Kevin Standlee: Fandom Is My Way of Life

A comment on this entry over on Chris Garcia's blog was so similar to one of the reactions I got when I told people at BASFA that I'm taking two days to drive to Anaheim that I felt I had to reply to it.

( Collapse )

The point is that for a change, I'm on vacation for a few days. I'm sort of looking forward to not having to be in a rush, to not have to engage in low-altitude flying to make the mileage goal for the day, to being able to relax at my hotel and maybe use the pool and hot tub for a change instead of arriving at Midnight and having to be on the road by 6 AM, and otherwise trying to enjoy myself.

I realize that I'm in a somewhat privileged position to be able to do this. I have enough seniority at my job (>ten years) that I have the time off to be able to take seven days of vacation. I have enough money (including indirectly through hotel frequent-stay points) to be able to afford the trip. Many people do not have this, and there's nothing wrong with that. I certainly remember having to rush in and out due to other resource constraints. But don't look at me like I'm a space alien because I don't drive like a maniac to get to Southern California in less than five hours.

Besides, I'm getting 10-20% better gas mileage by driving at 55 MPH.

It's still a long way back from the hole the Giants dug themselves, but sweeping a four-game series from the San Diego Padres is a good start. I admit that when the Giants gave up a grand slam in the bottom of the 9th, I figured, "Oh great, they're going to give this one back," but it turned out to not matter in the end. Whew!

As I mentioned recently, I have a spare sheet of foam core after making the thank-you sign for Interaction at the Business Meeting. This gave me the idea that I could make a display board/question holder for Match Game With a little experimentation I came up with a board that, while not exactly reproducing the original show, should look pretty good, I think. I'd post an image of it here, but for some reason the PowerPoint file's save-to-GIF doesn't produce a very good image here.

( Collapse )

Now I still need to write items for the Newsletter and put them onto a thumb drive so that I can transfer them to the L.A.con IV newsletter when I get to Anaheim. With the "after dark" version shown in the Pocket Program at the originally-scheduled Thursday Night time, it's especially important to me to get the stories into the newsletter.

And I have to do the laundry. And finish packing. And I haven't left the office yet. Oy.