bought a quart of it colored to the shade of red we think is closest to the dark red/crimson ("fireweed") we want to use. Lisa figures she can paint a step or two to see how well it works and looks, and if it's not what we wanted, we can just paint over it later. The guy at the shop made Lisa feel very good about this purchase, too, unlike the folks at Lowe's who either ignored her or made her feel uneasy. The SW paints will probably be more expensive that what Lowe's is offering, but they also look like they should wear better, and there's something to be said for spending your money in places that treat you better. After dealing with paint, we went back and had an early dinner at the Peppermill, then went to Winco for groceries. We meant to go by Work World so I could pick up some more slacks and shirts, and Lisa some socks, but we forgot about the time and they'd already closed by the time we got there. Lisa did check in the adjacent Home Depot and found a particular US-made piece of EMT fitting that Lowe's only carries in the Chinese brand (and the US-made item is less expensive, to boot). Then there was Whole Foods, where we got the nice undyed pickles they have, and also a brand of cereal that seems to agree with my blood sugar control. Finally we stopped by the Nugget to tickle my club card. Lisa had poor luck with Paradise Fishing today before we headed home. Tonight I am tasked with duplicating a few disk drives. Unfortunately, some of the blank drives we bought seem to want to draw more power than my Dell D600 can produce through the USB port, although they seem to work okay off of my work computer (A Dell E6510). You can't duplicate a drive if it won't come up to speed. Current Mood: cheerful |
| 11:47 am | Buy Local We went to Lowe's last night and were unimpressed by the paint and the service. Ironically, there's a Sherwin-Williams paint plant in Fernley right next door to Lowe's, but no Sherwin-Williams dealership. Maybe we'll go look at S-W paint in Reno this afternoon. We rather like the idea of not only the local retail store getting the money, but much of the rest of it being spent in Fernley for manufacturing it. We're still trying to figure out just what exact shade of red-brown to buy. Lisa says she hopes they'd mix us a small paint sample that she could test out on one step to see if she likes it. We just want to get those steps repainted this year, because while things will keep a long time in the desert, it's not good to leave the wood unpainted; the sun bakes things, rather than the rain rotting them. Current Mood:  thoughtful |
