Kevin Standlee: Fandom Is My Way of Life

One week from today, I (and/or Kayla) will be in Santa Clara moving in to the hotel for Westercon/BayCon. Mostly Kayla, to be honest, but someone with the credit cards and ID will have to check us into the hotel.

If you had told me that I would need to wear a jacket on the first full day of summer here in northern Nevada, I would have told you that you had gone crazy. But while most of the USA is suffering under an extreme heat wave, the big low-pressure system pushing that heat dome is coming through my part of the country and it's quite cool. After peaking at 35°C a couple of days ago, today's forecast high is a mere 18°, and it was about 9° at sunrise this morning when I walked to the Wigwam and huddled over my coffee, using it to put feeling back into my fingers.

Not that I'm complaining! Not at all. Lisa and I have errands in Reno today, and I will be happy to not swelter in the typical summer heat as we go about our business planning for our respective summer travel plans coming up in the next few weeks.

I was up about 3:15 this morning, and Day Jobbe stuff (split between Kayla and me, but it tires us out no matter who does the work meant I was working until 8 PM tonight. There was a break when Kayla went to get dinner, but it was still a long day, and so sleeping tonight shouldn't be difficult. And fortunately, I don't have to be up on Friday until 4:30 AM, which counts as "sleeping in"

Not enough sleep last night, and Kayla had an errand to Reno late this afternoon. (She'll write about it tomorrow.) I hope I get more sleep tonight.

I see that LiveJournal seems to be working again. I'd stopped cross-posting because I was getting nothing but 403 errors.

Lisa surprised me this afternoon. She went to the No Kings Protest herself. She dislikes crowds, but she drove to Carson City in her small orange pickup and drove up and down Carson Street (the protest was on that street in front of the state legislative complex), taking lots of pictures, but not mingling in the throng of people who flocked to the state capitol today. I didn't see her, nor she me, but there were something like 5,000 people at the protest. She did her part, giving the thumbs up and getting as many pictures of clever signs (of which there were many) on her pass through downtown. She handed me the photos and I got them posted. I have a large Flickr album that includes both her photos and the ones that Kayla took. I'd say more, but I've been up since 4:30 AM and need to get some sleep.

As Kayla headed out for breakfast this morning, she snapped a photo of the "Strawberry Moon," which if I'm reading right is about the largest the Moon will appear in our sky for a long time.

( Moon Over Fernley )

The camera phone is of course not very good for taking this sort of picture.

LiveJournal continues to show a 403 Forbidden error.

As I mentioned, I get another 3 AM wake-up call tomorrow due to needing to be at work on the Day Jobbe due to the person in India for whom I'm the backup being on PTO. Oh, well, I hope I can knock off work no later than Noon tomorrow. And on the bright side, it should be cooler at 3 AM and I can open the front door (we do have a screen door) and get more cross-ventilation through the house.

Not helping my rest was having to work late today, and also I was expecting a call that never came. I wish the people who were holding me in place had at least dropped me a note telling me that they didn't need me this afternoon after all.

Lisa and I went to Reno to find her a quality camera bag for her to use on her trip to Europe this summer, after which we went to WinCo Foods for groceries. It was relatively late in my day when we turned for home, so I decided to get a mocha frappuccino from Starbucks. Those of you who follow Kayla's journal will recognize the irony of this. Fortunately, there was no issue with me going in to pick up the drink that Kayla ordered for me.

I got the notification from Bank of America that the Euros I ordered were ready to collect, so this afternoon, Lisa and I drove to Reno/Sparks to collect it. First we went to drop off the recycling, because Lyon County has no collection nor drop-off for any sort of recycling, and the Washoe County (Reno) drop-off closes at 3 PM. After doing that, we drove over to the Sparks Bank of America. There I realized to my horror that I'd left my wallet at home! I went ahead and drove home (being careful to stay under the speed limit) and as we neared home, I thought that possibly we could get my wallet and get back to Sparks before the bank closed at 5 PM.

We got my wallet and we headed back to Reno, which just under an hour before the bank closed. Just as we passed USA Parkway (the road from the giant Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center, traffic ground to a halt. Apparently lots of businesses change shifts at 4 PM, and they all flooded onto westbound I-80. There are no alternative routes.

It would be several miles before the next exit, so we just ground our way along. The traffic started to speed up again, and we concluded that there was no accident or incident blocking traffic: just too many cars and big rigs for the freeway to handle. We decided to see if we could possibly get to the bank, which is on the east side of the Reno/Sparks metro area, before they closed. Somewhat to my surprise, we got there with just under ten minutes to spare.

There were no other customers in the branch. The clerk went to the vault, got the cash, counted it out for me, and I signed for it and left, with them locking up as I left. Whew!

I suggested to Lisa that we go to the Sparks Nugget and get our favorite meal there, the shrimp pan roast at John's Oyster Bar. The restaurant is named for John Ascuaga, who built the Nugget and grew it until he and his children sold it to corporate interests when John retired. We like that the casino kept the name of the Oyster Bar and preserved its nautically-themed decor.

It had been a long time since Lisa and I had been there together. We initially had the place all to ourselves, but more people arrived while we were eating.

Lisa initially wanted to go grocery shopping, but in deference to my having to work tomorrow, agreed that we should just go home. Amazingly, the heavy westbound (toward Reno) traffic from USA Parkway was still creeping along on freeway, but westbound (toward Fernley) was wide open. We'll go back for groceries in a few days.

The temperatures from Friday through today have been hot: anything at 37°C or higher (human body temperature) is actually dangerous, since it means your body can't shed heat. Thus I was very much not looking forward to having to make a trip to Reno on Saturday. Because Lisa is going to Europe later this year (that's why she won't be at either Westercon or Worldcon), she wanted me to get her some Euros so that she would have cash upon arrival.

(Why not just draw money out of an ATM when she gets there, you may ask. Well, some of you may recall that on my trip to Barcelona a few years ago, I had the misfortune of having an ATM eat my card. I even managed to get the attention of someone inside the bank, and they shrugged and did nothing about it. Now in that case, I was at a Eurocon surrounded my friends, staring with Cheryl Morgan, who could all help me out, loan me cash, let me play the "Banco de Credit Card" by everyone paying me cash at a meal where I put the bill my card, and so forth. Lisa has exactly one debit card, and if something happens to it, she's stuck. I understand the worry.)

So checking Chase (where her account and debit card are), I found that the only way to order foreign currency requires going in to a branch, ordering it, and then coming back a few days later when the ordered currency arrives. That meant going to Reno/Sparks on Saturday in that heat. Yes, the Astro has air conditioning, but it's been not working as well as it should, and I already know how much trouble that van is with no A/C, given that it failed during the Winnipeg trip. And because of the setup on that account, it would have to be me making the order; I couldn't send Kayla in on my behalf.

On Saturday morning, I had an idea and checked my Bank of America account. Aha! You can make an online foreign currency order to have the money delivered to any branch (the nearest one to me is in Sparks), and you don't have to come to the bank until the money arrives. So instead of slogging into Sparks in the heat, I made the order. The money should be here in a few days, and the temperatures are forecast to decline from dangerous to merely unpleasant.

Including delivery charges, the approximate conversion is USD 6 = EUR 5 through BofA as of Friday.