Wet and Tired

I went out this afternoon to walk the mile or so to the Fremont Post Office and collect accumulated held mail. It was a gloomy, overcast afternoon. I wish I had looked at the local weather radar before setting out, or at least taken an umbrella, for as I was approaching the PO the rain began to fall. After fifteen or twenty minutes waiting my turn for the bundle of mail, I headed back, and the rain grew heavier. By the time I got home, I was moderately well soaked. Most of the mail survived, as did the book I was carrying in my tote bag. (When going to the post office, I generally carry a book to read while waiting in the almost inevitable queue.)

I called the vendor of my CPAP machine this afternoon. I can drop it off with them tomorrow morning -- I'll work from home, drive to San Jose mid-morning, then go up to my office in San Mateo -- and they say they'll give me a loaner machine while they work on fixing mine. That'll be a relief.

AirBART On-Board Entertainment

I forgot to mention this story last night. I boarded the AirBART bus at Terminal 1, where there were few passengers, but at Terminal 2 -- the Southwest Airlines stop -- the bus filled all of the seats. (No standees for a change; this bus is pretty popular, and profitable at $3/person, but I digress.) As I am a considerate bus rider, I put my bag on the rack and went to the back corner of the bus, getting out of the way for other passengers. Other people held their bags in the aisle, blocking access, or tried to put them in seats, or otherwise acted anti-socially. And speaking of anti-social behavior, one of the people who sat in the back section of the bus near me whipped out his mobile phone and called his girlfriend in Southern California, and for the entire ride from the airport to the BART station, all of us in that bus were subjected to him going on and on about his love life, how he wished she'd move to Walnut Creek, how he'd try to come back next weekend, how he really enjoyed their visit to the zoo that weekend, and so on. He seemed completely oblivious to the fact that he was doing this in front of an audience. I tried not to listen and concentrated on my book.

When we got to the BART station, he was one of the first people up, and he continued to chatter away as he left the bus. As he left, nearly the entire back of the bus, including I must confess me, cracked up over this poor oblivious fellow. One man on the bus shrugged and said, "So much for the floor show."

I might add that I'm afraid that this guy had what I thought was a "fannish" look about him. Not that every person with social obliviousness is a fan, but it seems to track high with people I think of as fannish. Including, from time to time, me.

Ken Uhland Award

At tonight's basfa meeting, johnnyeponymous presented me with the Ken Uhland Award plaque which he accepted on my behalf at SiliCon. Alas, while I thought this might happen, I forgot to take my camera with me to record the event.

I did not give my acceptance speech again, but I did encourage people to keep on participating in the Great Fannish Pot-Luck Dinner.