Quilted

The Worldcon Heritage Organization (WHO) is a nonprofit organization that collects and preserves artifacts relating to the World Science Fiction Convention. At SMOFCon 41, Mary Morman conducted a raffle for the benefit of WHO, the prize from which was a quilt made out of t-shirts from past SMOFCons. I bought some tickets, as did many other people.

On Sunday, the winning ticket was drawn, and Scott Sanford, Lisa's good friend to whom Lisa had given her membership when she decided she was not up to traveling this December, won the quilt. But the story does not end there.

( Quilt to a Good Home )

When I got home tonight and unpacked, I brought the quilt out to Lisa. (I hadn't told her that Scott had given it to us.) She often sleeps in her travel trailer because she keeps such different hours than I do. It's been cold a lot lately, and while there's a propane furnace in the trailer, she's happy to have another quilt on the bed for cold winter nights.

Heavy Lifting on the Way Home from SMOFCon

Because my flight home was not until 12:30, I was able to have a fairly leisurely breakfast with Ruth Sachter and John Lorentz, with Jannie Shea and Terry Fong at the next table. Actually, it was a bit too leisurely, as I realized that it was 9:30 AM and I hadn't packed yet, so I trotted back to my room and packed. It was a little more rushed than I would prefer, but I made it back to the lobby, dropped my keys, and made the 10:20 shuttle to the airport.

Even after moving everything I could to the smaller bag, my main bag was too heavy. Those cases of poker chips are just too heavy. If I had two large bags, I might have been able to split the load between them, but with what I'd done, it wouldn't work. I had to pay the $100 overweight-luggage fee. The alternative would have been to buy a new piece of luggage at the airport, and that would have cost more than $100. I need to remember to never try to transport these chips by air. It has never gone well.

( Flying Home )

The weather was clear (it would have been miserable having to deal with that luggage in rain or snow), and I could have driven straight home. However, the Astro has been overdue for an oil change, so I decided to take the minivan to Jiffy Lube. They showed me that the brake fluid was dark black (it should be sort of honey-colored) and pointed out that I was overdue for a coolant service. Although having all of these things service was pricey and delayed me further, I didn't get more than half a million miles on the Astro by stinting on routine maintenance. $400 later, I went to Raley's to get some things for both Lisa and me and headed home.

The errands in Reno meant that I did not get home until after dark. After checking with Lisa so she knew I was home and thanking her for building a fire in the fireplace, I unloaded the minivan. Because the big bag was so heavy, I opened it in the back of the van and moved each of the two cases of chips individually into the house. To my annoyance, TSA had inspected the bag and had not repacked it as carefully as I had. The big bag, which has been getting beaten up on the last few trips, too even more damage. At least the chip cases hadn't opened up and spilled their contents.

I'd hoped to get to bed early tonight, but there were too many things that needed doing, and I did want dinner, having skipped lunch on account of having no time at SeaTac.

SMOFCon was a lot of fun, but I'm glad it's only three days long, because I don't have enough stamina for any more than that.