That's a Relief

Lisa just called me from the Kentucky-Tennessee border on I-65. She was very chipper because the truck repairs went very well. The place I found on Google, Precision Driveline of Kentucky, were easy for her to find after she called and got directions, were able to fix the busted universal joint quickly and inexpensively (less than $30!), and didn't mind her removing and replacing her driveshaft in their parking lot. She's on the road again and feeling much better, particularly because she's not freezing the way she was further north.

Thank You, FANAC

WSFS's attorney asked me today if there was anything that showed the Hugo Award trophy in use in its early days, so that if we are asked by the US Patent & Trademark Office (we're in the process of filing a service mark on the rocket trophy design), we could show first use. Thanks to the FANAC fan history web site, I was able to find a page from a 1955 Worldcon progress report that shows pictures of that year's trophy and calls it a Hugo. In those early days, "Hugo" was only the informal name, the formal one being "Science Fiction Achievement Award," a la Oscar/Academy Award.

Note that not only had they prepared their trophies in plenty of time to have pictures of them in their last progress report, but that there was none of the current nonsense about keeping the trophy base design a secret until an unveiling at the ceremony. Of course, in those days the bases were all simple blocks, too.

Soon, The Dining Area Can Return To Normal

The drywall-repair man has come and gone, completing stage 4 of 4 in the repairs to the ultimately unnecessary hole in the wall. Perhaps tomorrow we can move the bookshelves back into their proper positions and re-attach them to the wall.

Fortunately for us, Cheryl's conference ended before mine, so she was able to be here when he came by yesterday for stage 3 of the repair. And I'm sure glad the weather's good enough that we can open windows to let the paint odor disperse.

On at least two of the times the workman was here, his mobile phone rang. Cheryl and I were both amused that his ringtone was the theme music to the old Spider-man cartoon. ("Spider-man, Spider-man, does whatever a spider can...")

Fortunately, the Painter Didn't Plug the Drains

Thanks to both Cheryl quoting Flanders and Swann's "The Gasman Cometh" at BASFA and fr_john mentioning it in connection with our seemingly-never-ending cycle of plumbers and painters in here, I present to you the Lego version:

"2018 Worldcon Chairs Photo Session" (Watch on YouTube)

I reckon that if the painter had poured his extra paint down the drain, we would have had to start all over again, so perhaps we were lucky.